Bigpoint has riden the wave of the burgeoning browser-based games market since the company's inception in 2002: its revenues were $75m (€52m) in 2009 (the last year for which data is available), it passed 100m registrations in January 2010 and 150m in October of the same year on a LTD basis. While LTD registrations have grown more than 50 per cent during 2010, monthly active users, according to ComScore, have only moderately increased.  Bigpoint recently released Battlestar Galactica which is presumably one of the operator's key growth drivers for the first half of 2010 however it is too soon to determine performance (the title went live in early February, 2011). It has also started a development studio in Silicon Valley, which currently employs around 60 development staff, to make content for the US market. Bigpoint's strategy is based on:

• the ability to produce and publish a large volume of online games. The operator released around 30 in 2010. Although the company initially focussed on games which targeted the core gamer, such as space combat title Dark Orbit, Bigpoint games now span countless genres and target both the core player and more casual gamer demographics via titles such as Farmerama and Zoo Mumba.
• following the General Electric and NBC Universal deal, which saw those companies take a 70% share of Bigpoint in 2008, the company made it a strategic priority to break into the US market and to do this partly through licensed IP from TV and film. While the performance of recently released Battlestar Galactica is yet to be confirmed, previous games based on licensed IP have not resulted in a significant uptick in users in the US. At present the US market still represents a significant challenge for the company.
• expertise in expanding the territorial footprint of its games: Bigpoint is aggressive in localising its titles and routinely releases titles supporting over 20 languages. Bigpoint also understands the importance of tailoring the player's payment options to local preferences. In European markets Bigpoint offers over 150 ways to pay for its games.
• expertise in monetising freemium online games via microtransactions, which is the preferred charging model for online gaming in Asia and has been steadily growing in popularity in Europe.While revenues from subscription MMOGs continue to outstrip those using microtransactions in Europe and North America, the player pool for freemium titles is significantly larger. Monetising games in this way also enables enthusiastic players to spend significantly more than a monthly subscription, creating a class of online gaming 'high roller' much sought after by Bigpoint and its peers. For recent high profile release Battlestar Galactica Bigpoint confirmed that, in the first two weeks after launch, paying players spent an average of $50 each on the 3,500 virtual items available in the game.

EA, on the other hand, has secured distribution muscle from one of the biggest and most successful online operators in the industry. While the deal with Bigpoint will inevitably erode margins on product distributed by the operator, Bigpoint's expertise and experience of local markets (especially in continental Europe) is likely to drive revenues which would probably have been beyond EA alone. EA has not revealed much about the commercial performance of its online freemium PC games. While it has had some success with some digital segments (DLC, full game downloads, social network games) IHS Screen Digest suspects the deal with Bigpoint is partly driven by the sense that there is unrealised potential in its freemium portfolio.

IHS Screen Digest will examine Bigpoint and the freemium MMOG segment in detail in an upcoming report which will be published in the first half of 2011.