Posts Tagged ‘gameforge’

Gameforge acquires majority stake in Frogster

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

While still not labeled as “hostile,” echos of Gordon Gecko come to mind with this one: Gameforge has announced a takeover bid for Frogster Interactive Pictures. Frogster, you’ll remember, is the publisher of Mythos and Runes of Magic here in Europe. You’ll also remember Runes of Magic bringing home the “Best International PC Game of 2009,” as well as their recent dive into Facebook gaming, thus making this acquisition quite a gem for Gameforge.

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Adding to the “whoa…didn’t see that one coming,” factor, is Gameforge’s focus of late on relatively small free-to-play titles like Cabal. Taking on a free-to-play MMO of Runes of Magic’s scale significantly increases Gameforge’s position on any gamers radar.

According to the terms of the deal, Gameforge purchased a 60 percent stake in Frogster via a proxy (hence the “hostile” reference) at around $33 a share, putting Frogster’s value somewhere in the $85 Million range. Frogster’s management will retain 15 percent of the company’s shares, while the remaining 25 percent are still up in the air.

According to Frogster, although they’ve been taken over, they will still remain, “an independent company with its current management and team at its existing locations, with its own culture and successful brand names.” Until the HR department holds the dreaded “restructuring” and/or “process management” meeting – aka the slash and burn day.

Still holding their heads high, Frogster adds that they’ll forge ahead (pun intended) with business operations and will accelerate their, “persistent, strong, and profitable expansion” in 2011 with HanbitSoft’s Mythos, as well as Runewalker’s Project X

Currently, Frogster is reporting their most popular title, Runes of Magic to be pulling in around $3 million last month alone. Frogster’s global userbase hovers around the 5 million player mark, and continues to grow.

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Gameforge CEO Klaas Kersting declares Free-to-Play “Will Dominate Soon”

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

As we reported at the end of June, the head of one of Europe’s most important gaming destinations, Klaas Kersting delivered his keynote speech yesterday at the GDC Europe event. Titled, “Changes in the Games Industry – Free-to-play vs. Payment Models,” Kersting shared his thoughts, advice, and experience when dealing with the free-to-play business model.

gdc_europe_09As reported by Mike Rose from Gamasutra, one of Kersting’s key takeaway points was that “free-to-play will dominate [the gaming industry] soon.” Obviously, coming from Europe’s largest developer of free-to-play browser and client based MMO games in Europe, Kersting has a bit more insight than the average Joe. His reasoning and philosophy come down to experience. He readily acknowledges that full-priced retail (i.e. in the box) games are still the defacto choice for a number of publishers, but a number of problems including piracy, market competition and overcrowding, and the “one time earning” factor are forcing traditional sales methods and resulting revenue numbers to drop. Eyeballing both Ubisoft and EA, Kersting pointed out that both manufacturers have seen a 51 and 20 percent (respectively) drop in sales numbers.

Stating his antithesis to this ‘traditional’ method of distribution, Kersting states that Online distribution is really a no brainer. Making points to appeal to both producer and consumer, Kersting says that an online distribution method has “close to zero” overhead operating costs, while at the same time the consumer, “wants to get what he is looking for as easy and fast as possible.” In other words….why should I go to the store, or order via amazon, and then wait? Providing a digital distribution method quenches consumers’ gaming thirst then and there, not a few hours or days later.

Talking to his own company’s methods, Kersting says, “give the game away for free. Why not?” Once this game is given away for free, producers then have a captive audience ripe for the sale. “Then give the player an opportunity to buy something,” he says.

However, Kersting and company aren’t living between the clouds. Driving a company to the top of the free-to-play destinations has taken some clever maneuvering and some smart business. To this end, Kersting comments that, “Free is not a business model – of course price matters. But free is the beginning of other business models.”

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Gameforge CEO Klaas Kersting to deliver “Free-to-play vs. Payment Models” keynote at GDC Europe

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Founded in 2003 by Klaas Kersting and Alexander Rösner, German based Gameforge quickly became the de-facto destination for European free-to-play gamers.  With award winning games, both client and browser based, including OGame, Ikariam, and Metin2, Gameforge has attracted over 75 million gamers from around the globe.

Klaas KerstingMr. Kersting is expected to share his knowledge and experience with GDC Europe attendees, and will deliver a track keynote titled, “Changes in the Games Industry – Free-to-play vs. Payment Models.”  Kersting will share his thoughts and advice on the success of the free-to-play business model.  He’ll also cover the differences between gaming attitudes and cultural backgrounds when it comes to various payment models.

“Gameforge develops pioneering and groundbreaking technologies in the browser-based game sector, which is driving the whole industry,” said Frank Sliwka, Vice President European Business Development of Think Services Game Group. “GDC Europe is focused on delivering content that appeals to a global audience, while presenting content that represents and showcases the European development community. Gameforge is one of those companies that exemplifies the European spirit of innovation, and as a market leader, we anticipate a keynote that is powerful, informative and inspiring.”

Kersting’s keynote speech should dovetail nicely into Double Fusion’s Direct of Developer Relation’s Brian Blau is expected to talk about in-game advertising.  Blau’s talk will review the design and implementation aspects of dynamic in-game advertising placements.  He’ll also be presenting examples of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in respect to which ads have worked, not worked so well, and outright failed.

Both Kersting’s keynote and Blau’s session will deal with the rapidly changing state of the gaming industry.  One discussing the microtransaction position, the other the in-game advertising stance.  As we’ve seen over the past year, a number of free-to-play titles are being introduced to the market in hybrid form.  Meaning, these titles are choosing wisely, and not relying on simply one form of monetization, but diversifying and offering players subscriptions for premium content, microtransaction options, and perhaps a pre or post game advertising roll.  Both of these sessions should be of high value and interest to any gaming developers looking into the future, and realizing that the state of play is no longer what it once was.

Taking place between the 17th and 19th of August at the Cologne Congress East Center in Cologne, Germany, the GDC Europe expects over 1,500 attendees from 48 countries around the globe.  The GDC Europe is regarded as the preeminent European games developer conference.

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