Merit's Deal of the Decade

This article comes from Highwaygames.com

Deal of the Decade, Merit's new program for its U.S. MegaNET operators, will be launched at the ASI show today. The program will include Merit Direct Software Update Kits, Merit sponsored prizes, reduced monthly fees and an operator guarantee. Deal of the Decade gives operators the choice of two programs; the Progressive program and the Ultra program. The Progressive program allows operators to purchase their own software upgrade kits from Merit and pay for them over 12 months on an interest free plan. The operator can also access the Merit sponsored National prizes to complement the local player incentive prize program. This program is available in four tiers, based on the number of games connected by the operator. 1-10 connections is the Connections Club, 11-50 connected units is Silver, Gold for 100 and Platinum for operators with over 100 games connected. Each level carries reduced monthly MegaNET subscription fees as well as a reduced Merit Direct software kit price. Combined with the lower monthly fee, Merit charges 5 cents per tournament play, with the total monthly base subscription cost to the operator capped, to ensure operator profits. The Ultra program is where MegaNET staff handle all aspects of the operator's TournaMAXX promotion and includes the Merit Direct software kit program, Merit sponsored prizes and an exclusive TournaMAXX Revenue Guarantee. This means that Merit will rebate the operator if the operator's portion of the TournaMAXX play does not cover the monthly base MegaNET subscription fee.

In both the Progressive and Ultra programs, operators can still elect to purchase their software kits through their local Merit Distributor and enjoy all the other privileges of their programs. Merit sponsored prizes will kick off with the April Showers Tri-Towers Tournament in the states of Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, Maryland, Ohio, and California. More states will be added to the Merit Sponsored prize program beginning in June or earlier. Operators wishing to remain on the current MegaNET offering can simply do so by selecting Merit's Classic program of network connectivity. Operators in the Classic program will continue to enjoy all the traditional benefits of MegaNET without having to make any changes. Regardless of the program choice, connected operators also receive hot new Merit games downloaded to their machines 6 months in advance of the fall software release. The game Card Bandits was downloaded to all connected operators in May of 2003 and provided a strong shot to collections that still continues. This year is no different with the advance download of the next generation of Merit's killer games, Card Raiders. Being sent via download to all connected MegaNET machines in May that have the free Force 2005/Maxx Jade installed, Card Raiders is the next big card game from the Merit Hit Factory. Along with Card Raiders, Merit will download the symbol version titled Crypt Raiders, for states with no card games. As a follow up to the successful Megatouch Mini-Golf release a new 9-hole course will also be auto-downloaded to all connected Force 2005.5 machines.