Press Releases
Total Entertainment Network Launches New Version, Reduces Flat-Rate Subscription Fee
New Features, Lower Price of TEN 1.2 Will Extend Company's Lead in Online Gaming
SAN FRANCISCO April 28, 1997 Total Entertainment Network (TEN), the market and technology leader in online multiplayer gaming, today announced that its next version of the TEN service, TEN 1.2, will replace the existing version on Thursday, May 8, 1997. Sporting a host of new features such as email, a web browser, and player locate and page functions, TEN 1.2 will also mark the reduction of TEN's flat rate subscription fee, from $29.95 to $19.95. Subscribers to TEN's hourly rate plan will continue to pay $9.95 per month plus $1.95 per hour.* With nearly 30,000 subscribers, TEN commands the vast majority of revenues from the dedicated online game sector.
"TEN's wealth of new features, improved performance, and hot new titles, combined with the new subscription rate, creates a very compelling price-value proposition for gamers," said Jack Heistand, president and CEO of TEN. "For content providers, we're further refining a business model that is proven and well-grounded. Our growing subscription revenues, combined with healthy ad sales and licensing activities, reaffirms TEN's leadership position as the leading value creator for publishers, as well as the premier online gaming service for consumers."
"TEN really gets it," said Sean McGrath, aka "Bitterboy," the number-one ranked Quake player on TEN. A TEN subscriber since TEN's public beta period began more than a year ago, McGrath stated "They've always had the best games, best technology, and the best players. Now, the price goes down, the quality goes up -- and let's face it, with all the free services, you get what you pay for. For me, TEN's a great deal."
In a market where various business models have been hotly debated for many months, TEN stands alone as the company attracting significant revenues today. While some industry analysts and competing firms have proposed exclusively advertising-driven business models, leading research firms such as Paul Kagan Associates have identified subscription fees as representing roughly 75% of online gaming revenues through the year 2000.
"TEN's pricing change could benefit both the company and its customers as well as TEN's partners on the content side," said Mike Yocco, entertainment analyst at Paul Kagan Associates, a leading analyst firm covering online companies and commerce. "Developers and publishers of entertainment software are confused about how to leverage online deployment of their property into a real revenue stream. Today, that stream is subscription fees, and TEN is the overwhelming leader in subscription-based online gaming."
"We're opening our business model to the industry, and challenging our competitors to do likewise," said Erick Hachenburg, vice president of business affairs at TEN. "Do the financial analysis: take our growing ad sales revenues, which are comparable to any in this market. Take 30,000 subscribers at roughly $15 each per month; the subscription revenues make even our industry-leading ad sales look like a drop in the bucket. We're realizing more revenues each month than the rest of the dedicated online gaming services combined, based on current estimates. Advertising may someday represent an interesting ancillary revenue source for online gaming services, but today it is not meaningful."
In addition to new features, improved game performance, and interface improvements, several new games will be supported on TEN 1.2 in the coming weeks. These include flight and racing simulations (EF2000 and NASCAR Racing 2, respectively), GT Interactive's Blood (developed by Monolith Productions) and Shadow Warrior (3D Realms).
To sign up for the TEN service, call 1-800-8040-TEN and request the free TEN CD-ROM (Windows 95), or go to http://www.ten.net and download the software or request the TEN CD-ROM. Technical support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week by calling 1-800-8040-TEN. 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, id Software, GT Interactive, Maxis, MicroProse, Sierra Online/Papyrus, SSI and Westwood Studios. Based in San Francisco, TEN was formed in 1995 from the merger of Outland, Inc. and Planet Optigon, Inc. TEN received its initial funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, with subsequent investors including: Ameritech; Goldman Sachs; Robertson, Stephens & Co., Vertex Management, and Wasserstein Perella Ventures.
* During the month of May, all of TEN's Standard flat rate subscribers ($29.95) will be automatically transitioned (on their regular monthly billing date) to this new flat rate of $19.95. The TEN VIP Club rate, which grants three months of service for the price of two, will also be reduced, from $59.90 to $39.90.
Total Entertainment Network and the TEN logo are trademarks of T E Network, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners', without intent to infringe.
TEN 1.2 Screen Shots, and a profile of Sean "Bitterboy" McGrath, Are Available Upon Request
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.
Total Entertainment Network and TEN are trademarks
of T E Network, Inc.
Software Creations and WEB BBS are trademarks of Linton Enterprises, Inc., subsidiary of T E Network, Inc.
All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners', without intent to infringe.