Sunday, July 6, 2008

  Going for the gamers By BENJAMIN KEPPLE - New Hampshire Union Leader Staff

HAMPTON – From the outside, the nondescript office building at 8 Merrill Industrial Drive would not appear to house a video gamer's paradise. But inside, fans of popular games like Halo and Unreal Tournament can play each other to their heart's content, in an environment using advanced audio and video equipment.

But the site -- which charges gamers $6 an hour to play -- is not simply a video arcade. It's also a test lab for the ideas of its backers, a small company known as HoloDek Gaming Inc. So far, the enthusiastic response from video-gamers to the site has made HoloDek's executives confident they've stumbled across a very good idea.

"When you have negative walk-by, you have no signage, and you have wrong directions given by Yahoo!, and you have that kind of usage, we thought we might have a chance if we got into a real retail location," said a cheerful Ralph "Kit" McKittrick, HoloDek's chief executive.

That should happen in about eight months, when the company opens its first entertainment complex in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., based on the concept it developed in New Hampshire.

Key to the concept, though, is technology created by a related company, Parallel Robotic Systems Corp. Privately-held HoloDek is an affiliate of publicly-traded Kingston Systems Inc., and Parallel Robotics is a wholly-owned Kingston subsidiary. Many of the investors in HoloDek also have a stake in Kingston, according to McKittrick.

At first blush, Parallel Robotics might not seem to be in the same line of business. In many ways it is a traditional high-tech company. Parallel Robotics has developed a variety of precision robots, which can be used for everything from biomedical research to high-intensity water-jet cutting. Only research and some assembly work is done in Hampton; the parts themselves are manufactured elsewhere.

The robots use extreme precision to align parts for assembly, direct powerful water jets to cut materials, or in applications that simulate stress on joints and bones. The company is also exploring uses for its robots for major projects such as building wind turbines, which McKittrick sees as a major potential market for the firm.

A different type of simulation is where Parallel and HoloDek combine forces.

Using its R Series Rotopad robots as a chassis, Parallel Robotics has developed a flight (or, if you wanted, driving) simulator that delivers a life-like experience for the user. It can rotate, buck and zoom back and forth just as if you were in a plane or car. Not only that, but the user will be able to conduct his simulation while watching his progress on a huge projection screen, having the effect of fully immersing the user in the simulation.

The technology is scalable, so much larger systems than just a cockpit can be built on it.

"We can put a real Rolls Royce on that simulator, and we could put a real Ferrari on that simulator," McKittrick said. "There's an awful lot of things we can do to create different experiences."

Both Parallel Robotics and HoloDek are still very much in the development stage, as is Kingston itself. Kingston, which was founded in the 1980s as a company that recycled polyethylene from scrap packaging material -- a pure commodity play that didn't work out -- got restarted in 2005 with its purchase of Parallel Robotics.

Its shares, as of July 1, were trading at 42 cents, and the firm had a market capitalization of about $2.3 million. The shares are thinly-traded and volatile -- with a beta value of 15.53, according to Google Finance. A beta value of one means a stock has been as volatile as the overall market.

But the hope at this point is that the technology the company has developed will allow it to move forward.

"It's going to be our next challenge to commercialize all the development that we've done," McKittrick said.

The HoloDek idea is one way for Kingston to do that. Holodek's development plans call for having two simulators at each of its locations; the simulators, then, would anchor the rest of the location, which would have a full restaurant and bar, among other amenities.

The goal is to draw not only hard-core gamers, but also families and others looking for value-oriented entertainment. As for the Florida location, it has the population density and the demographics that HoloDek believes it needs.

In a tough economy, HoloDek believes it offers cost-competitive entertainment, and has other advantages.

"Real-estate owners who were never willing to talk with a start-up are now much more willing to talk with us and (not only) give us a lease, but give us fit-out offers we never could have gotten in a hot market," McKittrick said.

See the original article on MSNBC Here and in the Union Leader Here