Special Reserve

Yes - we did some research with publishers to find out their business needs, plus we conducted a larger research project looking at what customers were willing to spend on packaged goods. What we found was that the average amount that people are willing to pay extra was up to about €10 - that's the amount people were saying they'd pay for a Collector's Edition.

Nevertheless we see there are certain brands and products that have such a loyal customer base, like World of Warcraft for example where people are so crazy about the game, that it's definitely worth creating something with a much higher price point for a smaller audience.

That's not a mass market product any more, but for a certain type of audience you could get up to €100-200 price points if necessary - but that depends on what a publisher wants to achieve.

Well, in a way that's what we're doing - although we're not going out and saying that because it's hard for us to explain what our business is in just a few sentences. But at the end of the day we are in merchandising, because everything that goes into the package, like figurines or other items, is merchandising.

Actually the retailers are very interested, because they also see the threat of digital distribution - they're keen to have the classical distribution system developed a bit more. And they also want to have a unique selling point against other retailers, which is why some are doing Special Editions just for themselves.

We had one innovative solution last year - an Individual Edition of Drakensang, which we created for dtp here in Germany. It was the very first worldwide Individual Edition of a videogame - when a customer bought the game from Amazon, you entered your name during the purchase process. The box would arrive with your name tag on it, in the manual and also in the game if I remember correctly - so this game was exclusively created for you, with your name on it.

When you think a little bit further, you see the opportunities for little things - something for clans, or guilds, or other groups. That's something we feel could create real additional value for games.

Well, when you think about the future growth, I always define it as horizontal and vertical growth. By vertical I mean taking what we're doing now, mainly with clients in Germany, to the next level - working with European headquarters in the UK, or global headquarters in the US, and trying to expand the business in the games industry.

By horizontal growth I mean doing the same kind of thing for other entertainment sectors - when you look at the film or music businesses, they have the same type of needs, because digital distribution produces exactly the same issues for them - sometimes more important.

So we'd like to provide the same type of strategic design and production service for other entertainment sectors.