Mediaboss Marketing

Following the lead of other entertainment sectors, publishers of video games are more reliant on digital-revenue streams as retail sales slide, but their rapidly changing industry poses plenty of new challenges.

Physical video game sales were down 34 percent year-over-year in January to $750.6 million, according to market research firm NPD Group. Weak consumer activity and a lack of major releases were a drag on January's numbers, and retail sales of games have fallen in 28 of the 35 months since a March 2009 peak.

However, NPD estimated that secondary revenue -- rentals, digital downloads, social games and mobile-device apps -- added $350 million to $400 million to the industry's total sales last month.

Despite retail-sales declines, some of the sector's major players posted big profits in the most recent quarter, thanks largely to digital growth.

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), one of the biggest video game publishers, had fiscal third-quarter revenue of $1.06 billion, up from $1.05 billion a year earlier. Digital revenue was $377 million, a year-on -year increase of 79 percent. EA's full-year digital revenue topped $1 billion for the first time.

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The company's latest soccer game, "FIFA 12," brought in $50 million in digital revenue during the quarter, and its Sims Social and PopCap divisions also contributed to growth. During the quarter, EA saw 9.3 million registered users for Origin, its online store that sells games and additional content from EA and other publishers. Downloadable content, or DLC, provides an additional revenue source from highly engaged gamers, who pay for additional features or add-ons to existing titles.

But analysts wonder if the new products will be enough to offset some of EA's more stagnant products, such as the "Madden NFL" and "Need for Speed" franchises.

"Management is trying to offset the revenue and profit loss by extracting additional dollars from existing franchises via the sale of high-margin digital add-ons that increase customer engagement," wrote Sunit Gogla, an analyst with Morningstar, in a December research note. "We agree that such add-ons offer an attractive profit opportunity, but the magnitude of these sales is far from sufficient to replace lost revenue and profits."

EA is hoping a new blockbuster will lift the company's earnings this year. In December, it launched "Star Wars: The Old Republic," an ambitious massively multiplayer online (MMO) role-playing game developed by the company's Bioware division that cost $200 million to produce. The game holds a Guinness World Record for "largest entertainment voice-over project," containing more than 200,000 lines of recorded dialogue.

Subscribers pay around $15 a month, in addition to the game's $49.99 retail price. Since launch, the game has attracted 2 million subscribers, but its long-term outlook remains uncertain.

"We see 'Star Wars' as the wild card for fiscal 2012 performance," wrote Gogla.

EA's main rival, Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI), has relied on one of the most successful digital titles of all time to produce robust profits for years, but there have been decent signs of decline.

Its "World of Warcraft," which debuted in 2004, lost 100,000 subscribers during the fourth quarter, but the games remain a rich source of revenue for the Activision, with 10.2 million players paying about $15 per month for access.

The company is seeking new revenue sources, launching a subscriber service for its blockbuster "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" offshoot, "Call of Duty Elite." As of the end of the fourth quarter, 1.5 million subscribers were paying $4.99 per month for access to the game's new downloadable content.

Activision's forthcoming "Diablo III," which is targeting a second-quarter release, will attempt to use a new model for digital revenue: a "real money auction house" where players sell the game's items for real currency. The game maker will charge a flat fee for transactions, capitalizing on deals that typically were done on unregulated third-party sites tied to previous "Diablo" editions. Activision is also working on a so-far-unannounced MMO game with an undisclosed revenue model.

But for companies without the strength of massive hits, the current economy can be difficult, even with the growth in digital. Publisher THQ Inc. (THQI), the fifth-largest U.S. publisher with 5.4 percent market share, has been battered by declines in its children's entertainment division, even as digital revenue more than doubled in the fiscal third quarter. The Agoura Hills, Calif., company plans to lay off 240 of its 1,750 employees in a restructuring. The shares have dropped from a 52-week high of $6.01 to just 61 cents as of Thursday's close, and the stock risks being delisted from Nasdaq.

Perhaps the company that has done the most to boost its digital distribution is Valve Corp., the highly regarded maker of the "Half Life" and "Portal" franchises. Aside from its own games, Valve runs Steam, an online store that offers a range of titles and content, with regular discounts to entice customers.

Valve is private and doesn't disclose sales, but it said year-over-year sales more than doubled for 2011, with over 5 million simultaneous users logged in during peak holiday-shopping week in December. It delivered 780 petabytes of data (7.8 trillion gigabytes) to users over the year.

