Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

8 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

 

Lots of things in there he got correct!!

Not all of them on launch... but the one that most people here will like will be!

Now we're on page 1010.  This is special because it was the original launch date for Amico.  Here's looking forward to April 2021.

8 hours ago, Mockduck said:

Interesting Amico news today that they have joined FIG, which is a Kickstarter-style alternative that began some years ago, to raise money for the company.

It's actually nothing like Kickstarter or Indiegogo and certainly not an alternative.  Understandably, folks may get the two mixed up. 

I'll explain a little more...

A Regulation A+ investment is something that is approved and regulated by the SEC (Security and Exchange Commission).  It takes months to get approval and massive amounts of research and compliance is done.  Almost the same vein (but not as much) as when a company goes public. 

To explain a little more... typically only an accredited investor can invest in our type of company at this stage.  What is the legal definition of an accredited investor?

• earned income that exceeded $200,000 (or $300,000 together with a spouse) in each of the prior two years, and reasonably expects the same for the current year, OR
• has a net worth over $1 million, either alone or together with a spouse (excluding the value of the person’s primary residence).

This type of accredited investor/investing falls under the Regulation D category.  We have many of these folks as well.

Regulation A+ is a way for people who are not accredited to (in essence) "pool" their money together under one umbrella (again, regulated by the SEC) and that "umbrella" is what FIG is.  Fig is a Reg A accredited SEC approved company where unaccredited people can invest (in our case at a $1,000 minimum).  This is NOT an easy thing to get.  In fact, just the opposite.  The fact that Intellivision is able to do this with FIG is a good sign, not an alarming one.

As you can see, Regulation A+ investing is very different and a lot more complex than some Kickstarter or Indiegogo project.  You're also not BUYING a product like you are on Kickstarter.  You are investing in the profitability of a product (not even the company... but the product itself).  This is similar to buying any stock on the stock market, but with a potentially much higher and quicker return if the company or product is successful... but on the flipside... also a higher risk.  The reason this is attractive to a lot of unaccredited investors is because they don't need to wait around for years for a company to go public or get acquired by a huge company.  Instead, they start making profits as Amico makes profit.  Not only on the hardware, but the software sales as well.  This profit is capped at 10X returns.

Again... as you can see, all of this is much different than a Kickstarter campaign. 

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They were recently acquired by Republic, which I have to admit I don't really know anything about. I know FIG mostly because of early involvement from Tim Shafer of Grim Fandango/etc fame. 

Republic is HUGE and an incredible company with a LOT of success.  They have over 800,000 investors.  Fig only had a very very small fraction of that as they were only focused on video game software.

You can learn more about Republic here:  https://republic.co/

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To me, it is a bit alarming, in that it leads me to wonder if they need income to get the Amico out next year following delays, COVID, and whatever costs they have, but maybe it is just them doing a combo preorder/support us thing with a more formal relationship to the money than your average Kickstarter/IndieGoGo.

 

This is one of the big reasons why you won't hear me refer to Regulation A+ investing as "crowdfunding".  Some people refer to it as "Investment Crowdfunding", but the reality is that most folks will mistakenly think it is similar to Kickstarter or Indiegogo... which of course... it is not.

One other point of fact I'd like to bring up.

A LOT of big companies are ALWAYS raising money.  It's a part of any successful and growing company.  Let me use my new best friends ROBLOX as an example.

They are a super successful multi-BILLION dollar cash flow positive company with over 160 million monthly users.   YET!!!  Just this year they raised an additional $150M in their Series G round:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/26/roblox-raises-150m-series-g-led-by-andreessen-horowitz-now-valued-at-4b/

Again... this is a privately held company.

I don't have the time to explain why a cash flow positive company would want more investors and another "round" of investing... lets just say it has to do with evaluation as opposed to the money itself.

Long story short... Intellivision will be in a "money raising" state for the next few years... no matter how successful we are.  It's been like this since the very beginning and that is why we set up the company structure the way we did.  Super smart, experienced and intelligent folks who know what they are doing are on our team.  And our corporate attorney's are literally the BEST in the biz!  They represent 75% of the Fortune 100 companies!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan,_Lewis_%26_Bockius

And no... this isn't the kind of firm that just takes anyone's money who walks through the door.  Getting them on your team is a HUGE accomplishment on it's own and we had to "audition" (if you will) to get them to consider us!  And lets just say... they were VERY impressed with what they saw and heard.  And something we've had for over 2 1/2+ years.

Hope this helped folks to understand the differences and a little bit about the investing world.

Thanks!

8 hours ago, Stoke said:

I invested.

Nice! 

Thank you for the support.

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

I thought they were set up on fig back in April.  You can never have enough marketing dollars.  The pre-order deposit money is refundable so they can't really use that until the product ships.

Yes.  We have been on FIG since April, but didn't get SEC approved until this month.  Basically, that means that we could not accept any money through Regulation A from anyone until our SEC approval.  Although we were able to immediately accept Regulation D from accredited investors (defined in my last post).

