Apr 08, 2008 08:00

Epic and EA Announce Extension of Unreal Engine 3 Agreement for Select Upcoming Titles

State of the Art Engine To Be Used Alongside EA's Proprietary Tools & Technology Library

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Apr. 8, 2008 Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) and Epic Games, Inc. today announced that they have expanded their current license agreement. Under the terms of the new agreement, EA will have the right to incorporate the Unreal Engine 3 in more than five upcoming titles currently under development. EA's original Unreal Engine 3 license agreement was signed in 2006, and this new agreement reflects EA's confidence in the Unreal Engine by providing EA development teams with industry-leading tools and technologies to best serve the needs of each game.

Under its initial Unreal Engine 3 license with Epic Games, EA has been utilizing Unreal Engine 3 on several important cross-platform games including: Medal of Honor Airborne(TM) and Army of Two(TM). Details of the additional games in development under the new license agreement are not being released at this time.

"With the largest and most talented studio operation in the world, it's critical for us to give our studio teams the best tools they need to make great games," said Frank Gibeau, President, at EA. "This agreement reflects our commitment to Epic's technology which, in combination with our own cutting-edge systems, allows us to create ground breaking hits."

"Epic is committed to providing EA with the premier development infrastructure, tools and technology for its upcoming games," said Mark Rein, vice president, Epic Games. "We're extremely excited that EA has chosen to expand their use of Unreal Engine 3 and we can't wait to see more of the great games they will produce with it."

Unreal Engine 3 is a complete game development framework for next-generation consoles and DirectX10-equipped PCs, providing the vast array of core technologies, content creation tools, and support infrastructure required by top game developers. Every aspect of the Unreal Engine has been designed with ease of content creation and programming in mind, with the goal of putting as much power as possible in the hands of artists and designers to develop assets in a visual environment with minimal programmer assistance; and to give programmers a highly modular, scalable and extensible framework for building, testing, and shipping games in a wide range of genres.

About Unreal Engine 3

The award-winning Unreal Engine is known for cutting-edge graphics and best-of-breed toolset. Unreal Engine 3 maintains those features while adding massive world support, multi-processor support, next-generation console optimizations, and one of the most mature tool pipelines in the industry. Unreal Engine 3's advanced toolset is designed specifically to accelerate developers' productivity for ultra-complex, next-generation content. Additional information on Unreal Engine can be obtained through the Unreal Technology Web site at http://www.unrealtechnology.com.