Frogster America Inc. launch
Berlin-based publisher opens US office headed by Sean Kauppinen.
Frogster Interactive Pictures AG founded its North American subsidiary Frogster America Inc. yesterday in San Francisco as planned. Sean Kauppinen, a very well-connected US games industry veteran has joined to take an interim CEO role. Sean Kauppinen has been active in the US games industry for over 14 years and successfully arranged the market introductions of various blockbuster computer games in his position as a vice president of a leading US games communications agency and in various positions with Sony Online Entertainment, Ubisoft, and other top gaming companies. Dirk Meyer zu Drewer, a German senior finance professional working in the US since 1998 takes the Secretary and interim CFO role. Andreas Weidenhaupt, CEO of Frogster Online Gaming GmbH, is joining the board as a (non-executive) VP. Christoph Gerlinger, CEO of Frogster Interactive Pictures AG, serves as (non-executive) chairman of the board.
The game servers of Frogster America Inc. designed for hosting, accounting and billing transactions of the highly anticipated massively multiplayer online game ‘Runes of Magic’ in the USA were also already set up yesterday. Frogster America is looking to launch the commercial service of ‘Runes of Magic’ before year-end.
Frogster Interactive Pictures AG considers its MMO game ‘Runes of Magic’ a keystone opportunity to move into the attractive North American market and to quickly establish its own customer base. The Berlin based Frogster Group sees thousands of new players’ registrations from North America each week, even without Frogster having spent any effort or funds on marketing there until now. ‘Runes of Magic’ was named the ‘Best Free-to-play-Game’ of the Games Convention 2008 by Ten Ton Hammer, an industry leading MMO media outlet, and is regularly listed among the Top 5 in the unofficial US MMO game charts of upcoming MMO games at www.mmorpg.com.