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NEWS RELEASE

A message from Warren Holland, CEO Decipher Inc.

Decipher launches "Code Rewards."

Decipher is about to give birth to a revolution called, "Code Rewards." In short, it's a new program of "commission" marketing designed to compensate our volunteers, retailers, players and fan club members for providing extraordinary product and service to our customers.

Many years ago, Decipher pioneered volunteering in the gaming industry. We enlisted an army of recruits, and they helped make us one of the most successful and innovative companies in this business. Our Star Trek Ambassadors, Star Wars Squadron Members and Lord of the Rings Riders are legendary. We have always appreciated the passion our volunteers bring to our lives and the role they play in helping us provide exemplary service to our customers.

Today, we are taking volunteering to a whole new level. If you haven't participated in Decipher's marketing efforts before, you may not be able to resist from this point forward. Why? Because in addition to our undying appreciation, we are now providing volunteers with something very tangible: Decipher Dollars.

Dedicated teams at Decipher spent the past year developing a backend system to support Code Rewards and Decipher Dollars. You probably won't see most of this infrastructure. Still, once you begin to recognize its power and come to rely upon what it can do for you, you'll be glad it's here. Our systems can handle an enormous number of rewards transactions quickly and easily. There is practically no limit to the amount of Decipher Dollars you can earn. There's almost no limit to what you can get with Decipher Dollars; they can be redeemed for any item on any Decipher online store, including our cool new store at rewards.decipher.com (which accepts only Decipher Dollars, not cash).

There's been an underground buzz for some time about tournament changes, requirements for credit cards, Decipher Dollar coupons, welcome kits, etc. All of these elements are pieces of a whole that can only be understood when viewed together. Until now, the grander vision had yet to be unveiled.

A beta version of Code Rewards launches today (20 October 2003), and we look forward to your comments and suggestions. During this test period, a lot of systems used previously will change or disappear. Most of them you won't miss because in the new system...

•	tournament directors can now earn Decipher Dollars for each player in every tournament they run;
•	preferred retailers can now earn Decipher Dollars for each player in every tournament they run, and for each player in tournaments run by a Decipher volunteer and hosted in their store;
•	fan club members can now earn Decipher Dollars for bringing new members into their clubs; and
•	beginning with the launch of the new Beyblade trading card game in November, tens of thousands of players will be able to earn Decipher Dollars by using demo coupons to promote the purchase of "welcome" kits designed to pull new players into the game. (Thus, giving our preferred retailers a new pool of customers.)

Regardless of how you come into the Decipher family, the entire Code Rewards program is open for your use. For example, a tournament director is not excluded from earning rewards for getting new members to join fan clubs. Every Code Rewards program is open to every Decipher customer who has an account.

The scope of Code Rewards is vast. We can't explain everything in this one communication, but we can open your eyes to the possibilities. So... let's explore Code Rewards.

The power is hidden in the code.

It's quite fitting that a company named Decipher would build a reward system around a personal code. It's also ground-breaking because it puts an enormous amount of power in the hands of our customers.

If you have an online customer account with Decipher, you already have a personal customer code hidden in our system. If you don't have a customer account, you can set one up in a few minutes without a credit card (although a credit card will be needed to pay shipping and handling when you redeem Decipher Dollars).

The code gives us the ability to track activities we could never track before... and thus reward volunteers, retailers and customers in ways unimaginable until now. Services that volunteers previously contributed for free – like running tournaments, doing demos, and participating in promotional events – can now be tracked and rewarded.

Code Rewards is commission marketing. It's a million times more powerful than a "sell your friends and family" program because you can market to anyone and everyone. You market; we sell. You get rewarded. Your role in Code Rewards, if you choose to participate, is to send your personal code out into the world (connected to offers).

The central tracking system for Code Rewards is, of course, the Internet. Each time someone comes to our site and enters the code from their coupon, it's like telling our backend system, "X sent me." The person entering the code may not even know who X is, but we do. Thus, we can reward X (substitute your name for X).

For the beta launch, we developed a few versions of Decipher Dollar coupons that you can print from the web. To see and print these coupons, log on to any Decipher store and click the appropriate graphic on the homepage. You can also access coupons from your personal account page. When you view and print coupons, they automatically contain your personal code number. A few examples of how you might distribute such coupons:

•	face-to-face interactions like tournaments or demos;
•	grassroots marketing efforts like putting coupons in the hands of everyone at a convention;
•	via the Internet by putting coupons or banners on your web site;
•	mass advertising in almost any medium.

