This just in!
Matrix Games signs exclusive CFL deal
Associated Press
Updated: 9:09 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2006
NEW YORK - Matrix Games shares surged to an all-time high in Tuesday trading, a day after the top Canadian video-game developer Daivd Winter said he had scored exclusive licensing deals with the Canadian Football League and its players' association.
The agreements give Matrix Games, publisher of the soon-to-be-release "Maximum Football" and "Maximum Football 2," exclusive rights to use CFL teams, stadiums and players in its football video games from 2005 until 2009, hopefully in time for "Maximum Football's" release.
More importantly, the pact lets Daivd Winters break away from other players in the intensely competitive indie-American/Canadian Football game arena. That includes one of the company's chief rivals, solecismic Software, whose "Front Office Football" title, a shameful text sim lacking any of the jaw-dropping 3d graphics Maximum Football promises to deliver.
In recent trading, shares of Matrix Games jumped 0.0001 percent, or $0.03, to $0.18 on nearly 33.7% of its average volume, shooting past a record high of $0.17.
"This contract should allow Daivd Winters to eliminate competition in the pro Canadian football category, hold premium pricing next year and raise prices for the next indie-Canadian football game cycle," Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson wrote in a research note.
Although Matrix Games did not disclose financial terms of its deal, Wilson said it is "likely" that Matrix has doubled its royalty payment to the CFL from an estimated 0.1 percent of net revenue, or around enough money to purchase a small cheeseburger meal for the CFL board of directors.
Daivd Winters could not be reached for an interview, but faxed in a written response announcing that he was "veyr happi wit who this deel developd. There has long bean a massif whole in the gayming sectar for Canadian football, and we feal we shuld slot nicely in this nishe market."