Online gaming giant Bigpoint is expanding to new platforms by launching new free-to-play games on Amazon’s digital games store. The move shows that Bigpoint believes in Amazon’s expansion into the market, and it will mean new options for consumers who want to play games in as convenient way as possible. Overall, Amazon is becoming a bigger and bigger player in games, and that should garner the attention of the traditional platform owners.
Bigpoint’s first two games on the Amazon Game Connect digital game store will be Battlestar Galactica Online and Drakensang Online. Both will be highlighted as “Game of the Week” in the Amazon Game Store under the free-to-play online game category. Bigpoint’s move is a big endorsement since its browser-based, no-download online games have more than 275 million registered users worldwide.
“We are helping Amazon build its content on Game Connect,” said Ed Kim, head of business development at Bigpoint, in an interview with GamesBeat. “They are a very large distribution channel and can taget users quite well thanks to their e-commerce site.”
Battlestar Galactica Online is a 3D space combat game based on the Syfy television series, and Drakensang Online is a hack-and-slash fantasy role-playing game. Game Connect is a new technology that integrates an Amazon user’s account directly to a free-to-play game. The player can make in-game purchases in a secure fashion using an Amazon account. That adds a lot of convenience to the payment options and overcomes some friction that inhibits game purchases, Kim said.
About a dozen game developers are participating in the initial release of Game Connect, and Bigpoint’s endorsement lends credibility to the service. Bigpoint will add more games over time. Amazon is also actively promoting games with the recent launch of its own social game studio, and it is selling mobile games via its Amazon.com Appstore for Android market.
“I believe they are very serious about gaming,” Kim said. “They are showing a lot of commitment.”
Bigpoint will introduce new games from their successful suite of online titles to the Amazon platform. Overall, Bigpoint has more than 900 employees and has large forces in Hamburg and San Francisco and smaller offices in a variety of other locations too. Bigpoint’s games are also available on its website and through Unity Technologies, Adobe, Yahoo, Google, and the Chrome Web Store. Bigpoint will also roll its games out on Valve’s Steam online gaming service too.
“Our goal is to have our games anywhere there is a browser,” Kim said.