Press Releases
TEN Celebrates 25,000 Paying Subscribers Milestone
Fastest Subscription-based Multiplayer Entertainment Service to Reach 25K in History of the Internet
SAN FRANCISCO March 6, 1997 Total Entertainment Network (TEN), the market and technology leader in online multiplayer gaming, today announced that it has exceeded 25,000 paying subscribers in less than five months of commercial operation. TEN, which officially launched in September 1996, has reached the 25,000 paying subscriber mark faster than any other online multiplayer entertainment service. Subscribers to TEN's network pay between US$4.95 and US$29.95 per month for the service, which provides online multiplayer support for nine hit games (several of which are exclusive to TEN), as well as a host of other features and unique content, including contests, tournaments, news, player rankings, and more.
"The significance of this announcement may be most strongly felt by content developers and publishers," said Jack Heistand, president and CEO of TEN. "While content creators in other industries, such as television and film, have traditionally leveraged new technology to generate broader revenue bases for fixed intellectual property expenses, the entertainment software market has always relied solely on retail sales. The fact that there's a successful, revenue-generating business model for deploying their content online is an important trend for entertainment software publishers," said Heistand.
"In recent years, publishers have struggled with rapidly escalating production and marketing expenses without a relative increase in retail sales," Heistand continued. "The notion that online play might be given away to drive retail sales is not a viable approach for the industry in the long run. The first few companies who attempt this may enjoy a near-term benefit. However, if many developers/publishers embrace this model, in the long run the industry will have simply added another layer to the cost of doing business, and provided a commodity service."
"The phenomenal thing about TEN's success thus far is that there's historically been a pervasive belief that the only way the Internet is going to work is if it's free to the user the advertising is king' philosophy," said Mike Yocco, entertainment analyst at Paul Kagan Associates, a leading analyst firm covering online companies and commerce. "TEN's early success is causing the online industry to re-think that free paradigm, and is rapidly proving that quality content can command a sustained, paying audience."
Recent studies from Paul Kagan Associates predict that online multiplayer gaming revenues will approach $1.4 billion by the year 2000. Subscription fees are expected to account for more than 77 percent of that total, while ad-based revenues for the industry segment will account for less than 23 percent.
"We recently mailed the royalty checks to our content partners, for our first commercial quarter of operations, and the response has been very positive," said Greg Harper, vice president of business development at TEN. "The publishers of these titles were pleasantly surprised to find that the royalty payments were not insignificant sums. A number of them acknowledged that this second revenue stream had become a reality sooner than they had hoped, and they're all looking forward to seeing what the numbers will be for our second quarter."
To sign up for the TEN service, go to http://www.ten.net and download the software, or request a free TEN CD-ROM (Windows 95). Technical support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week by calling 1-800-8040TEN. Customer support is available daily from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST).
Total Entertainment Network is the premier entertainment network for game playing consumers on the Internet. TEN has online rights to more than 30 games half of which are TEN
exclusives by leading software publishers including 3D Realms Entertainment, Apogee, Blizzard, Eidos Interactive (formerly Domark), id Software, Maxis, MicroProse, Sierra Online/Papyrus, SSI and Westwood Studios. Based in San Francisco, TEN was formed in 1995 from the merger of Planet Optigon, Inc. and Outland, Inc. TEN received its initial funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, with subsequent investors including: Ameritech; Goldman Sachs; Robertson, Stephens & Co. and Vertex Management.
For More Info, Call
TEN Press Contact:
Garth Chouteau
Tel: (415) 778-3774
Fax: (415) 778-3520
Internet:
garth@tenetwork.com
Copyright 1997
T E Network, Inc.
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