Scenario #1: Let's say you are a passionate LOTR fan club member who wants to bring other Lord of the Rings fans into the fold. Download the Lord of the Rings magazine coupons to your printer and pass them out in movie lines during the Return of the King premiere weekend. For each person who goes online and purchases a Lord of the Rings magazine subscription using the code on your coupons, you will get $5 in Decipher Dollars. So if 10 people do it, you get $50 Decipher Dollars; 100 people, you get $500 Decipher Dollars; and so on. There are no limits.

The tools of Code Rewards are: Passion. Coupons. Ads. Banners. Demos. Tournaments. Conventions. Movies. Friends. Groups. Organizations. Online. And many, many more.

Intrigued yet? So, how do you earn more?

During our beta launch, we are rolling out two promotions for you to use. Think of these as "pre-training" in Code Rewards.

(1) The first promotion is coupons to encourage people to subscribe to the Lord of the Rings and Star Trek fan club magazines.

Every Decipher customer has unlimited access to online coupons developed by Decipher. As we said, when you log in to any of our stores, and print a coupon page, your personal code will automatically print on the coupons. Later, we will provide coupons in PDF format to increase quality.

In the years ahead, we will launch many new Code Rewards promotions. Most will be developed by Decipher, but volunteers will also be encouraged to construct their own promotions and share them with others. (Decipher will be the approval portal for such promotions.) Every Decipher customer will be able to use any Decipher developed coupons, ads, banners, radio or video Code Rewards promotions at their discretion.

Scenario #2: Let's say you are a college student who works on the school newspaper. There's a blank ad in the upcoming issue, so you get permission to insert a Lord of the Rings magazine coupon or ad containing your code. For everyone who purchases a subscription using your code, you get goosebumps and $5 Decipher Dollars.

As a tournament director, you will get 50¢ in Decipher Dollars for each player in every sanctioned event you run. (There's an incentive to get tournament attendance up.) If the event happens at a preferred retailer location, that retailer also gets 50¢ in Decipher Dollars for each player who plays. If the preferred retailer serves as the tournament director, that retailer gets $1 in Decipher Dollars for each player in the tournament. The rewards for the tournament directors and retailers are funded by a new $1 charge to players. (As we have learned from the iTunes Music store from Apple, people are willing to pay 99¢ for something that used to be free for a better quality experience.) In return for the $1 fee, players will get:

•	a more professional tournament system;
•	free tournament accounts (no credit card is needed);
•	more accurate rankings (because fraud, a big problem in every other tournament model, is almost totally eliminated);
•	faster access to rankings (because tournament directors are being rewarded for turning results in quickly);
•	the ability to control and track prize shipments online;
•	near-instantaneous mailing of prize foils (which are supplied and mailed free of charge by Decipher);
•	fewer lost prizes (since players enter their own address information and keeps it current, accuracy is increased exponentially);
•	more dedication from tournament directors and retailers;
•	Decipher Dollar options for prizes (coming soon);
•	hundreds more tournaments in which to play.

Scenario #3: Let's say you love .hack//ENEMY and decide to become a tournament director (or you already are). If you run a weekly tournament that averages 20 players, you will earn $520 Decipher Dollars in the first year. That's enough for some pretty cool rewards on our volunteer.decipher.com store (which launches before year-end) where you will find exclusive items available only to tournament directors!

Keep in mind that tournament directors will want to maintain high standards because losing their role in the Decipher system now would mean they lose the ability to earn Decipher Dollars. The system is a win-win-win for everyone: tournament directors, players, and Decipher.

Scenario #4: Rewards can come in many forms. There are secrets yet to be revealed ahead. For example, our marketing team may occasionally surprise you with an email about a Decipher Dollars sweepstakes exclusively for tournament directors. Or let's say you are a great Product Champion (PC) or a wonderful tournament director (TD) – Dan Bojanowski, Organized Play Manager, may be so impressed with your service to customers that he invites you to a convention to run a championship event with 150 players; that's $75 Decipher Dollars for running one event!

Beyblade launch promotion.

