PLÄTTCHEN – twist ’n’ paint is a puzzle shooter with more than 100 hours and over 300 levels of gameplay for up to 8 players and available for around 1400 points via the Nintendo Wii virtual console shop.

Read the full press release after the jump or Go play at Bobblebrook

Vienna-based start-up launches free online games service for non-core gamers.

VIENNA, AUSTRIA – May 1st, 2008
Right on time for your morning coffee, Austrian start-up bobblebrook have launched their online-game website bobblebrook.com.
bobblebrook.com features small browser-based games (so-called “Flash games”), ideally suited for a short break at the office or a quick distraction while your lasagna is baking.

“Casual gaming has become a huge trend in recent years”, says Markus Mundjar, one of the Viennese company’s two founders, “In the 1990s, gaming had a very well defined audience primarily consisting of technology enthusiasts. Now, with a computer in every home and ubiquitous broadband access, the target group has widened considerably!”
His co-founder Philipp Seifried adds: “A lot of the kids who grew up playing video games in the 80s and 90s now have jobs and families. They still like to play games, but they can’t afford to sit down for three hours and learn the interface of the next great strategy game.”

This is where casual games come in – games that are easy to pick up and that can be played for 15 minutes at a time.
Casual gaming has become a large market. The Casual Games Association has estimated a total volume of 1.5 billion USD spread over 150 million gamers for 2008*, a substantial percentage of which are women over thirty. Indeed, some outlets report that as much as 75 percent of their audience are female**.
“The barriers of entry into the market are still very low.”, says Philipp Seifried, “While a mainstream title can run in the tens of millions of Dollars, casual games can be produced with budgets that are two or three orders of magnitude smaller.”

In fact, the start-up aims to release a new Flash game every four to six weeks. “We plan to have ten titles online within the first year.”, says Markus Mundjar, “The quick release cycles are a great motivation for us. We can try out a lot of unusual ideas and concepts within projects that are so short they are essentially free of risk.”
“We spend a lot of time working on the emotional aspects of our games,” says Philipp Seifried, “but the actual execution can be very quick. We both have an educational background in media-design, and we handle every step of the production ourselves, from concept to programming, all the way to graphics and music. Essentially, we have a huge playground here, where we get to try out different aesthetics and sharpen our skills.” “And we get to entertain people”, adds Markus Mundjar, “and give them a great way to spend their time, all for free!”

This approach of experimenting with concepts and producing highly polished small games is visible in the diversity of the three launch titles: “A Good Hunch” is a platform game featuring two time-travelling goats, “Twizzle” an innovative puzzle game based on pushing a sphere through different circular orbits; “drifts” is a reworked version of an action game released two years ago, which, placed on a single site with no other related content, gathered over half a million pageviews within the first year.

bobblebrook estimates that their Flash games will be able to finance themselves within the first year, using a strategy that combines banner-advertising on bobblebrook.com and a range of services provided to other businesses. “We have worked in advertising and have good relationships with local design agencies. All our Flash games can be licensed and co-branded to add value to advertisement campaigns.”, says Markus Mundjar.
In addition to growing its portfolio of free online games, the company also has a commercial downloadable title in production. Pre-production on a second offline title has begun as well. “Our long term strategy is based both on free browser-based games and commercial offline games.”, notes Philipp Seifried, “The offline titles take a lot longer to produce, so our Flash games have the additional benefit that they allow us to see which ideas work great and which not so well.”
“Flash games are also really good at attracting visitors”, adds Markus Mundjar, “When you’re developing a commercial title, it never hurts to have an audience that already knows what standards of quality to expect from your games!”

For now the 10tacle Vienna site is still up, with a link directing to the 10tacle mothership and an ominous “coming soon” message. It appears we’re sadly scratching one more games studio out of the Vienna industry, good luck to all of those affected by this.

If anyone can confirm / dispel these rumors, has more info on the closure, or as to what 10t Vienna was working on, feel free to leave a comment below.

Update 1: The as-yet unconfirmed closure of 10t Vienna could have a lot to do with 10tacle’s financial problems, recently outlined in their restructuring press release from last week, where they announced a 25% reduction in marketing and non-product development staff. Read it after the jump along with a screencap of 10tacle’s 3 month share chart.

10TACLE STUDIOS AG agrees finance package with Hamburg-based private – CEO Michele Pes announces share purchase.

Darmstadt, Germany, March 17, 2008: 10TACLES STUDIOS AG has entered into an agreement with Hamburg-based ship owner Bertram Rickmers regarding a finance package for the company. Rickmers already holds approx. nine percent of the company’s shares. Over the previous weeks, market rumors had negatively impacted on the company’s refinancing options. The investment package tied up with one of the major stockholders also includes a convertible bond issue, for which a capital increase of 614,750 shares, having a subscription price of € 2.50 per share, is intended. There are no plans to grant subscription rights to any other stockholders. The Managing Board expects that, as a result of this agreement, other company projects could also be successfully implemented over the short term. This would have a positive effect on the company’s liquidity situation, which has of late been impacted by the uncertain market prospects.

At present, 10TACLE STUDIOS AG has overdue claims against at least three different fund investors, totaling € 13.4 million. The company’s management is proceeding on the assumption that the settlement of a large portion of these claims with its debtors will be feasible over the next 14 days. At present, it seems unlikely that these claims would need to be written down in the company’s annual financial statements for the 2007 fiscal year. The production-to-stock underlying these claims have a high intrinsic value.

