Bigpoint's Nils-Holger Henning

A blockbuster is a game that has €1 million-plus monthly revenue potential.

I think everything that happens with Battlestar is different to anything we've done before, which is a challenge - but it's quite exciting. Compare it with Farmerama and we're talking to a totally different audience, because it's more like trying to attract everyone... we know how it all works.

With Battlestar it was really working out who's interested in sci-fi, who's interested in the bigger gaming experience? It's not like the kind of gameplay where you play for five minutes and everything is clear - and you're asking yourself where the next challenge is.

There's a guy sitting somewhere in Hollywood and they're just happy they've got their cash - and they don't care what happens to the game, because they've cashed out already

You really need a greater engagement of the players, and there are different ways to target them. So we've been working with games-related websites more, going for the hardcore gamers, and showing them what's now possible in the browser - asking whether they like it.

The feedback that we've had is quite nice, because people didn't know it was possible. They thought what was happening in the browser could only be something like Farmville or Cityville.

I believe one driver for this was definitely that we were working very closely with SyFy and Universal in the development of the game. I know how it normally works with gaming licenses - you just put some money on the table and you get the license.

There's a guy sitting somewhere in Hollywood and they're just happy they've got their cash - and they don't care what happens to the game, because they've cashed out already. Then the game is pushed into the market and sold via the brand.

Of course, we do have a challenge this time in that the game is free - we don't have a box - so if you're not convinced by the game, we'll never generate revenues.

But another thing that helped with this license - and it's the first big license that we're developing on - is that the editor of the TV series, Ronald Moore, wanted to give his personal approval on every starship and every sequence.

It took a bit of effort to get all of that happening, but it helped us to stay close to the series - and to create the kind of experience that a Battlestar fan is looking for.

Talking openly, we didn't think about 3D a lot. We saw some stuff at tech conferences, and that with TVs you have to have your stereoscopic glasses, and we questioned who'd really wear them.

But while we were developing a game that we recently launched, called Ruin, one of the developers asked why shouldn't we build it in 3D? We thought it might take months to do, but building it in Unity, he said it would just take a couple of weeks. So we thought, why not?

It's the first game that we've brought to the market that's also available in 3D - and you can switch from normal to stereoscopic mode. If you wear some 3D glasses you've got a great first-person shooter experience.

It's not crucial; we'll use it to see if there's demand in the market.