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Hello again Readers,
We’re backing up last week’s gains with a play that’s been showing plenty of daily momentum while it’s also heading on the uppity up.
SPYR is our showcase play for tomorrow. (5/24)
SPYR has flashed us its potential before in the past, and we can all but see another high volume upspike, up towards it’s 52-week high of .70.
That would be a near projected 75% possible gains when it reaches that point.
We’d like to quickly point out that SPYR operates in the red-hot $25 BIL projected Mobile Tech & App Gaming industry reaching over 1 BIL mobile devices worldwide.
How HOT is this sector? The Quarterly Global Games Market Update from Newzoo, a market research firm focused on the entire games industry, says the value of the mobile games market will exceed that of consoles in 2015, making it the industry's most lucrative sector.
SPYR seems to be right in the heart of the storm, and in addition, also operates multiple sites as part of it's digital marketing arm as well as a popular Philadelphia Airport "American Diner" themed restaurant, Eat at Joe's® - from which the company has seen year-to-year Revenue Growth AND Profits in 2014!
In fact, SPYR recently caught the eye of analyst, Konrad Kuhn and his long-time publication, the KonLin Letter. Konrad Kuhn's "KonLin Letter" named SPYR as his "Stock Pick of the Year" for 2015!
The company's Revenue Growth, diversity, and more is what makes this such an attractive short or long term candidate!
Let's see what's going on with this now.
SPYR, Inc. engages in the digital media primarily in the United States. The company engages in developing, publishing, co-publishing, and marketing mobile games and applications.
As a part of a long term strategy, SPYR is looking to acquire and grow businesses that generate strong revenue or have IP that is deemed valuable. In order to maximize value for their shareholders, acquisition targets include companies with strong leadership that generate attractive returns and significant cash flow.
SPYR APPS, LLC creates fun and engaging social games for mobile devices. Utilizing the popular "freemium" monetization model, which leverages advertising as well as in-app purchases, SPYR APPS intends to continue to grow their social gaming portfolio as well as other mobile apps and platforms.
Earlier this month SPYR released news providing an explanation of how its subsidiary's newest deal to publish Pocket Starships (www.pocketstarships.com) will help the company drive sustained game revenue through player retention and engagement strategies as well as last week posting news reporting that Pocket Starships show positive revenue growth. (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/spyrs-pocket-starships-designed-drive-130100953.html) and (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/spyrs-pocket-starships-reports-positive-130100153.html)
Pocket Starships has seen more than a 23% increase in the average revenue from each paying user and a 7.8% increase in the average spend on each in-app purchase over the last 30 days, with the majority of those increases occurring after the release of the patch.
In addition, following the recent update, Pocket Starships has garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews, with daily review averages in the Google Play Store increasing from approximately 4.1 stars out of 5 to between 4.5 and 4.7 stars out of five depending on the day. This is with an average of approximately 130 reviews per day by Android users alone.
Paul Thind, SPYR's Managing Director of Games and Apps stated: "We are very encouraged by the metrics generated by the most recent update. The update, while only a very minor one, was exciting because it allowed us to see the impact that it had on the average player revenue and on the game's reception with players. It is showing that us we are moving in the right direction with the game. It is a very good sign of things to come when our planned large content update/expansion will be launched later this year."
SPYR and Spectacle Games have a fully developed strategy designed to build user retention and engagement, which they expect will lead to sustained revenue growth through in-app purchases. Pocket Starships is designed in such a way that the level of in-app purchases made by players will drive revenue for the game, and because of this, Pocket Starships is not reliant on ad revenue to be successful, though it is always an option to create additional revenue through strategic ad placement.
Because of the level of live competition and skill involved, Pocket Starships falls into the "Midcore" gaming category. "[a]list daily," a marketing firm and publisher of a games industry newsletter and on-line forum for games professionals, observed in an April 12 article that: "In 2016, U.S. mobile gaming revenue is expected to reach $3.31 billion, up from $2.03 billion in 2013…." with Midcore titles being a significant part of that increase. While "Midcore" is a popular buzzword at the moment, to be truly successful in the "Midcore" market, a game must appeal to both the snacking practices of casual mobile players, as well as the competitive instincts of hard-core players. Pocket Starships is designed to do exactly that.
Pocket Starships creates play cycles that alternate between a combat-oriented area that Lars Koschin, the CEO of Spectacle Games, nicknamed the "Counterstrike zone," and a farming-oriented area called the "Hayday zone." All of the players cycle between these two zones, but players can choose how to manage their game resources based on their individual pace and motivations, generally choosing either a "retention model" or an "activity model.” The "activity model" is focused largely on combat and competitiveness. In the "activity model," performing well in battle earns a player premium currency, which the player can spend on new items or on speeding up the creation of items that will generate continued future success in battle. Once players are engaged, they continue to come back to the game in order to obtain and maintain their dominant status in battle. These players can, and often do, spend money for even more premium currency, driven by the desire to dominate in battle.
