A Message From the President

Dear GSA Members,

This spring, GSA's various standards initiatives have moved rapidly forward under the direction of new Technical Director, Marc McDermott. At the same time, we are zooming towards completion of our certification program. Additionally, GSA is hard at work on the establishment of an educational/academic program focused on providing engineers with certified credentials in GSA standards implementation.

I am pleased to report that progress on the GSA Certification Program is moving forward as Requests for Proposals have been sent to a series of potential candidates to act as GSA's Testing Agency Authority and Test Suite Authority for the program. GSA has spent a significant amount of time on the development of the certification program, and it will be important to communicate the benefits of this program to industry. GSA is in discussion with many experts on certification to ensure that the program meets the needs and expectations of the industry.

It has taken some time, but we have officially awarded our first series of GSA SAS 6.01 product certifications to some of our member's. GSA will shortly introduce a web interface where users will be able to search for products and companies that have obtained GSA certification. GSA members can be confident that an intricate amount of work and attention to detail happened behind the scenes to develop the certification portion of our web site. We will continue to inform you as we bring new portions of the site online.

I would like to thank GSA's marketing committee members for the fun times and creativity behind the creation of the 2006 marketing campaign, "Powered by GSA." A current initative tasked to the committee is to encourage the display, at industry events, of the "Powered by GSA - Standards that Drive Innovation" wobblers on machines and/or devices of companies who have implemented GSA standards in their products. These 3" colorful signs are available for free from our secretariat, contact sec@gamingstandards.com for details.

In addition the committee has developed the new GSA certification mark.

Are you ready?

Players of today have many entertainment options. Understanding these players is key in developing content that provides the value they are looking for. While it is a challenge developing gaming for generation X (born between 65 - 76) it is tougher developing games for the new generation (born between 77 - 94). This new generation expects high quality games anytime, anywhere. Therefore speed and convenience of delivery is important. Having what the customer demands available when and where he wants is a fundamental requirement. Being able to rapidly respond to changing player preferences requires fast reaction and speed to market that will determine the success of the operators. This is where GSA standards come in - they are the technology enablers to drive your business forward.

So again, are you ready?

Our marketing committee puts it more bluntly, "Comply or Die."

As the international tradeshows are ramping up we will to travel to these key events and participate in various panel discussions, updating the industry about our achievements. We look forward to meeting with any interested parties to tell the story of the power of one solution.

Stop by and visit us in Macau, Sydney, Moscow and yes, even Las Vegas.

Kind regards,

Peter DeRaedt, GSA President