CAUTION: Canadian Government may be moving to shut down the Kahnawake Mohawk gaming servers. NOTE: Everest Poker is owned and operated by Ultra Internet Media, S.A., Route 138, P.O.Box 1470, Kahnawake, Quebec J0L1B0, Canada.

• Discussion and more here. Also see our letter to the Winnipeg Sun in support of the Kahnawake Mohawks.
• GigaMedia in working to acquire a backup gaming license in Malta... see GigaMedia final 2007 CC discussions below.
• March 25, 2008: GigaMedia Press Release: No Concern about Canada Regulatory Position.

  Quote:

  On the basis of communications with Canadian counsel and government officials, the Company believes no change in the current licensing system is contemplated. Moreover, in accordance with best practices, GigaMedia maintains disaster recovery and alternate hosting arrangements. [rl yahoo financials ]

At this time we are recommending caution using online gaming sites licensed in Kahnawake.

GigaMedia Limited is listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker: GIGM. Home page here.

• GigaMedia final 2007 conference call is available here. PokerPulse has posted a transcript of the March 11th call here. A few highlights from the Q&A session follow:

• Quote from Arthur's opening remarks:

  Overall, we are very excited about 2008 and expect strong growth in both top and bottom line terms and in our strategic position Europe and Asia. In the short term, we expect a strong first quarter driven by continued outstanding performance in every business unit. In the medium to long term, we believe our strong investments in 2007 have laid the foundation for more dramatic, more exciting growth in the upcoming years.

• Thomas on the Q4 marketing spend:

  What we have noticed is that during the Chinese New Year holiday, this is also a significant pickup in terms of user activity for our FreeStyle game in particular. We obviously target that particular timing with some very festive Chinese New Year marketing campaign and we also ran a campaign with a movie by a famous star, Jay Chou here, and the movie's name is Kung Fu Dunk."

  PokerPulse Note: Jay Chou Kung Fu Slam Dunk -- you can see the movie videoat YouTube here.

   

• On the Kahnawake issue:

  Todd: Ok. And then just one final question. There has been a lot chatter regarding the your Canadian jurisdiction, Kahanawke, internet gaming jurisdiction, regards to the government looking to possibly shut that jurisdiction down. Can you maybe address this. Do you think that's a possibility and if so I'm sure you guys have constituency plans, can you maybe just help us understand what going on there and you'd might do if something like that did happen?

  Arthur: Sure Todd. First of all we see no possibility of that happening in the near term. It is a rumor that has as been circulated around that we see no basis for. Second of all, we are in the final phases of obtaining another gaming licenses in Malta. And so we will have both redundant licensing and redundant operating facilities.

  PokerPulse Note: Malta Lotteries & Gaming Authority site listing Class 1, Class 2, Class 3 and Class 4 licenses is here. More on Malta licensing here.

   

• Note: companies and games mentioned in the 2007 CC are flagged with a ‡ in our Google News search section below.

• Everest Poker Secures Key Multi-year World Series of Poker(R) Agreement [rl Yahoo News]

WSOP Satellites at Everest Poker

 

• The best analysis of GIGM: "ccraft" has consistently provided the best quality estimates in terms of details, assumptions and accuracy. Very fortunately for us, ccraft's estimates for Q1 2008 are freely available at the Yahoo GIGM discussion forum.

Q1 2008 Estimate (revised at Yahoo April 7th, 2008) [ rl GIGM yahoo thread ]
EPS: ~$0.198
Rev: ~$53.67 million
Net Inc: ~$11.87 million
NOTE: Please read all of the notes and explanations ccraft provided at the GIGM yahoo board .

Post your questions for ccraft at the Yahoo forum and you can expect to get a fast and well reasoned response. ccraft's understanding of GIGM financials is second to none in the financial world. Read and profit!!

• November 14th: GigaMedia (GIGM), -- Q3 results conference call is available online [ rl Q3CC ] and the transcript of the call is also available [ rl seekingAlpha ]. Arthur M. Wang opening comments on the Q3 conference call included:

To conclude, looking ahead, in the short-term, we expect a strong fourth quarter, driven by strong growth in all of our businesses in both absolute and percentage terms. More important, we see this growth, combined with the developments now underway, driving continued strong growth momentum in 2008.

• View the past 12 months of web traffic for GigaMedia Online gaming sites, click here.

• Check You Tube for videos feature GigaMedia or their partners, click here.

Quick Clicks for latest news:

• AmericanBulls, • Google News, • knobias, • SmartMoney, • Squeeze Ranking™, • Yahoo!Finance Message Board, • Yahoo!Finance Stats

• View StockCharts.com GIGM charts here.

