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EA's The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth Partners with GameSpy Arena to Create Official Ladder and Competition System
BRISBANE, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Dec. 21, 2004 -- IGN Entertainment, a leading Internet media company serving the video game and entertainment enthusiast markets, and Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS), the world's leading interactive entertainment software company, announced today that EA's new real-time strategy game, The Lord of the Rings(TM), The Battle for Middle-earth(TM) (BFME) will use IGN's GameSpy Arena for its official ladder and competition system.
The official BFME ladder site, located at http://arena.gamespy.com/bfme/, was created by GameSpy Arena and will be administered by dedicated GameSpy Arena staff. BFME players compete against each other in 1 vs. 1 and 2 vs. 2 multiplayer competitions in the game and then can go to the official BFME Arena web site to see their rank, check out their stats, read player interviews and discuss strategies in forums. Players can also create and administer their own ladders using the GameSpy Arena ladder site.
"Partnering with GameSpy Arena enables us to offer The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth players a sophisticated online ladder competition and community experience, while freeing our development team to focus on making a great game," says Mark Skaggs, executive producer for Electronic Arts.
GameSpy Arena, working in conjunction with the GameSpy Stats & Tracking SDK, is the first truly turnkey solution that allows publishers and developers to add in a fully featured ladder and competition system into their game, significantly reducing the resources and time associated with developing it in-house. Each official ladder is skinned and branded to reinforce the game franchise, and is professionally administered by a dedicated GameSpy Arena staff, who handles all ladder administration, dispute resolution and customer service. In addition, the Arena service package includes considerable promotion through links across the IGN Entertainment network, which reached 28.7 million users worldwide(a) in the month of October, according to Internet audience measurement firm, comScore Media Metrix.
"EA's The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth is one of the premier titles of 2004, and we are excited to provide EA with a turnkey competition system," said Jamie Berger, vice president and general manager of IGN Entertainment's consumer products division. "We believe that a robust ladders and tournaments strategy is increasingly crucial to generating franchise loyalty and promoting ongoing gameplay for multi-player games across all platforms. GameSpy Arena further strengthens IGN Entertainment's full spectrum of solutions that help publishers and developers reach their target audience throughout the gaming life cycle."
Game publishers and developers interested in learning more about GameSpy Arena services should contact arena_info@ign.com.
About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, EA posted revenues of $2.96 billion for fiscal 2004. The company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers and the Internet. In 2003, EA had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. Electronic Arts markets its products under three brand names: EA SPORTS(TM), EA GAMES(TM) and EA SPORTS BIG(TM). EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.
About IGN Entertainment
IGN Entertainment provides many of the Internet's leading destinations for video gaming, entertainment and community targeted at teens and 18-34 year-old males. The company's properties include IGN.com, GameSpy.com, Rotten Tomatoes, FilePlanet.com, GameSpyArcade.com, GameSpyArena.com, Direct2Drive, TeamXbox.com, more than 70 community sites and a vast array of online forums. IGN Entertainment is also a leading provider of technology for online game play in video games. The company's paid content, download and game play services are among the most popular game-related subscriptions available on the Internet. The privately held company has its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices throughout the U.S.
IGN Entertainment, Direct2Drive, IGN.com, GameSpy, Rotten Tomatoes, FilePlanet, GameSpy Arcade, GameSpy Arena and TeamXbox are trademarks of IGN Entertainment. Other trademarks and copyrights mentioned are the properties of their respective holders.
Electronic Arts, EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS BIG and EA GAMES are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. The Lord of the Rings and the names of the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Tolkien Enterprises under license to New Line Productions, Inc.
(a)Worldwide data cited herein represent an aggregate of 32 countries reported by comScore Media Metrix on a monthly basis.
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