Imagine an army of players all rewarded for getting a horde of other players into the game. Beginning in November, a Code Rewards promotion will launch for the Beyblade trading card game.

Scenario #5: Let's say you are a player or volunteer that loves giving game demos. Beginning with the Beyblade trading card game, each time you do a demo, you will be able to give the potential player a coupon to purchase a "special offer" Beyblade welcome kit. The kit will be exclusive to this promotion and will likely consist of a t-shirt, special cards, exclusive decals, and a coupon for a "free" starter deck with the purchase of two booster packs from a preferred retail location. (As of now, the configuration of the kit is not confirmed.) The welcome kit is expected to cost $19.95. Every time a $19.95 kit is purchased using your code, you will get $3 Decipher Dollar deposited into your account.

Remember, the promotion is designed to raise the standard of demos too. It's to your advantage to be pleasant, inviting and give a good demonstration to the potential player because getting that person into the game (with the purchase of a welcome kit) now means a Decipher Dollar reward for you.

Preferred retailers will be reimbursed by Decipher for supplying the "free" deck simply by entering a unique redemption serial number from the coupon. It all happens online; quick and simple. The retailer will have the option of getting the wholesale value via check or taking the retail value in Decipher Dollars. By year's end, we will be launching retailer.decipher.com, a store designed exclusively for preferred retailers featuring promotional items, point-of-sale, organized play materials, and more. (We will also be launching distributor.decipher.com to incentivize distributors and encourage their Decipher business.)

Code Rewards promotions like this one are designed to create a win-win-win-win for players, volunteers, retailers and Decipher.

The player will benefit because the demo is of high quality and the welcome kit is a cool way to enter a new game. Also, directing them to the retailer exposes them to our wonderful community of players, leagues and tournaments to support and enhance their participation. That's where they can learn from the masters: the mentors of Decipher gaming. The player feels welcome (and probably walks around the retailer's store with their Beyblade trading card game t-shirt advertising the game for the retailer!).

The volunteer will benefit because he or she gets rewarded with Decipher Dollars, plus it increases the number of players in the community. The emotional excitement of being closer to Decipher and being part of an enormously successful launch can't be discounted either.

The preferred retailer will benefit because we send them new customers who are pre-sold on the game. When a new player orders the welcome kit online, we learn their shipping address so we can advise them of activities in their area, like the nearest preferred retailer. Of course, when the new player comes to the store, they are ready to purchase starters and boosters for the game they are now adopting.

Decipher will benefit by covering the cost of the promotion and growing the number of players for our games. Decipher loves to welcome new players into our family and local gaming communities. Kudos all around.

Our research shows that a demo is a very powerful tool to bring in new players. Since all players now have incentives to get new players into the game, we suspect many demos will happen outside of the retail environment. That makes it very valuable to provide potential players with an easy way to get into the game. What could be easier than a welcome kit that has everything they need?

Scenario #6: Dan Bojanowski invites you to a convention to do game demos and says, "Bring your Code Reward welcome kit coupons!"

As you now know, Decipher Dollars are the currency of Code Rewards. They work in any Decipher online store. (While all the normal legal niceties say one cannot get cash for your Decipher Dollars from Decipher, we've pegged their redemption value dollar for dollar to good old American greenbacks.)

You can now see your Decipher Dollar balance on the homepage of any Decipher online store every time you log in. You can also view the entire history of your Decipher Dollar transactions in your personal account pages anytime. Redeeming Decipher Dollars is easy, too. When you check out of any store, you will be given the option of using as many or as few of the Decipher Dollars in you account as you want. Spend them as you go, or save them for something really special.

How did this $5 get here?

In celebration of our beta launch of Code Rewards, we have placed $5 in Decipher Dollars into the account of every existing customer. (Some restrictions apply.) To see your gift, go to the homepage of any Decipher online store and log in.

For new customers, sign up for an account by 31 October 2003 and Decipher will place $5 in Decipher Dollars into your account free in the month of November. Multiple accounts from the same person will, of course, permanently disqualify that individual from Code Rewards.

This $5 Decipher Dollar gift is our way of thanking you for being a valued Decipher customer and to invite you to become a part of the Code Rewards revolution.

Enjoy.

Warren Holland
Chairman & CEO
Decipher Inc.

October 20, 2003

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