INTERACTIVE entertainment company, Asian Media has unveiled a new a subsidiary that would serve as the company’s online gaming brand.
IAM Interactive Inc. intends to focus on the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia, which are the original markets for Asian Media’s online gaming business.
Asian Media also intends to expand to other businesses, which according to IAM Interactive President and CEO Fadzly Yusof, will be announced later.
Yusof said the company aims to build the IAM Interactive brand through investments in promotions and advertising as well as community building for its players.
“If there are any more investments for infrastructure, it will be upgrades of our game servers to provide the best experience to our players,” Yusof said.
He added that they are expecting increased capacity of gamers from the three countries they serve once they have launched their new games.
Yusof is also confident that by targeting the three countries, they could extend their revenue stream. “We could be bigger than the big online gaming companies.”
Part of their operational overhaul is shifting from pay-to-play online gaming services to free-to-play, which they would start with the casual Japanese mecha-styled first person shooter game Exteel.
He said the free-to-play model would be applied in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. “We’ve not fully maximized these markets so there’s a lot of potential business from them,” he added.
Two other games are set to launch in the second to third quarter of 2009. Both would also be free-to-play.
Incidentally, Yusof said Lineage II, developed by NCsoft, would remain a pay-to-play game. However, there are some plans to turn it into free-to-play in Russia where it is published.
“If it works there, we could bring it here,” he said.
Asian Media signed a US$5.5 million distribution deal with NCsoft in 2007, which gave Asian Media the right to distribute the game in the three countries.
Yusof said the free-to-play model is more appealing to gamers.
He added that the current US recession would not likely have dire effects on the online gaming industry simply because players would use online gaming as a cheaper form of entertainment.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:11 am
…and here I thought Lineage 2 would be free to play now…tsk..tsk..sayang! I’ve been playing this since 2007 (I just realized this now through this blog!) and I am telling you its a sinking ship! No new players are coming in, usually when you see newbies running around its a second character or more from an old player! Inflation is insane! Less and less wares being peddled on the streets…FTP will save it! Also having 3 servers doesn’t help the game environment…the cadmus server is practically empty!
I love this game but if this dry spell doesn’t let up its bye bye Aden for me!
April 18th, 2009 at 4:53 am
Lolz check the pc landscape in the PH before assuming anything.
January 27th, 2009 at 4:09 am
[...] Interactive teaser site Footnotes 1. December 19, 2008. Hackenslash. Alex Villafania. Asian Media creates online game division. 2. January 23, 2009. AMDG News. iAM Interactive to Introduce New Account Management System. [...]
January 16th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Free to play? Good lord, no!
January 1st, 2009 at 6:04 pm
that 5.5m deal was the stupidest deal in gaming history and now they hired a foreigner to fix the mess made by the previous management. I hope this new move will help them out. check his linkedin, he was from levelupgames and also nexon so i am sure it will be the best thing they have done in a long time since they have someone that actually knows about the BUSINESS. I WANT TO PLAY EXTEEL