Video Game Reviews 4 You

Posted September 7, 2011 by M.H. Williams

Are you against selling digital content that provides anything more than a visual change to your online character? Currently companies like Valve, EA, and Ubisoft only sell items like skins or hats for your favorite online titles, because that’s what gamers seemingly want. According to Bigpoint’s chief games officer, Philip Reisberger, those companies are doing it completely wrong. Reisberger argues that the browser-based publisher understands digital content monetization because it’s never had to play in the console marketplace.

"I've never shipped a retail product in my entire life," he told Edge. "We don't know how to do that, so we think differently. That's a big advantage in this new world. Most people in the Bigpoint universe don't ever pay. But if they want to pay, don't just offer hats - offer them something that will help them."

EA is currently offering bonus pre-order weapons for Battlefield 3 that the company insists will not provide an in-game advantage. Reisberger said that EA just doesn’t understand what the market can handle.

"In a nutshell, EA doesn't understand it," he continued. "It wouldn't ruin the game. If selling an advantage ruins the game, you haven't done the balancing right…EA and Ubisoft, for example, they're both trying, but they're not really there yet. It's a delicate balance, though, and that's why I love my game designers. All of them have understood how to do this. If you have a sophisticated approach to free-to-play games, in the end you can monetize everything."

Bigpoint is currently running the free-to-play Battlestar Galactica Online browser game, and the company boasts around 220 million registered users. Would you be willing to allow paying gamers to buy performance advantages in retail titles?