NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A contingent of seasoned game industry veterans, including lifelong video game and tech entrepreneur Tom Frisina, pulled back the curtain today on Tilting Point Media, a company built to address the growing needs of independent developers in the rapidly growing but capricious mobile and tablet video game markets. Evolving beyond the traditional definition of a digital publisher, Tilting Point aligns itself with top independent development talent and offers the funding, support, and resources to give carefully selected games mainstream success. The company is investing $40 million in the next three years to fund the development and marketing of mobile and tablet games while executing groundbreaking marketing campaigns and providing unbiased, data-driven advice to game creators through a number of strategic partnerships.
“Our view is that independent developers own the future of games,” said Tom Frisina, Executive Chairman of Tilting Point. “However, a studio’s potential can be severely hindered without a partner they can trust to help navigate the challenges of discoverability and monetization. We will nurture the best teams, positioning them for independent success over the long term. We’re taking the expertise and resourcefulness gained from our combined backgrounds and applying them to a new publishing model, where development talent gains the tools to control their own destiny.”
Over the past year, Tilting Point has signed agreements with several of the world’s most successful game makers, including Signal Mobile, Housemarque, and 1337 Game Design & Senri, with more high profile deals in negotiation. The company will release its first titles in 2013 while continuing to grow its assemblage of elite development partners.
“We’d describe Tilting Point as our co-pilot,” said D.R. Albright III, President and Creative Director at Signal Mobile. “They are facilitating us reaching our goals without taking over our intellectual property. Signal is excited to be working with Tilting Point and I look forward to releasing our first game together in 2013.”
The Tilting Point team will be at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco from March 25-29. Contact information is available on www.tiltingpoint.com, and regular updates will be available on www.facebook.com/tiltingpoint and on Twitter @tiltingpoint.
Full bios of the Tilting Point team are listed below. Tilting Point has also hired a prominent mobile game exec to take over as VP of Product Management and Revenue, and will announce details later this month.
Tom Frisina, Executive Chairman. Tom Frisina has been an interactive entertainment entrepreneur for 30 years, including 13 years at Electronic Arts, where he founded EA Partners and served as its General Manager. He is the former Chairman of thatgamecompany, developers of Journey, one of the top-selling games on PlayStation Network and the first downloadable game ever to win the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences award for Game of the Year. Tom currently fills an Endowed Professor’s Chair for Interactive Media at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, underwritten by a grant from Electronic Arts.
Kevin Segalla, Chief Executive Officer. Kevin Segalla’s role as CEO evolved from CFC Capital’s investment in Tilting Point. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of CFC Capital, a specialty finance and investment management firm focused on digital media, entertainment, and real estate. CFC Capital’s specialty finance arm is a market leader in tax-enhanced investing, having provided funding to over 100 film, television, and digital media productions for clients such as Disney, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, DreamWorks, and WWE.
Dan Sherman, President & Chief Operating Officer. Prior to forming Tilting Point, Dan Sherman led the execution of video game co-publishing and distribution partnerships in North America and Asia as Director of Business Development for EA Partners. In this function, Dan negotiated partnerships with some of the world’s leading video game developers, including Respawn Entertainment, Insomniac Games, and Id Software, and played a key role in securing and expanding relationships with Harmonix Music Systems and Valve, growing EA Partners’ revenue fivefold to over $500 million a year.
Jim Hsu, SVP of Legal & Business Affairs. Jim Hsu is Tilting Point’s General Counsel, leveraging over 15 years of corporate and commercial legal practice and dealmaking for the benefit of Tilting Point, its developer partners, and their intellectual property. Previously, he was Senior Counsel at Zynga and Electronic Arts, where he was lead lawyer on a variety of partnerships for social, mobile, PC, and console games, including strategic licensing and distribution agreements and complex corporate transactions.
Steve Coallier, Senior Director of Development. A 24-year veteran of video game development, Steve Coallier supports Tilting Point’s partners throughout the development process while ensuring compliance with platform licensor requirements. He was previously Vice President of Product Development at enVie Interactive, developer and publisher of an online virtual world. During his 17-year tenure at Electronic Arts, Steve shipped over 30 titles in a variety of product development roles.
Jesse Divnich, Advising Board Member. Jesse Divnich, Vice President of Insights at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), is one of the most widely-referenced analysts covering all segments of the game industry. As part of a partnership agreement with Tilting Point, Jesse and his Insights Team at EEDAR will supply Tilting Point development partners with industry-leading market analytics and valuable recommendations. Mr. Divnich has over 12 years of industry experience, half of which was providing financial consultations to investors and the other half dedicated to publishers and developers.
Trevor Kaufman, Advising Board Member. Trevor Kaufman brings digital marketing expertise to Tilting Point. He is the former CEO and founder of Possible Worldwide, a WPP-owned global interactive marketing agency, and is now the CEO of Tinypass, a provider of ecommerce software for media companies. Trevor has won numerous creative and business awards for his groundbreaking work, most notably a Cannes Lion for Google’s ArtProject, an Emmy for putting the Beijing Olympics online, selection for the OMMA Media All-Stars, and inclusion as one of Newsweek’s “50 Most Important People on the Internet.”
About Tilting Point
Tilting Point is servicing the unmet needs of a rapidly changing video game industry with an exclusive focus on the world’s most successful independent developers, empowering them with expert resources to achieve critical and commercial success across a diversified range of high-quality, original franchises. The company adheres to a core philosophy of putting development talent first, advancing industry-leading analytics, and overcoming discoverability hurdles with aggressive, state-of-the-art marketing.