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GigaMedia Site Watch

Hellgate London: Infocomm Asia Holdings (IAH), of which GIGM holds a 28% interest, has exclusive rights to Hellgate London for South East Asia. IAH and GIGM will operate Hellgate London in the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau regions.

• http://www.hellgate.com.tw was started December 2006. The forums have relatively few new posts in August 2007 as HL is still not released. Check the site forums for announcments here.

Phantasty Star Universe: GIGM has licensed this Sega game for Taiwan and Hong Kong. (RL: GIGM 2006 20-F, page 29 of 505)

• http://www.psu.com.tw appears to have gone live mid July 2007, in a very limited test mode. As of August 16th there were 35 registered users in the discussion forums (rl PSU tester forums).

NaNaiMo : GIGM has licensed this game from Toppig Corporation for the Taiwan and Hong Kong regions. (RL: GIGM 2006 20-F, page 29 of 505)

• http://www.NaNaiMo.com.hk appears to have been registered in June 2007. Status appears to be limited to test mode -- maximum simultateous online testers posting in the test forum was 135 on August 15, 2007. The total registered testers was 1006 on August 16th. (rl view forums here).
• http://www.NaNaiMo.com.tw is registered but does not have game content as of August 15, 2007.

WorldSeriesMJ.com : a GIGM site with name servers set to dns01.funtown.hk and dns02.funtown.hk

• http://www.worldseriesmj.com was created in December 2005. View English version here.
• GigaMedia is listed at the offical World Mahjong Championship website.
• www.mjonline.ca is a site tracking the evolution of Mahjong with a focus on revenues.

Please send us an e-mail (click here) with your updates on these or other pre-release GIGM websites you encounter. We expect to find a Japanese game site with Pichinko and Pachislo, Mahjong, a DragonGate site, and much more. Thank-you!!

Click here for a complete list of GigaMedia web sites and related links.

GigaMedia Business Relationship Google News
Use these key word(s) to catch breaking Google News on companies and products related to GIGM.

Click on the links under Google News Search to view current news hits. Although some search strings currently do not return any hits items, the link is kept on this list in the expectation of finding future news events of interest to GIGM watchers.

Click on links in the Note column for more information. All links shown as (RL: xxx) are to reference material, typically a security exchange commission filed document, with material to support the notes content. (Note: Some terms currently do not have any news.)

NOTE: All Google News Search terms flagged with a ‡ were mentioned in the March 11, 2008 conference call for Q4 2007 and full year results.

Everest Casino is operated by Ultra Internet Media and powered by GIGM software. (RL: GIGM 2006 20-F, page 27 of 505)

Download Everest Casino for Free Now!

Everest Poker is operated by Ultra Internet Media and powered by GIGM software. (RL: GIGM 2006 20-F, page 27 of 505).

Download Everest Poker for Free Now!

Granado Espada (GE) is a MMORPG developed IMC Games and published by Hanbitsoft Inc. The9 Limited has an exclusive GE license for the China market. GE has launched commerically in Korea and Japan. (RL: The9 2006 20-F, page 37). Infocomm has licensed GE for most of Southeast Asia. (RL: GIGM 2006 20-F, page 25 of 505).
more on Granado Espada: • Infocomm Asia site • offical web site • wikipedia
• interview with Hak Kyu Kim, GE creator (August 2007)

Hellgate:London (HL) is a MMORPG published by Hanbitsoft Inc. and developed by Flagship Studios . The9 Limited has an exclusive HL license for the China market. (RL: The9 2006 20-F, page 37) HL was at a pre closed beta test as of July 2007. Infocomm Asia has an exclusive HL license for much of Southeast Asia. Dragongate Enterprises (joint GIGM and IAH venture) will operate HL in the territories of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. (RL: GIGM 2006 20-F, page 29 of 505)
more on Hellgate:London: • Infocomm Asia • official site • wikipedia
• Watch Cheryl, from IAHGames, interview David Brevik, HGL Chief Visionary Officer, here.

‡ denotes search terms that were mentioned in on the March 11, 2008 conference call for Q4 and full year 2007 results.

Wrench: What happened to GIGM's Wrench investment?

"Wretch shares was terminated on May 8, 2007, the closing date of the acquisition of Wretch by Yahoo! Taiwan. ... In connection with the termination of the subscription rights agreement, we also entered into a co-operation agreement with Yahoo! Taiwan. (RL: GIGM 2006 20-F, page 52 of 505)

An August 8, 2008, www.yahoo.com.tw check showed a FunTown.com.tw banner running near the top of the page. The www.yahoo.com.tw has a traffic rank of "1". Is this part of the co-operation?

Samuel Chou was appointed the GigaMedia head of online gaming in April 2007. Before GigaMedia, Mr. Chou was chairman and chief executive officer of Warner Music for the Greater China Region from 2004 to 2006.  Prior to that, Mr. Chou was managing director of Warner Music in Taiwan.

