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Aria Systems & Game Center Group Announce New Partnership for Gaming Industry Solutions

Gaming services company and the premier provider of on-demand billing join forces to deliver best-in-class solutions for MMO's.

Media, PA & San Diego, CA, October 12, 2006 - Aria Systems - the leading provider of on-demand billing for the gaming industry and Game Center Solutions & Investment Group (Game Center Group) - provider of highly specialized consulting/management services for the MMO industry - today announced that they have signed a partnership to jointly deliver outsourced back-office services for gaming.  The partnership capitalizes on the companies’ joint industry experience and technology to address the complex and dynamic billing needs of gaming, while alleviating the headaches of delivering effective customer relationship management.

Aria Billing & Customer Management is the only complete solution for billing and customer management that truly supports online gaming.  Unlike traditional billing software that constrains the business model and ignores the customer relationship, Aria features a flexible on-demand delivery model, configurable business process rules, and significant cost advantages. And our solution is architected for ease of implementation and quicker time-to-market.  Implementations are complete in days to weeks vs. months to years for traditional back office software.

Game Center Group focuses on providing clients with detailed CRM consulting and expert advice from industry veterans for Customer Support, Quality Assurance and Online Community Management. GCG offers their services to businesses that are at all stages of pre and post launch of an MMO.

The newly announced partnership means that gaming companies can now rely on a team of MMO veterans’ to deliver a complete turnkey solution for “live team” and back-office functions. The tight integration between Game Center Group and Aria means that studios and publishers can now grow their businesses using a tried and tested CRM model that is economical and highly scalable. Clients can also expect to see an increase in the efficient use of system tools used by CSR’s and managers, improved customer satisfaction regarding accessibility and compatibility - regardless of communication methods, and expanded availability of internal resources - particularly valuable programming assets.

“This new partnership with Aria is a perfect fit for our strategic direction,” commented D. Scott Mattson, Senior Game Consultant at the Game Center Group. “The landscape in the MMO world is changing so rapidly that internal platform teams are finding themselves behind the curve and unable to keep up with the myriad of billing programs. Because our team has been “in the trenches” at some of the big game publishers, we feel that we bring a level of expertise that is unmatched in the industry.”

Ed Sullivan, CEO / Founder of Aria, said, “Game Center Group recognizes that Aria Billing & Customer Management is simply the best billing solution for the gaming market.  Our scalability, configuration options, and on-demand model are the perfect complement to their gaming support services. We are also excited about the additional insight that working with the Game Center Group will contribute to ongoing development of gaming-focused functionality for Aria.”

About Aria Systems

Aria is the market leader in subscription and recurring billing solutions. Since 2003, Aria has managed over one million accounts in more than 195 countries. Aria’s Billing Platform is the billing industry’s most reliable, flexible and scalable on demand tool for accelerating revenue capture while significantly reducing operating costs. Additionally, having achieved end-to-end Level 1 PCI Compliance and SAS70 Certification, Aria Systems leads the market in security and compliance. Backed by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Venrock Associates and Dave Labuda, Founder and former CEO of Portal Software, Aria’s team of SaaS and billing experts are part of a company that billed over 2.5 million customers for $1 billion a year in transactions. Aria Systems is headquartered in Media, PA (metropolitan Philadelphia) and has offices in the San Francisco Bay Area (San Mateo, CA). Aria Systems has been ranked as the 5th fastest growing, privately held company in the Philadelphia region by the Philadelphia 100. For more information about Aria Systems, visit http://www.AriaSystems.com or call 1-877-755-2370.

About Game Center Group

Game Center Solutions & Investment Group (Game Center Group), located in San Diego, CA offers highly specialized consulting services for the MMO industry, including investment advice and outsource placement. We work with trusted partners around the globe in places like Korea, Japan, China, India, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Our industry vets bring best in class service and process with past successes on the industries biggest titles like Ultima Online™, EverQuest™, EverQuest II™ and Star Wars Galaxies™.

Media Contacts

Joy Larkin
Marketing Director
jlarkin@ariasystems.com
484-234-8000 x226
http://www.AriaSystems.com
http://twitter.com/betterbilling