Press Release

Gamespy-Trymedia agreement enables digital distribution of full games online

The agreement marks an important milestone in the development of the market for digitally distributed games. According to recent market research reports, revenues from digital distribution of games in 2003 is expected to be $120 million, but the majority of those revenues have come, so far, from casual games.

“GameSpy and Trymedia together will blow open the doors to digital distribution revenues from the gaming enthusiast market – a market that currently buys $10 billion of games a year in the US,” said Gabe Zichermann, VP of strategy for Trymedia. “GameSpy is already the leading distributor of game files on the Internet, and the broadband audience of their sites already downloads huge numbers of game demos, and is used to buying products and services online.”

Currently, GameSpy reaches more than 14 million users a month, according to comScore Media Metrix, and more than 70% of those users have broadband connections. GameSpy’s FilePlanet site distributes as much as 30 terabytes of game demos in a day, demonstrating the key role that FilePlanet plays in file distribution to gamers.

As a licensee of Trynedia’s technology, GameSpy will operate and manage its own licensing servers, and has established direct sourcing relationships with game publishers, giving the company a huge amount of flexibility in creating exciting packages of games and services for its users. As such, GameSpy will be able to offer unique games, in unique combinations and through business models that most directly appeal to GameSpy’s enthusiast audience.

“We’re paving new market ground with Trymedia,” noted Mark Surfas, chairman of GameSpy Industries. “GameSpy has the audience, and the back-end operational prowess that comes from running the gaming information industry’s most successful free and paid download services. Trymedia has key technology that makes it possible for publishers to distribute their products online quickly, easily and securely. Leveraging our other assets, we’re able to negotiate licensing relationships with publishers that offer better value to both the publishers themselves and our users that buy their games.”

“We’re here to build new revenues for games publishers,” added Trymedia’s Zichermann. “GameSpy reaches the kind of true gaming enthusiasts that drive the games market. By working together, we’re able to increase the immediate sales of new titles and extend the lifetimes of the great games released in previous years.”

GameSpy’s license to the Trymedia technology is multiple years in length, and allows GameSpy to offer games via a variety of models, including Buy and Download (with no trial mode), Try and Buy (with a free trial that converts to an immediate purchase) or Try and Die (where a full game is time limited and used as a trial version).

As part of the agreement, Trymedia will provide GameSpy with titles from the ActiveMARK-enabled catalogue of games by leading publishers and independent developers, to supplement the titles that GameSpy is licensing directly from game publishers..

“We have the right relationships and the right technology to successfully launch digital distribution,” Surfas said. “We think we’re in the best position of any company today to make digital distribution a mainstream channel for AAA game titles.”

GameSpy expects to make its first game titles available for digital purchase in the month of November 2003.

About GameSpy
GameSpy is the Web's #1 location for online information, entertainment and communities serving the enthusiast gamer worldwide according to comScore. The GameSpy network has nearly 300,000 subscribers and 14 million unique visitors per month. GameSpy is also the leading provider of technology for online game play in video games. Founded in 1995, privately held GameSpy is headquartered in Irvine, Calif.

About Trymedia
Trymedia Systems’ DRM technology provides the neutral foundation for a wide range of services dedicated to optimizing game and software sales in digital channels for top-tier content publishers. Major portals and other high-traffic Internet destinations, as well as the largest Peer-to-Peer Networks collect revenues by making a catalogue of Trymedia-enabled games and software available to audiences in 25 countries. Founded in 1999, Trymedia pioneered numerous key successes in the digital distribution business, and has powered more than 20 million legitimate software downloads in the past twelve months. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, and maintains offices in Europe.

GameSpy, FilePlanet and the GameSpy logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of GameSpy Industries, Inc. Trymedia and ActiveMark are trademarks of Trymedia Systems Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

For more information or questions contact:

GameSpy Industries
Chris Wildermuth
949-798-4200
chrisw@gamespy.com

Trymedia Systems
Linda Meyers
meyerspr@earthlink.net
925-408-9565

The Bohle Company
Laura Weir
310-785-0515 x262
lauraw@bohle.com