However, falling short of the forecast published for the 2007 fiscal year can no longer be excluded. In its interim report of November 19, 2007, 10TACLE STUDIOS AG had already indicated that substantial delays have been incurred in the production of ELVEON and TOTEMS.

As the development of the console games ELVEON and TOTEMS has resulted in additional costs – as will be shown in the individual financial statements of the relevant subsidiaries –, a negative impact on the Group results must be assumed. Due to other compensating effects and a number of valuation issues still to be clarified, a binding statement with regard to achieving the projected figures for 2007 will only be possible at the end of March 2008. The company will release the preliminary figures for the 2007 fiscal year no later than Monday, March 31, 2008. The publication of the audited financial statements is planned for late April 2008. It should be noted that the delay in the above productions has in no way impacted on the – initially projected – intrinsic value of these products. This is confirmed by the fact that well known publishers have made offers for the global marketing of the game ELVEON in particular.

As a result of the effects described above, the 10TACLE Group experienced a strained liquidity situation. Without additional finance, the Group may not have been able to serve its medium-term liabilities. However, this threat has been averted thanks to the funding package agreed with the private investor Bertram Rickmers. Should the reduction in receivables, contrary to expectations, experience further delays, the company has a number of financing options at its disposal to safeguard liquidity.

Moreover, a comprehensive restructuring of the 10TACLE Group has been agreed upon in order to optimize the company’s organization, making it more transparent for market participants. At the heart of this re-alignment is the consistent positioning of 10TACLE STUDIOS AG as a development and production company. In the future, the classic tasks of marketing and sales will be performed almost exclusively by publishing partners. This measure, which has already been fleshed out by a number of cooperation agreements, has already brought about noticeable effects, both in terms of the capital invested in the prefinance of marketing costs and in terms of physical products. One welcome side effect for the company is the positive feedback received from publishing partners, as 10TACLE does not act in competition to traditional publishers, but has positioned itself as their cooperative business partner.

Cost savings have already been realized or initiated in the following areas:

Overall, 25% of the Group’s staff who are not directly involved in the product development (marketing, overheads, etc) will be made redundant. The company has been trying – and will continue to do so – to transfer these staff members into new positions with companies in related industries.

Furthermore, the company has decided to close its Bratislava site, which has been responsible for the ELVEON production up till now. The tasks for the finalization of production have already been assigned to other locations and the cooperation partner Climaxgroup in Southampton, England. The restructuring process will continue in full swing; the new cost and efficiency-optimized structure should be ready by no later than the summer of 2008.

The company’s management expects a strongly positive news flow for the company over the coming weeks.

The Group will expand in the area of investor relations, controlling and finance. In addition, the search for a suitable Chief Financial Officer (CFO) also continues unabated, with discussions currently under way.
Michele Pes, CEO of 10TACLE STUDIOS AG:

’10TACLE STUDIOS AG is a young enterprise. Regrettably, the delays in the production of ELVEON and TOTEMS have excessively undermined the trust placed in our company. Combined with the global crisis in the entire financial market, a situation has arisen in which we were penalized with unexpected harshness. In the view of the experts, including the research specialists analyzing our company data, our company’s market capitalisation is disproportionately low, despite the problems indicated. For a short while, the 10TACLE Group was traded at a value that corresponded to the value of one single large production in the console games area. The 10TACLE Group operates an integral studio network, produces for all common formats such as PC, X-Box, Playstation III and Nintendo DS, has a comprehensive line-up, and also holds an impressive range of valuable licenses for the production of games. Young in years, 10TACLE is still an exception in the market. Many competitors, some of which have a significantly longer history in the market as game development companies, have not yet been able to achieve the market position and relevance that we are already enjoying after only four years in business. Sure, we have made mistakes in our ‘youthful’ exuberance, but the result is nevertheless remarkable. We count the top names from the publishing world among our customers, with the world-leading publishing house Electronic Arts being one of our main partners. 10TACLE’s license portfolio contains high-caliber brands such as FERRARI. What’s more, 10TACLE has attained a promising position in the growth market for educational and advertising games, launching productions such as Happy Hippos World Tour and BMW World.

The staff of 10TACLE STUDIOS AG and its respective subsidiaries have created a company within a very short period of time that has rightly conquered its position in the market and will maintain this position despite the current challenges. The management thanks these staff members for their outstanding contribution. As the Chief Executive Officer, I am confident that the measures introduced will restore investors’ confidence and a fair valuation for staff, partners, and stockholders of 10TACLE STUDIOS AG.

Following the publication of this press release, I – as a manager of this company – will also acquire further shares in the company, to a degree that is disproportionately high when you take into consideration my financial situation.’

About 10TACLE STUDIOS AG

10TACLE STUDIOS AG, listed in the General Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (German securities ID number (WKN): TACL10, ISIN DE000TACL107) is an independent development and production company for high-end computer and video games and a market leader in Europe. The products of 10TACLE STUDIOS AG meet the highest international standards and cover all the relevant high-growth segments of the games market. The company operates out of its headquarters in Darmstadt and its development sites in Berlin, Darmstadt, Duisburg, Hanover, Budapest, Charleroi, London, Singapore and Vienna.

Press release via Game Banshee