According to Koschin, the "retention model" is focused on "the social link between players." "People will remember you if you help them," Koschin adds. "Retention model" players are drawn back into the game through the wait mechanics in the game's farming and crafting areas, and the lockboxes won when playing support in a battle. In other words, "retention model" players wait while in-game items are built, allowing them to use the items when they return to the game.
With the ability for a player to play under either the "activity model" or the "retention model," Pocket Starships appeals to both casual and hard-core gamers. Retention players are able to play the game in short spurts while activity players are able to unlock the ability to play the game for long, uninterrupted stretches. The larger narrative of Pocket Starships is also part of the retention game: an ongoing war between opposing factions. While individual battles are won or lost, the war can never be won, keeping players engaged for the long term.
SPYR and Spectacle Games believe that this long-term user retention will translate into sustained revenue and a significant benefit to its shareholders.
Last month, in a news release that can be found here (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/spyrs-paul-thind-discusses-companys-141500787.html) Paul Thind, SPYR's Managing Director of Games & Applications, discussed the company's plans to compete in this industry. He commented, “My vision right now is for SPYR APPS to be a global player in the multi-billion dollar mobile games business. Initially, we will do this by publishing third-party games, then we will work on securing IP and, finally, we will create our own games. I believe it's important to work with great developers who are passionate about the games they are creating. As we are growing the business from the ground up, it's important to begin by adding our know-how to these experiences. Therefore, we are focusing on building out the publishing division first (where we can publish third-party games). With this approach, we don't have the substantial risk and major expense involved with building out an in-house development team and can focus our attention on sourcing excellent games from third-party developers. From there, we can add our team's many collective years of expertise in user acquisition, retention and engagement, community management/social media marketing and monetization, as we work closely with the developer to make each particular game successful. We can also leverage our relationships in the industry that have been built over many years by working with other large publishers or by getting games featured in the app stores. Through smart marketing, solid business development and strong monetization, we can work hand-in-hand with developers while they focus on gameplay and updates. This will allow us to get to market with each title much faster than we would by simply creating our own IP.”
BUSINESS SUMMARY
(SPYR – SPYR, Inc.)
http://www.spyr.com/
SPYR, Inc. or SPYR is a holding company with a diversified holding company with wholly owned subsidiaries in the mobile gaming and hospitality industries, through two wholly owned subsidiaries (i) is engaged in develops and publishes mobile games and apps; and (ii) owns and operates an "American Diner" theme restaurant located in the Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania called "Eat at Joe's®." The Company is perpetually exploring opportunities for additional acquisitions in these and other verticals in order to expand its holdings, to drive and increase revenue and to generate profits and build value for shareholders.
The company was formerly known as Eat at Joes, Ltd. and changed its name to SPYR, Inc. in March 2015. SPYR, Inc. was incorporated in 1988 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
MARKET OUTLOOK
Entrepreneur forecasts that the entire app market will comprise of over 268 billion downloads will generate $77 billion worth of revenue by 2017. (http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236832)
PWC compiled a global entertainment & media outlook 2015-2019 with what appears to be promising figures for the future of gaming. Global mobile games revenue is forecast to reach US$15bn in 2018, rising at a CAGR of 9.6%. China, Japan and the US are key markets. Only advertising revenue, which is still relatively small, will grow at a faster rate within the video games segment. Rising smartphone ownership is increasing access to mobile games globally and has enabled innovation in gameplay and business models.
Improved online offerings will drive digital console games revenue. Improved online console games stores and increased access to broadband is driving digital distribution of console games. By 2018, digital will account for 37% of global console games revenue, up from 23% in 2013.
Microtransactions are widening gaming participation. Online gaming has opened up markets previously considered lost to piracy, with the business model enabling greater freedom in how much gamers pay. China is the second-largest market for online gaming (US$4.2bn in 2013 with a 7.9% CAGR from 2013-2018).
Online games underpinned the revenues of Internet services, with a much higher profit margin than the industry average; With an extraordinary growth rate, mobile gamers accounted for more than half the total mobile Internet users.
As in other countries with good mobile networks, mobile gaming has seen significant gains. Mobile games revenue rose to US$49mn in 2013, and will rise to US$62mn in 2018.
More here:
http://www.pwccn.com/home/eng/em_games.html
There you have it folks, get started on your own research now!
Remember to always book a profit when you can and never risk more than you can afford to lose. Use sound money management and trading discipline when engaging in any of the markets.
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