October 09, 2007
The "Multi" Strategy
My President's Message was always intended to be a regular column where I communicated my perspectives on the industry and, of course, on TransGaming to my readers. I have received great feedback to my past columns and now my readers are asking why I haven't shared my thoughts with them for such a long while.
The truth of the matter is that we've been busy. We've actually been really busy. This has been a stellar year for TransGaming and represents an important inflection point in the company's evolution. This evolution and growth is what I, and the company as a whole, have been focused on.
We announced our Cider product in August of 2006 and, in a short time, we've completely transformed an entire market. As you probably know by now, Cider allows PC games to be deployed on the Intel Mac platform without the typically arduous, expensive, and time-consuming redevelopment effort. Where Mac versions of games were previously released 9 to 18 months after the original PC release, Cider has created a paradigm shift whereby we can Mac enable PC games in a matter of weeks and have already been providing simultaneous PC/Mac releases of various titles. This year we announced landmark agreements with Turner Broadcasting to bring GameTap (the world's first-of-its-kind broadband entertainment network that gives users access to a thousand games based on a monthly subscription fee) to Mac and to bring Electronic Arts' (EA) top franchises to Mac. In fact, Bing Gordon, Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of EA, and Steve Jobs announced this on stage at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in June and demonstrated Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix running on the Mac weeks before the game was released on any platform. TransGaming has already brought 6 of EA's top titles to Mac: Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix, Need For Speed Carbon, Battlefield 2142, Command & Conquer 3, Tiger Woods 2008, Madden NFL 2008, with more to come.
Customers such as EA, the world's largest video games publisher (by far), and Turner Broadcasting, just to name a couple, have overwhelmingly endorsed the Mac market as a growing and viable platform and have validated TransGaming's Cider product with much enthusiasm. Our technology has proven to be so powerful that we have already, single-handedly, released a dozen titles to the Mac market while only a dozen top titles were released in all of 2006 by ALL the developers and publishers combined. The Intel Mac market is also growing at phenomenal rates; Apple today is tied for number 3 position as largest PC manufacturer with Gateway, and the Intel Macs are responsible for much of the significant profit Apple has been generating each quarter. While the Intel Mac market may be considered a niche market, by percentage it is growing faster than the rest of the PC market and TransGaming is well on its way to becoming THE dominant player as a games provider for the Mac.
What's equally exciting are the exceptional reviews our games are enjoying. Command & Conquer 3 was reviewed by Inside Mac Games and received a score of 9.25 out of 10. A score this high is a rarity and it further reinforces how strong TransGaming's Cider product is. The review can be read at Inside Mac Games. In addition, Apple is helping EA with what is being hailed as unprecedented marketing. The EA games that we have brought to the Mac are being profiled on Apple's web site, consumers have access to in-store demos, and Apple retail stores have been hosting "EA Game Days" at various retail location across the U.S. All of this demonstrates how exciting the TransGaming story is and ... this is just the beginning!
EVE Online, one of the fastest growing online games in the world, is being released on Mac and Linux, thanks to Cider and Cedega, respectively. This game represents how capable TransGaming's portability technologies are in being able to keep pace with, and transparently support, the flurry of updates, patches, revisions that all games today typically experience but online games especially. Mac, Linux, and PC users alike will enjoy a persistent EVE Online experience, something that is truly a first for Mac users.
What differentiates TransGaming from most other companies is our "Multi" strategy. Our entire business model is based on multi-publishers, multi-titles, multi-platforms. What this means is that unlike the developer or publisher model that is reliant on each title being a hit, our success is not predicated on the success of one or two individual games. Our downside risk is mitigated due to our broad approach but with the advantage of still enjoying and sharing in the upside on those titles that perform well. We're also typically working on the top tier of titles which serves as an added advantage. It's this multi-strategy that I am extremely excited about and the one that will continue to define the success of TransGaming as we work with more publishers on more titles on more platforms. This multi-strategy gives our stakeholders the upside that arises from access and the success of the entire industry and mitigates the traditional industry risks of being hit-driven or platform dependent.
Thus, my readers, this is what we have been focused on and the reason for my delay in updating this column. We are busy, we work tirelessly, and we are having more fun than we've ever had before as we shake the very foundation of the Mac gaming market. We are generating amazing buzz and shattering the traditional ways by which other companies have done things in this industry and it is for that reason we are experiencing such rapid growth. I will do my best to write more frequently but, in the interim, I thank you for your patience and hope you've enjoyed watching our story unfold.
Sincerely,
Vikas Gupta
CEO & President
