The seeds for
Quasimoto Interactive were planted when Christopher Gerding was a student at Wake Forest University. His fraternity's PlayStation 1 system had been stolen, and Gerding set out to find a replacement.
Instead, he went one better -- he built a cabinet and integrated the parts needed to construct the first-ever console-based arcade kiosk.
That insight -- that home console games could be transformed into arcade gaming systems -- launched Quasimoto in 1998 as a consumer-based company and led to an enterprise that, between 2008 and 2010 grew sales by 240 percent, says Jessica Fuller, Quasimoto's CEO and Gerding's wife.
Today the Sharon Center-based specialty designer and manufacturer of high-end game cabinets and electronics no longer sells to the consumer market, but to commercial enterprises. It has even branched out to manufacture systems for other customers, including candy-dispensing systems for
Sweet Amanda's, a candy kiosk company based in Roslyn Heights, N.Y., Fuller says.
Ironically, the real growth didn't occur until after a 2001 accident claimed Gerding's right leg. Much of the $65,000 accidental death and dismemberment payment was put into the company to begin marketing the company's products. At the time, Gerding was running Quasimoto by day and selling aluminum siding by telephone at night, Fuller says.
The company's first branded product was Quasicade with three products: Quasicade Jr., Quasicade 2 and Quasicade Pro.
"The product line opened doors to Sam's Club, Costco, Best Buy and earned OEM business from Disney and others," Fuller says.
Last year, the company introduced Game Gate VU -- a universal console arcade machine licensed for the public -- leading to a second business: product design and development. The new subsidiary, called Advantage Design and Manufacturing Group, now provides product development, concept development, industrial design, 3-D solid modeling, rapid prototyping and a variety of other services for customers.
Quasimoto, which Fuller says received invaluable assistance from
SCORE, has grown from four employees in 2008 to 20 today, and Fuller says the company is hiring. It recently moved from an 8,000 square foot warehouse to a 93,000-foot facility.
Source: Jessica Fuller, Quasimoto
Writer: Gene Monteith