GigaMedia's expansion into online gaming started in April 2004 when GigaMedia Limited acquired Cambridge Entertainment Software ("CES"), a software developer and application service provider. CES handles the developoment and licensing of online poker software --Everest Poker (UIM is the Everest Poker site operator) is CES's major customer. CES and UIM are located in/near Montreal Quebec. Prior to 2002, GigaMedia's primary business was the provision of broadband Internet access services in Taiwan. GigaMedia royalty rates earned from UIM:

• Royalties for Games of Chance Software - the royalty shall be equal to Forty-two percent (42%) of Gross Revenues (“Royalty Rate”) derived from the Games of Chance Software, received in the particular Calculation Period, effective March 1, 2007. [Source: page 412 of 455 in 2006 Form 20-F].
• Royalties Software Royalties for Multi Player Game Software - the royalty shall be equal to Seventeen and one half percent (17.5%) of Gross Revenues (“Royalty Rate”) derived from the Multi-Player Game Software, received in the particular Calculation Period, effective January 1, 2007. [Source: page 412 of 455 in 2006 Form 20-F]
• Prior to 2007, GigaMedia royalty rates were 45% for Games of Chance Software and 16% for multi-player game software. [Source: Exhibit 4.41 in 2005 Form 20-F]
• GigaMedia's software agreement with UIM runs for 10 years starting April 1, 2004. [Source: page 77 of 437 in 2005 Form 20-F]

GigaMedia secured an exclusive license to offer and operate Hellgate: London in the territories of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. In March 2007, Gigamedia secured an exclusive license from the SEGA Corporation to offer and operate Phantasy Star Universe in the territories of Taiwan and Hong Kong.
• Phantasy Star Universe news here.

In December 2005, GigaMedia acquired FunTown (more on FunTown sites here), an Asian casual games portal, and operator of an online MahJong site. FunTown generates revenues through access fees and also through the sales of various in-game items. FunTown operates a TalesRunner game site in Hong Kong. FunTown operations throughout Greater China [Source: page 49 in 2006 Form 20-F].

In April, 2006, GigaMedia China, a GigaMedia subsiduary, entered into a strategic partnership agreement with T2CN. In 2007, GigaMedia took a majority equity ownership in T2CN (51.1% on page 25 of 2006 Form 20-F filing). T2CN has revenue streams and marketing partnerships with international brands including Coca-Cola, Nike and Nokia.• More details T2CN deal details here,
• T2CN news here.

In December, 2006 GigaMedia entered into a strategic alliance with Infocomm Asia, and in February 2007 took a 32% equity position in this Southeast Asian online gaming platform provider. Games include titles such as Granado Espada and Hellgate: London. Infocomm Asia home here. Gigamedia has obtained exclusive licenses for Hellgate:London in the territories of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
• Infocomm Asia news here, • Hellgate:London news here

In December 2006, GigaMedia entered into a licensing agreement with a subsidiary of the Carmen Media Group, an online entertainment provider, through which GigaMedia has licensed certain of its gaming software.
• Carmen Media Group news here.

In February, 2007, GigaMedia secured an exclusive license from the Toppig Corporation, a Korean company, to offer and operate NaNaiMo in the territories of Taiwan and Hong Kong. NaNaiMois an online action role-playing game expected to be launched in late 2007.
• Toppig Corporation news here.

In June 2007, GigaMedia formed a strategic alliance with SoftStar Entertainment Inc . and made an initial investment of NT$60 million (or approximately US$1.8 million) for the acquisition of 10 million convertible preferred shares of SoftStar. [Source: GIGM 2006 Form 20-F revised filing June 29, 2007, page 52]. SoftStar is a games design house and online game operator in Taiwan. SoftStar has announced plans in 2005 for Xbox 360 game development (link here but no xbox 360 titles found -- please e-mail us if you know of any SoftStar Xbox titles. ).
• SoftStar Entertainment news here.

As of June 15, 2007, GigaMedia was the owner of 37 software copyrights and 34 trademarks registered with various government agencies throughout Greater China and Taiwan. GigaMedia also hold licenses for the operation of five online games, including Tales Runner, Fortress 2, Hellgate: London, Phantasy Star Universe and NaNaiMo.

On July 26, 2007, T2CN announced that T2CN has the rights to operate SP Jam in China. SP Jam is a 3D snowboard game (preview it on YouTube) and is scheduled for launch in 2008 by NCSoft.

• Please e-mail corrections and additions for this GIGM research page. Thank-you!!

Note: the source for the above information is the GIGM 2006 Form 20-F revised filing June 29, 2007 unless otherwise stated.