AWARD CRITERIA: Trade relations, Support for small developers & publishers, Customer service, Price promotions, Marketing strategy
DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION TEAM
SONY DADC Alongside its physical distribution business Sony DADC has built an enviable digital offer. Content partners include all the majors and smaller publishers from across Europe. Plus, the firm boasts relationships with a real variety of important players in digital distribution of PC games across Europe, from IGN to Real, Boonty, Gamersgate, Digital River – and even some of its fellow-nominees in this category. But also important to DADC is its Game Services strand, which for digital products covers product activation, DLC activation, auto- updates, games-settings and save games, release control for pre-releases and then post- launch analytics.
ZTORM
Under CEO and founder Anders Emblad, Swedish outfit Ztorm has become a key B2B force in digital distribution. As a white label service provider Ztorm provides the technical and organisational oomph for the digital download clients used by some of the biggest names in games and has an extensive set of partnerships both on publisher and the retail side of the industry. Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar Games, Bethesda, Square Enix, THQ, Sega, Disney, Namco Bandai, 2K Games, NCsoft, Dixons, PC World, ShopTo, Media Markt, GAME and GameStop are all current or recent clients. The biggest compliment to the business came at the start of 2012, however, when Gem moved in to buy the firm and make it key to its digital offer.