Macrovision Announces New Game Solutions

Macrovision Announces New Game Solutions to Enable Publishers to Optimize Revenue in Broad Cross Channel Game Distribution and Commerce

Macrovision Corporation today introduced two new solutions: Game Access Control and Game Promotion and Loyalty to help game publishers quickly package and distribute their games to optimize their product revenue and meet consumer demands.

Macrovision's Game Access Control solution is designed to help publishers increase revenue opportunities by distributing copies of purchasable game trials on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, as well as protect those games on the same networks.

Macrovision's Game Promotion and Loyalty solution allows game publishers to gain further revenue from in-game advertising or promotional activities, in addition to increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty by electronically distributing updates and enhancements directly to their customers.

Both solutions enable game publishers to package games for distribution across all channels, physical or digital, and protect against unauthorized downloads.

According to market research firm The NPD Group, the game industry reached $13.5 billion in sales for 2006, an 18 percent increase over 20051. Much of this growth has been attributed to Internet distribution, which has long been a profitable landscape for casual games, but has also recently become more attractive to core game publishers seeking to expand their distribution outside of their traditional physical retail outlets.

"In order to address increasing demands, game publishers must make their content easily accessible to consumers for purchase on multiple outlets," said Fred Amoroso, CEO, Macrovision. "Our solutions will help game publishers take advantage of the additional revenue opportunities in new distribution channels, such as publishing games via the Internet."

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) estimates that 60 to 80 percent of the total revenue a game earns comes from sales during the first few months after release2. Consequently, the availability of purchasable copies of the game during the first few weeks of its release greatly impacts the extent to which it is illegally downloaded.

Macrovision's Game Access Control solution couples the company's ActiveMARK technology with its Hawkeye P2P network protection product. This combination allows the protection of content on both physical and online media, with 95 percent or higher effectiveness in protecting against illegal downloads across P2P networks. Hawkeye product allows game publishers to saturate the market with easily accessible and purchasable trial versions of games as soon as the digital copy is available to meet consumer demands for downloadable legitimate copies.

The Game Promotion and Loyalty solution includes the company's FLEXnet Connect product wrapped together with the ActiveMARK technology and Hawkeye product. The FLEXnet Connect product allows games publishers to send communications to their games even after they hit the market and have been initially purchased or downloaded - Macrovision.