6 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

I fully expect to see Intellivision continue to raise money after the Amico launches in order to expand sales regions, distribution channels and ramp production. For me this is standard startup procedure from seed funding to Round A, B and so forth.

Totally!  We're only in our Round A right now.  As the ROBLOX example... they've been around 15 years and just completed Round G.  

6 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

I hope the avatars/gamer tags to choose from on Amico are game characters.  Hopefully one of them is Puffy.  Maybe have his normal look and the one where he blows up.  Lol.  If so, that'll be my avatar/gamer tag.  

We don't use avatars.  Only names.

5 hours ago, theswede said:

I think you are way off here..I think the primary reason is to keep up with the “Intellivision master” wishlist 😉

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!

🤣🤣🤣

🥰😇

5 hours ago, Mockduck said:

Cool, I wasn't aware they'd been on FIG (obviously). Sounds less like new news, then. 

Yeah, the reason behind the update we sent to our VIP & Founders was to let them know the great success we are having so far in such a short amount of time.  Super good news!

1 minute ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

We don't use avatars.  Only names.

 

 

I was thinking it would be how Nintendo Switch does it with avatars.  But that's fine.  I'm okay with names.

5 hours ago, IntyFanMatt said:

Tommy, I see the new shirts on the site with JUST the Running Man logo on them, and have 1 in my cart ready to buy, but wondering...when will the emails be sent out in order to apply the 20% discount?

 

Thank you sir. Excited to get it!

Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.  We are still adding stuff to the store!

Lots of different hats and shirts coming.
 

4 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

It looks like the PS5 is absolutely destroying the opposition from what I'm reading. The console came out today in Europe and people are going crazy to get one, with forum threads getting dozens of pages in a couple of hours from Sony fans sharing URLs to preorder the machine.

 

The graphics of both new consoles appear to be mostly on par, with a slight advantage for the PS5 for some reason. The XSX is technically superior, but perhaps the need to release the games for the XSS is dragging the graphical evolution. PS5 will probably get more games, which means developers will become more expert on it, while XSX will slowly release better looking games that will take advantage of the extra teraflops.

 

With the graphics of both having the same detail and resolution only differing in framerates, the differentiating factor is the controller. Sony has done a good job here at offering all the benefits from the well-known design while adding some cool features that are managing to impress people and add to the immersion.

 

In only 5 months, the Amico fans will be able to live these emotions, replacing the graphical realism with the multiplayer experiences, but with a similar focus on the unique controller that, in this case, is different to every other controller while sharing a few things with some.

 

In what I see as a clear win-win situation, people will simply buy and enjoy their Amicos if there is enough stock, and will be able to feel happy for Intellivision Entertainment if the machine sells out like the PS5/XSX. Most of the hardcore gamers who post in forums and want an Amico have probably pre-ordered one at this point, so we'll see how the console is received by casuals across the world (and perhaps some hardcore gamers who will order the machine when it's officially released). Will there be enough units? Will there be too many? Only 2021 has the answer.

I'm gonna go with "not enough units".  

I think it's a little tough for Microsoft at this point to take over sales over Sony.  Sony has such a HUGE brand following at this point.  With the exception of the Playstation 3 (88 million) every one of their systems has sold over 100 million units.  Microsoft typically does half of that.  Brand loyalty with those hardcore gaming systems plays a huge role.  Always interesting to see how it all plays out.  Both companies are offering epic experiences for those 200 million potential hardcores out there.  We'll keep our eye and focus on the 3.1B casual "prize".

4 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

Here in Spain, Sony has won Microsoft in every single generation by a 10 to 1 margin. I know the XSX will do better in the States, but I have the feeling it's going to be the same story over here.

Yeah... in places like Europe and Asia and South America... Playstation absolutely dominates.

But again... Microsoft has a helluva team with an incredible leader... they will continue to do extremely well I'm sure.  Selling tens of millions of anything means you are an absolute superstar!!

4 hours ago, RxScram said:

I remember back in the PS3 / XBOX 360 / Wii days, there was a website that tracked the console wars. I'm hoping for something similar this time around. 🙂  (Not that we're competing against those consoles, but just as interesting information.)

Don't worry... we get the paid reports.

3 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

Wow that is fascinating, I had no idea Spain was such a Microsoft hotbed. I remember some numbers out of Germany last gen and they were tracking 4 to 5 ish to 1 PS4 like the US sales number. I just expected the rest of Europe to be clones of those results. Do you know if the games fit the local mentality, it was local pricing, Microsoft Spain is just kicking ass or language support is better on the XBox? Stuff like that always interests me.

I think he was saying that Sony is 10 to 1 on Microsoft.

3 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

Microsoft has already said that they won't provide XSX sales figures, so I'm afraid that plan won't be entirely possible.

They are available if you pay for it. 

