Outset Media
 |
|
| Private | |
| Founded | British Columbia (1996) |
| Founder | David Manga |
| Headquarters | Warehouse in Brampton, Ontario and Buffalo, New York, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
|
Key people
|
David Manga (CEO) |
| Products | Games, Puzzles |
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Number of employees
|
~55 |
| Website | outsetmedia |
Outset Media Corporation is a Canadian company which develops and distributes family entertainment products, specializing in board games, party games, card games, and jigsaw puzzles. In addition to developing its own games, Outset Media also distributes games and puzzles in Canada for United States-based companies.
The company was founded in 1996 by 23-year-old university student David Manga, originally with the sole purpose of publishing and distributing a single board game called All Canadian Trivia. Development of the product was 16 months. The original edition of All Canadian Trivia was released in May 1997. While the Original edition went on to become a Canadian bestseller - breaking 100,000 copies sold in Canada, the French edition was a flop and sold less than 3,000 copies.
A limited print-run Millennium Edition of All Canadian Trivia was released in 1999. The game's creator embarked on a two-month guerilla marketing campaign across Canada to promote the game. David Manga was selected as one of a hundred young Canadians to watch in the new millennium by Maclean's magazine.
In 2002, Outset Media nearly closed its doors after its largest customer, Stewart House Publishing, a former gift division of book publisher McClelland & Stewart, ran into financial difficulties and went into bankruptcy. With nearly 50% of its annual revenue in bad debt and unrecoverable, Outset Media was bailed out with angel investments from family members and financing from the Royal Bank of Canada. Later that year, Outset Media added a new division, distributing other companies' games in Canada, when it began to distribute the line of "opoly" games from US-based Late for the Sky.
In 2003, Outset Media made its first appearance on the Profit magazine's annual ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies. The company would appear on the Profit 100 list for six consecutive years from 2003 to 2008.
Outset Media's most recognized brand is the Professor Noggin's series of educational card games. First published in 2002, the series now includes 39 different titles, and has garnered 14 international toy awards to date. Over 1,000,000 copies have been sold worldwide, and the series has been translated into French as "Professeur Caboche".
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Wikipedia