"Steam succeeds because it is so easy to buy and then play the games," said Aram Zucker-Scharff, assistant director for marketing and communications at George Mason University's Office of Student Media and writer for the game-criticism site Nightmare Mode. "Because of that I'm constantly buying games, not to play right then, but because they caught my attention, happen to be on sale, and I know I'll want to play them later."

Zucker-Scharff said he buys about $50 worth of games each month.

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Video Game Publishers Move Unevenly Into Digital

Mountain High Coin, a family owned and operated business in Bend for over 20 years, attributes their success to a passion for collecting coins, supporting the community and creating a business that draws on the strengths of family and friends.

Mike Graham and son-in-law, Dave McGrew, operate the business at 185 SE Third Street. Mountain High Coin’s operations are diverse: from selling jewelry, sports collectables, coins and paper money to creating  custom designed commemorative medallions and providing inventory to some of the country’s biggest coin retailers.

The diversity in the business comes out of opportunity, but central to the business is their desire to serve their customers. “We just want to be friendly,” Graham said. “We want to help people in whatever way we can, if that means turning the junk in their drawers to cash for a vacation or food on the table, you will get a fair deal.”

Graham has turned his early love of collecting stamps and coins into a profitable business that has spanned over thirty years. Raised in Southern California, he began buying and selling coins on bid boards (a type of silent auction for collectible coins) and would drive 100 miles a couple times a week as a teenager to manage his coins. “I like to wheel and deal,” Graham says, and his wheeling and dealing has helped him to create a business that sells and trades all over the country.

After graduating from Cal Poly Pomona with an engineering degree and newly married, Graham pursued work in engineering, while all the time continuing to play with coins. In 1971, he went to work for the biggest corporation in the coin business, A-Mark, running the retail portion of the business for several years before transitioning to running a mail-order business.

Graham decided to look for property around Sisters after his wife, Carolyn, fell in love with the area. Sisters was a frequent stop on summer road trips, and the family bought a local ranch in 1980. He ran a small mail-order business out of the house for a few years, and in 1990, opened a retail store next to Shopko in the Bend River Mall. Unfortunately the spot did not have enough traffic, and in 1993 relocated to the current location on Third Street.

Graham brought McGrew into the operation to take over the sales portion of the business, and now McGrew travels around the country to promote Mountain High Coin. “David is a great concept person,” Graham said. “He has come up with packaging concepts for coins and creates up to 20 different proposals a month for Publishing Clearing House.”

The partners are active sponsors of the High Desert Treasure Club and the Bend Coin Club of Central Oregon. Both clubs meet once a month; the Treasure Club on the second Wednesday of each month at the Bend Senior Center and the Coin Club the third Tuesday of each month at the High Desert Community Grange.

Mountain High Coin supplies companies like the Bradford Coin Exchange, the HSN-TV coin show and projects for clearing and catalogue houses – Graham sources the coins from specialty shows that take place around the country, and the company operates by having a continuous cash flow. “I use the money as much as I can and turn it over,” said Graham. “We did nearly a million in sales per month last year that way.”

The shop is a busy place with several full time and part time employees. Graham’s wife Carolyn often works the coin shows and is responsible for running the show; they enjoy calling many of the employees “family.”

“We try and service people with friendly and honest regard as to selling and buying,” Graham said. He has cultivated ties with other businesses in town and has created a niche market based on offering stable prices.

Over the last year, Graham has closely watched the trend of transferring wealth into precious metals. “People were scared. More people put their money in gold than ever before; they are coming out of banks and CDs and looking for safe havens in anything that is a world commodity or with a value that can be documented. My advice has always been, buy the best you can afford. Push for quality. Junk is always junk.”

Looking to the future, Graham talks about his pleasure at being a grandfather. He wants to continue taking care of his family and enjoying the business he has built, “You have to have a good memory and a little bit of common sense and a little luck and the ability to hold on to the money.”

Mountain High Coin, 185 SE Third Street, Bend. 541-385-7113, http://www.mtnhighcoin.com.

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Mountain High Coin - A Fixture in Bend for Over 20 Years

In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line.
We love the snooze button as much as everyone else. But we've all postponed exiting the comfort of our Tempur-Pedic one too many times. Enter the Ramos alarm clock, a rise-and-shine solution that integrates a Defuse Panel in order to silence your wake-up call. Don't expect to stay in bed to enter the code either, as the keypad can be wirelessly situated in another room to prevent further slumber. Two time keeping options, LED and Nixie models, await your minimum pledges of $160 and $350 before the April 1st deadline. The latter features a nixie tube display that will put any regular ol' alarm clock's digits to shame. You can spring for a long-range kit if you need to place your key panel more than 50 feet away from your nightstand. If you're feeling extra generous, a pledge of more than $800 will allow you to select the type of wood used for your Ramos. In need of a bit more convincing? Peep the video on the other side of the break for a closer look. Previous project update: A recent Insert Coin feature -- the Dash car stereo that integrates your iPhone into its facade -- is a little less that $12,000 from its goal. You'll have to pledge at least $250 (shipping included) to snag a unit of your own before the March 21st deadline.

