‘The barrage of points cards at retail is not ideal’

The sheer number of points cards at retail is confusing, warn publishers.

Points and subscriptions have been a significant area of growth for retail over the last 12 months. But Activision’s VP of Call of Duty, David Tyler, admits that publishers and payment specialists are still testing out what works.

Consumers want convenience and flexibility, but they also want simplicity,” he told MCV. The barrage of points cards and other digital purchase options at retail are far from optimal today. There are a huge number of ‘test and learn’ initiatives being pursued by lots of different parties right now.

"The consumer offers will undoubtedly continue to evolve and improve. We all need to remind ourselves that compared to the decades of expertise we have selling and marketing physical goods, the digital space is still relatively new and challenging.”

Activision says retail has been a ‘significant factor’ in the success of its Call of Duty DLC. And the firm has just added to its extensive downloadable content strategy with ‘micro-DLC’ packs for Black Ops II.

Some of the Micro DLC items were crafted in response to requests from players,” said Tyler. We’re receiving a lot of great feedback from our player base right now.”