3 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

Atari had the slogan, "Have you played Atari today".  With Intellivision Amico it can be, "Have you played Amico today".

Ours is...

Together Again.

1 minute ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Ours is...

 

Together Again.

 

 

Right.  I was just being funny.  Lol.

Im seriously thinking about investing through fig/republic. Ive never invested before and have relatively minimal knowledge on the subject.

Ive read the investment page on the IE website, and need some dumb questions answered.

1. Will i be buying shares in IE? From what i understand, ill be investing in the console, and not the company

2. looks like dividends are paid. So if i hold onto the shares ($1000 a share, ill buy a few) will it become residual income?

3. Can i buy more than once, maybe a second purchase just before the 98 day deadline?

Cheers Tommy.

Wobbledogs! A...unique...pet raising game that's supposed to come out on Steam Early Access. Could this be something for Tommy to consider in the next few years?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1424330/Wobbledogs/

This just popped into my head around the times of the start of Pokémon and Digimon there was a game I believe it was called Monster Rancher where you got new monsters to train and raise to fight in an arena. The monster was generated by your music cd collection.  I figure there are two different ways either you plug a usb drive with mp3 files and based on the song choice the monster is generated or you could sell a 4 pack of RFID creatures and tapping them on the system while in the game would give you that monster could be a fun way to sell collectibles 

4 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Not at launch, but definitely in the future.

 

 

 

Hard to say as I have no idea what is going to be thrown at us over the next month or two.  For example, they just made an announcement this week that Orange County, CA is going "purple" and as of next week everyone is in lock-down again.  Watch this TV newscast.  It's not good:  https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/video/4875134-orange-county-moves-back-to-purple-tier-newsom-says-state-hitting-emergency-brake/

 

Nothing we can do to stop or predict stuff like this.  We were supposed to be moving into our new offices for the crucial finalization on Dec. 1st.  Been prepping the new building since Nov. 1st.  If this lockdown lasts til the end of the year... it could have an effect.  Hard to say at this point, but we are still pushing along as hard as possible.  Every week the challenges with COVID seem to screw us over in some way, shape or form.

We'll know a lot more where we stand by the beginning of the year. 
 

 

 

Not sure.  Our brand new in-house video person is moving to Orange County after Thanksgiving and we were going to start setting up his studio on Dec. 1st.  So once again... hard to predict these kinds of questions at this point when everything changes from week to week.

 

 

 

Only if it's awesome and ready.  

Night Stalker & Cloudy Mountain are two of our biggest and most involved games.  I wouldn't put them out at launch if they weren't 100% completed and to our satisfaction.  So I can promise anything at this point until about February.  But worst case scenario is they would be a month or so after launch, so it's not like they will be delayed for a long time... but if any 2 have a chance of delay... it would be those 2.  As of right now... we are still on track for launch.

 

 

Thanks for the questions.  Sorry I didn't have more solid answers at this point.  Hope you understand.

 

 

Thanks for the answers, and hey no apologies are necessary! I learned what I wanted to know, it shows that you're willing to take the time to answer your customers, and now Atari Age readers have insight on the massive ongoing activity at Intellivision.  Well done! 

As for Corona, that's out of everyone's control.  Quite frankly, I'm glad that Intellivision Entertainment is powerful enough to withstand this pandemic tidal wave.  I've waited 35 years for a rebooted Intellivision console, so what's a few more months?   

Thanks again and have a Happy Thanksgiving!


ps - Did you mention in previous posts that you like root beer? Probably so, since I've yet to find an American who doesn't. 
Have you tried Original New York Seltzer? Their root beer is fantastic!

https://www.newyorkseltzer.com/

On 11/17/2020 at 9:29 PM, GrudgeQ said:

I really hope we get a social deception game for the Amico. Werewolf (Secret Hitler, Mafia, etc) have a big following and of course Among Us has exploded recently

Speaking of Among Us, the developers recently laid out guidelines for licensed merchandise:

https://dualwieldstudio.com/pages/business-and-manufacturing-licensing

Maybe one of those "licensed merchandise" could be an Amico adaptation of the popular game? Having a touchscreen on each controller already makes this more likely than a PS or Xbox port.

9 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yes.  But we don't have online gaming so it's more of just an internal thing for your household, friends and online leaderboards.

 

 

 

I'm not sure.  I'll ask Hans (president of Intellivision Europe) and get back to you.

 

 

 

Eventually.  It's on our "to do" list.  Loved that game.  Super hard though!  Need to make it easier. 

 

 

 

Totally agree!!

Fun fact:  The person who created Marble Madness is my buddy Mark Cerny.  Mark is the genius behind the last 3 PlayStation consoles!

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for your support!  I can't wait for you and others to play as well!!!

 

 

Hi Tommy,

Many thanks for getting back to me I really appreciate it. Hopefully I will be able to preorder the black Amico soon.

I think Toobin would be good on Amico, especially the way the 4 buttons are set out on the controller,what do you think?