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Insert Coin: Alarm clock makes you enter a code to silence it, in another room (video)

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Officials with the Conrad Foundation today announced the names of 15 high school teams from across the country and the Isle of Man that will compete in the final round of the 2011-2012 Spirit of Innovation Challenge. The annual competition, presented by Lockheed Martin Corporation and PepsiCo, challenges high school student teams around the globe to combine innovation and entrepreneurship along with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) to create commercially-viable products to solve global and local challenges.

Finalist teams will present their product concepts at the Innovation Summit, March 29-31, to a panel of industry experts, leading entrepreneurs, government officials and world-renowned scientists at NASA Ames Research Center in Northern California. Products will be evaluated for technical content and marketplace viability.

Prior to the Summit, from March 12 to March 23, the public will have the opportunity to select the People's Choice Award winner by viewing finalist team videos and voting on their favorite innovative product. To review each team and their projects, visit http://www.conradawards.org/pages/finalists.

This year's competition challenged students to develop new ideas in the areas of aerospace exploration, clean energy, and health and nutrition. The finalist teams in each category include:

Aerospace Exploration: creating an innovative product for use in the aerospace industry – vehicles, spacesuits, planetary exploration, satellites, space medicine, Earth observation and more.

Flex; Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Va. Frontier Space Industries; Randolph-Macon Academy, Front Royal, Va. Infinity; West Salem High School, West Salem, Wis. Moonwalking Manakins; Cinco Ranch High School, Katy, Texas Stellar Strips; North Carolina School of Science and Math, Durham, N.C.

Clean Energy: creating an innovative product to address energy efficiency; energy storage; solar, geothermal and wind energy; biomass fuels; and renewable energy solutions to improve everyday life.

Bright Ideas!; Sustainability Workshop, Philadelphia, Pa. Humatics; Monta Vista High School, Cupertino, Calif. Maverick Robots; Eastern Technical High School, Baltimore, Md. Operation Gulliver International; Gulliver Preparatory, Miami, Fla. The Bros; North Carolina School of Science and Math, Durham, N.C.

Health and Nutrition: creating solutions that address growing more nutritious food with less water and land; creating better eating habits amongst youth; and encouraging healthy lifestyles through products and innovations.

Allergy Watch; Whitehorse High School, Montezuma Creek, Utah Ballet, Autism, and Mirror Neurons; Milken Community High School, Los Angeles, Calif. FOOGLE; St. Ninians High School, Douglas, Isle of Man Lettuce help you grow!; Abraham Lincoln High School, Philadelphia, Pa. Team H2O; St. Francis Academy, Baltimore, Md.

Each category’s winning team will be recognized as Pete Conrad Scholars and will receive a Next Step Grant of $5,000 to continue product development.

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Best-of-the-Best High School Teams Advance to Finals of Global Product Challenge

by Chris Quine

Long distance running legend Ron Hill is to be the guest of honour at the 50th anniversary Isle of Man Easter Athletics Festival, 40 years after making his last appearance on the island.
 
Hill, now 73, won gold medals in the marathon at the European championships in Athens in 1969 and the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. He was made an MBE the following year.
 
He finished 19th in the marathon in the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 and 6th at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Hill also set world records at four other distances.
 
He is also famous for his amazing record of running every day of his life and hasn’t missed a day of running since December 1964.
 
Ron Hill’s is arguably the most successful athlete to ever take part in the Easter Athletics Festival. Organisers say he was “the natural choice” as guest of honour for the 50th anniversary of the festival.
 
Several previous winners since 1972 are already lined up for the three-day festival over the Easter weekend, featuring individual and team races for all ages and abilities in what is recognised as one of the best fun events on the British athletics calendar.
 
The 50th Isle of Man Easter Athletics Festival takes place from Good Friday to Easter Sunday - April 6th to 8th.  Events comprise a 10k road race on Good Friday evening starting on Port Erin Promenade, the Peel Hill Race on Saturday afternoon and a 5k road relay on Douglas Promenade on Easter Sunday morning.

Entries close on March 24th.

For more information see http://www.easterfestival.info

-ENDS-

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Marathon Legend set for Easter Athletics Festival