It's busy times at US casual publisher PopCap.

It's in the process of going for a US IPO, with CEO David Roberts revealing the company could fill in November.

"We are very much in the process of preparing a listing. We expect to be ready to be listed as early as November this year," Roberts told reporters at a news conference, according to Reuters.

It's suggested the company will look to float on the NASDAQ, although the New York Stock Exchange is also a possibility.

Heading East

Ensuring it demonstrates global aspirations, the company is also looking to expand its activity in Asia.

It recently agreed to partner with Renren to publish its titles online in China, and with NCsoft to bring its first online multiplayer game service PopCap World to Korea.

Similarly, it's linked up with Taito to release Pop Tower on the GREE mobile social network in Japan.

Pop Tower is a custom-built social adaptation of Bejeweled, that combines the match-three gameplay with a social layer and new meta-game with RPG elements that sees players rescuing PopCap's characters to restore beauty to the land.

Versions of Chuzzle and Zuma will be added shortly.

Back to the source

"Many of us grew up playing Taito games, so we're especially delighted to partner with Taito to launch Pop Tower," said James Gwertzman, PopCap's veep for Asia/Pacific

"Pop Tower is undoubtedly one of the most exciting projects we've worked on to date, and I'm particularly proud that our Japanese team managed to bring it to market on schedule despite the devastating effects of the recent earthquake."

The release is the first product created under the supervision of PopCap's new Tokyo office.

[source: Reuters]