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Infinium Share Prospectus Details Firm's Plans

Theoretical Phantom Game Service and current Phantom Lapboard creator Infinium Labs, which <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=7919">recently a...

Simon Carless, Blogger

February 20, 2006

2 Min Read
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Theoretical Phantom Game Service and current Phantom Lapboard creator Infinium Labs, which recently announced that it has received a $5 million dollar funding commitment from Golden Gate Investors, has filed a share prospectus with the SEC, featuring more details on the firm's current status. In fact, most of the details regarding funding difficulties and lawsuits from the firm's December financial statement still endure, but the filing, which was a technicality related to the funding commitment, reveals a number of new details regarding the struggling firm's status. Infinium is now headquartered in Seattle, a move taken by former CEO Kevin Bachus in 2005, and the prospectus lists a total of 17 Infinium employees as of February 9, 2006: "three of whom are in marketing, 8 of whom are in research and development and 6 of whom are general and administrative personnel" - though it states in the prospectus that these three figures add up to 14. The filing also reveals that the company's Seattle offices will shortly be changing, since: "We are currently in default on the lease in the aggregate amount of approximately $127,000. We are currently in negotiations with the landlord to leave the premises at the end of February 2006. We intend to secure alternate corporate office space in Seattle, WA." The company also goes into detail on its marketing plans for the Phantom Lapboard, its main product due for launch this year, which will include a 360-degree rotating keyboard for either left- or right-handed players, and a lapboard for the mouse that allows gamers to play from their armchair. Infinium claims that it will particularly focus on 'viral marketing' surrounding the Lapboard's launch, commenting: "Tactics we intend to utilize are one-to-one and online/viral techniques to identify, communicate and drive hardcore gamers (who are the most likely early adopters) to the Phantom Internet website. We also intend to infiltrate best-in-class video game communities with simple, easy to understand message and seeding on tech blogs, gaming sites and on-line player forums with compelling imagery and links to lapboard eye candy." Despite the funding, the company is still piling on lawsuits to add to the previous list, adding those from Oracle USA Corp, for $198,818, financial site Motley Fool for $70,000, Walter Dorwin Teague Associates for $51,843, and GMR Marketing, for $107,883 (particularly unfortunate since: "Due to an error with our Florida counsel an answer to the complaint was not filed and on February 1, 2005 GMR received a default judgment.") Thus, the company states: "At September 30, 2005, we had a working capital deficit of $11,012,265 and an accumulated deficit of $62,738,784", but it is clearly hoping that the $5 million funding commitment from Golden Gate will help extract it from its increasingly difficult situation.

About the Author

Simon Carless

Blogger

Simon Carless is the founder of the GameDiscoverCo agency and creator of the popular GameDiscoverCo game discoverability newsletter. He consults with a number of PC/console publishers and developers, and was previously most known for his role helping to shape the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Conference for many years.

He is also an investor and advisor to UK indie game publisher No More Robots (Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw), a previous publisher and editor-in-chief at both Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine, and sits on the board of the Video Game History Foundation.

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