Thumpy's 3-D House of Airsoft, with its continuing Cyber-G watch, reports of expansion of Cybergun in the U.S. market, stating that they want to create airsoft fields, or convert paintball fields into game sites with designs based on their videogame line-up, such as War Inc. or Blackwater. Of course, the airsoft guns that would be used will be all under the Cybergun brand.

The way THUMPY’s 3D is reading the translation, part of CYBER-G’s “SYNERGY” in the U.S. market involves some type of franchise opportunity, to create AIRSOFT FIELDS, or to convert PAINTBALL venues with some of the atmospherics of Cybergun’s lines of video games…i.e., to give players an immersive environment “ripped” directly from the graphics of a player map from WAR, Inc, or the BLACKWATER games….and that would feature guns from the Cyber-G Licensed stable of airsoft arms.

Furthermore, Thumpy reports of being refused by representatives of Cybergun for interviews during the SHOT 2012, with no explanation whatsoever on why he is being refused while being assured by Cybergun that he would be able to interview them after some correspondence prior to the Shot Show. I guess, being the brains behind the Cyber-G watch does have some perks, of being in the blacklist of the only public listed company that has a big airsoft portfolio, albeit largely built upon copyright enforcement and rebranding of airsoft guns from existing airsoft manufacturers from the Far East.

To know more about Thumpy's reports, better head off to Thumpy's 3-D House of Airsoft Blog, or to his SCOOP.IT channel for his latest scoops.

Anyway, Thumpy also provided a link from Zonebourse, a French Language economic and financial news website as there was an interview conducted with Jerome Marsac of Cybergun. In an interview with him last 18 January, Mr. Marsac stated that they are on target to meet 90 million euros in sales for the current year. However, their European sales are down for the 3rd Quarter of 2011, as compared to the same period in the previous year. I guess given the Eurozone crisis, sales are down across the board for a lot of companies in the region.

But things are looking up in the USA for them as they reported strong sales with 63 million euros for the 3rd Quarter of 2011 as compared to 52.6 million euros in the previous year. Cybergun has been on an acquisition binge, expanding the video games with their video game division Interactive Game group acquiring Microprose and bagging SMK for airsoft distribution in the UK.

Jerome Marsac also indicated that the release of "Blackwater" was less successful as expected, though he never mentiond its actual performance. IMHO, I was not surprised given that it went against two of the biggest FPS game titles: COD MW3 and BF3. However, Mr. Marsac sees some opportunities afforded by the video game titles, as players are looking for some "video game" atmosphere when they play at game sites. How it can be replicated? Perhaps by creating the same sets seen on the video game titles --- putting the player physically right in the middle of the same scene that cannot be provided by video games.

Overall, the U.S. is the biggest market for Cybergun, comprising 55% of their business, with this aim of getting into the actual gaming sites for airsoft or paintball, they might do some acquisition such as existing chains of paintball or airsoft sites or just select the biggest regional markets in the U.S. to find well located sites to acquire. This remains to be seen, so for those airsoft skirmish organizers who will promote some "Blackwater" themed-games or even other themed games that carry the names of their video game titles, they better watch out, they might get hauled to court.

The march to world airsoft domination continues...