Game Finance
Posted by benadmin on Thursday, November 7 2002

Player One Finance Ltd, a newly established offshoot of Player One Limited, has, with BIEF Limited, created an exclusive arrangement for funding the development, manufacturing and marketing of video games. The expansion of Player One into games financing enables it to capitalise on the wealth of opportunities in the fast growing interactive games sector, worth $20bn worldwide.

This exclusive financing relationship means that Player One Finance will have exclusive and direct access to funds for selected games and will provide BIEF with a clear and focused route into the UK and European games marketplace. The first three game franchises to be financed this way will be based on Tiger Aspect's Mr Bean animated series, a classic western movie trilogy and Frankie Dettori. "Access to funding clearly drives what gets published and what doesn't, and there is only so much investment that publishers are willing to make", commented Player One Finance's Managing Director Gordon Dawson. "By offering funding for game development, the cost of stock manufacture and, where necessary, marketing, our facility will help developers and publishers cashflow their projects whilst taking the pressure off publishers who have increasingly full investment slates. Player One Finance will be able to offer developers a chance to produce games that may never have reached the prototype stage, on an unrivalled scale." Gordon Dawson continued "we anticipate utilising in excess of Euro100m through this facility over the course of the next few years".

Ed Atkinson, BIEF's representative commented "The video games market is an opportunity for us. With Player One's experience we believe we are perfectly placed to take advantage of the growth of games being developed within the UK and Europe for sale to the global market. Our experience of arranging funding in the film and television industries demonstrates that we are ideal partners for Player One Finance to implement a financing model of this kind".

For further information, please contact:

Player One Finance Gordon Dawson, Managing Director +44 (0)20 8408 8021

Website: www.player-1.net

About Player One: Player One is in the business of developing and exploiting Intellectual Properties through the channels of interactive games and sponsorship. Launched in 1999 as a licensing and sponsorship agency, specialising in sport and entertainment, Player One has evolved into a new and unique role as a computer and video games production company, building on its successful and established business of IP licensing within the games industry.

These licensing successes include : Manchester United as part of Codemaster's Club Football series; Mat Hoffman PRO BMX and Mat Hoffman PRO BMX 2, now one of Activision's core game franchises on all game platforms; Rolling, an inline skating game due for multi platform release through Rage Games early in 2003, ITF Davis Cup Tennis that was developed for GBA and released by Ubisoft in June 2002 and Frankie Dettori, due for release on mobile formats by Digital Bridges.

About BIEF: BIEF are the UK affiliate of Comerica Entertainment Group, a leader in international entertainment lending adept at servicing the specialised needs of entertainment-based companies.

Contact : Ed Atkinson +44 (0)20 7578 7034.

Website: www.bief.co.uk