CipSoft GmbH, Regensburg

“CipSoft GmbH was awarded fourth place in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50, which identifies and ranks Germany’s fastest growing technology-driven companies. This high ranking is a product of our strategy of striving to achieve healthy growth,“ states Stephan Vogler, the company’s CEO. The facts back him up. During the last five years, the company, which develops and operates on-line games, has grown by 3064 percent. Available on-line and on mobile devices, CipSoft’s breakthrough product is Tibia, a game featuring Lord Bandomir. Vogler makes the point that “our company’s financing stems from proprietary sources. We operate independently. We don’t pursue policies of growth at all costs. Rather, we strive to achieve sustainable growth.“

An attractive employer in a highly attractive region
“Products which are best sellers worldwide and which were developed in the Upper Palatine represent the most efficacious way of securing attention--rather than conducting advertising campaigns,“ states Nicole Stelzle, managing director of the region’s business development agency, in explaining why CipSoft is so important to the Upper Palatinate. CipSoft’s achievements led to its being named in July company of the month by Stelzle’s agency. CipSoft plans on pursuing its policies of maintaining steady growth—and of paying close attention to staff members and their needs. Vogler believes that these policies will join with the successes achieved by the company in enabling CipSoft to secure and retain technical staff, of which there is a great and growing shortage in Germany. “We hope that the winning of the award will help us achieve our goals in the area of HR, as we need to expand our team. We especially need IT specialists, who are getting harder and harder to find.” CipSoft’s staff includes Stephan Börzsönyi, Guido Lübke and Ulrich Schlott, who, like Vogler, founded and help run the company, plus an additional 33 employees. “We guarantee our employees that they can apportion their work times in a flexible way, that they won’t have to work overtime, and that they will work in a creativity-enhancing environment,” state the company’s four CEOs, who turned in 2001 a university-level project into a start-up. To keep CipSoft an attractive place to work, the company’s employees go on skiing trips together—and work in peace and quiet in a villa which was built 100 years ago, and which has been placed under landmark protection.

Thanks to Tibia, it’s life in the fast lane
The portfolio of the software engineering company includes Tibia. This is one of Europe’s oldest and most successful MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). As of this writing, it is being actively played by more than 300,000 persons. Tibia features 74 game reserves. The time is the Middle Ages. The game’s language is English. Players entering this world of fantasy jointly experience virtual adventures. These take them to a wide range of landscapes, and force them to use diplomatic skills when interacting with their counterparts. The successes enjoyed by Tibia led CipSoft to be ranked in November 2008 among the 50 fastest growing companies in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region. Stephan Reichart, managing director of G.A.M.E. e.V. (Germany’s association of developers of computer games) cites figures detailing the amount of growth and of potential achieved and possessed by the sector: “Ten years ago, forecasters predicted that computer and video games represented the future of the entertainment industry. That future is here. CipSoft is one of the companies driving the development of the games sector and thus of the entertainment industry as a whole.“

The world’s first Tibia house: in Maringà, Brazil
Tibia is now even being played in Brazil. The need to play it caused several of the country’s young persons, all passionate players, to build their own Internet café. It is located in Maringà, and it is dedicated to Tibia. It is thus the first of its kind in the world. This step was the players’ way of dealing with the low (by European standards) percentage of persons with access to the Internet, either at home or via Internet cafes. “We are of course aware of the fact that we have a lot of fans in Brazil,“ explains Andreas Weikl, marketing manager of CipSoft GmbH, “but we were definitely not aware of a project of this magnitude. The way we learned about it was that we were sent a photograph of the opening night party by the cafe’s operators.“ Tibia and its world of knights and magicians are also really big in Sweden and Poland. Germans account for a mere 2% of the players.

Planning for success
“The reason why we are so successful in Brazil has largely to do with our pricing strategy,” explains Weikl. Tibia’s basic version can be downloaded from the Internet, and played on an unlimited basis. The Premium Version has to be paid for. Another factor ensuring the game’s success was the launching of its mobile version--the Micro Edition (TibiaME)—in 2003. After introducing the MicroEdition to the world at CeBIT (the world’s largest ICT trade fair) in May, the company—joined by T-Mobile—then began offering it in Germany. Next up was the UK. It was followed by the rest of the world. With these steps, CipSoft became the world’s first developer of computer games to have created a role-playing game for mobile devices. The MicroEdition is an adaptation of the computer-based version. Both share the scenario of dark powers threatening the peaceable inhabitants of the small island of Aurea, which is located in the far reaches of the Tibian Ocean. Lord Bandomir, the island’s ruler, calls upon Tibia’s heroes to come and help his people in their times of trials. TibiaME’s source of income is the downloading fees levied for playing its Gold Version and for subscriptions for the assumption of Premium characters.