Troubled Transgaming shifts to pay-for model for GameTreeTV

Shares of Transgaming have fallen from a high of $.58 cents in February to a low yesterday of just $.055. Signing carrier deals for GameTreeTV, an on demand gaming system that works much the way Netflix does for movies, has proved a difficult proposition. Transgaming (TSX:TNG) today announced it will move its GameTree TV platform to a pay-for model.

The company says it will charge a monthly subscription-only service priced at 4.99 euros. For that price, it will deliver a continually refreshed catalogue of at least forty games, the company said in a press release this morning.

Shares of Transgaming have fallen from a high of $.58 cents in February to a low yesterday of just $.055. Signing carrier deals for GameTreeTV, an on demand gaming system that works much the way Netflix does for movies, has proved a difficult proposition.

CEO Vikas Gupta had a positive take on the move: “With this upgrade of GameTree TV, we have fully transitioned our business model to a subscription-only service at 4.99 euros per month for over 40 games, representing the best value of any content available on Free today. The addition of Android support means we can easily deliver this unparalleled experience on even more providers worldwide,” he said. “This is the most important GameTree TV release since the initial launch last year. We expect overall average revenue per user to increase and new opportunities with Android to materialize. This also sets the foundation for a road map of incredible features and capabilities that will be deployed in the coming months.”

Toronto-based Transgaming got its start more than a decade ago, designing porting software that allowed PC gamers to play games on other platforms without the time and cost of rewriting code. The software became especially useful to gaming giant Electronics Arts because it could save money on coders while publishing simultaneously on multiple platforms. With this model, TransGaming revenue crept up from $1.59 million in fiscal 2008 to $5.07 in fiscal 2011. Two years ago, however, the company announced a more ambitious plan; it was partnering with Intel to create what would become GameTreeTV.

While the rollout of the GameTreeTV was plagued by delays, the company seemed to be capturing momentum this year. The acquisition of the interactive TV division of Oberon Media, a New York-based games distributor added more than a hundred game titles to TransGaming’s portfolio, including iconic Hasbro titles such as Scrabble, Risk, and Monopoly.

Transgaming says it will launch the pay-for version of GameTreeTV first with French telecom Free, then make the service available to other carriers.

At press time, shares of Transgaming were up 27% to $.07.

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