Emergent Drives Growth in Chinese Games Market

China's Winking Entertainment Licenses Emergent's Gamebryo Technology


CALABASAS, CA--(Marketwire - August 15, 2007) - Emergent Game Technologies today announced that it continues to drive competitiveness and growth in the Chinese game development community with its significant deal with Winking Entertainment, one of China's leading game developers. With this deal, Winking Entertainment has made Emergent's Gamebryo its real-time 3D graphics engine of choice. The two companies are exploring further collaboration in Asia, beginning with a combined presence at the China Game Developers Conference (booth #A10/A12) in Shanghai, August 27-29.

China's game development industry has grown tremendously over the past few years, and projections are for even more dramatic growth in the next decade.

According to Pearl Research, a business intelligence firm specializing in interactive entertainment, China's low cost structure, large labor force and strong infrastructure position it as the ideal outsourcing destination for game development. But as the industry turns to China for lower cost assistance, companies such as Emergent Game Technologies help Chinese developers enhance their competitiveness with more innovative pipeline tools. Emergent alone has used its Gamebryo engine to move Chinese developers from PC-centric development to multi-core, cross-platform development. These efforts have helped Emergent achieve close to 900% revenue growth in China over the last 18 months.

Winking Entertainment, a developer with a strong focus on providing outsourcing services for online game development, was quick to understand the competitive advantages that Gamebryo could provide. Possessing more than 10 years of development experience, Winking Entertainment was one of the first Chinese video game developers to obtain PLAYSTATION®2 and Xbox 360™ development licenses and is currently developing several Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games for customers worldwide.

"Chinese game developers must find different means of differentiating themselves and staying competitive," said Gary Chang, CEO of Winking Entertainment. "By leveraging Emergent's real-time 3D graphics engine, we were able to quickly extend our PC-based game development to support leading next-generation consoles, while minimizing our overhead with more automated, cost-efficient processes."

According to Geoffrey Selzer, CEO of Emergent, China represents a significant market for the company.

"China's game developers are becoming ever more competitive in skill and technological know-how," said Selzer. "Our world-class tools and efficiencies in cross-platform and online development will help Chinese companies like Winking drive more innovation and greater cost efficiencies into their pipeline, and build their technological competitiveness with other regions."

Architected from the ground up for flexibility, Gamebryo brings true multi-platform support and multi-core speed to teams thirsty for fully featured, real-time graphics rendering. Gamebryo has been fully optimized for development on PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360™, and PC, and has been used in more than 200 games titles across multiple genres. It recently gained attention as the engine used in Bethesda Softworks' record-breaking Xbox 360™, PLAYSTATION®3 and PC title, "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion." Gamebryo is also being used by EA-Mythic on its upcoming "Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning."

About Emergent

Emergent Game Technologies provides flexible technologies and services that give developers an unmatched range of integrated capabilities for building, testing and managing games. These proven, stand-alone solutions, known as Emergent Elements, include the award-winning Gamebryo 3D graphics engine, which has been used to create hit titles for the PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360™, and PC. Emergent Elements, give developers the flexibility they need to fuel creativity while reducing risk.

Emergent is headquartered in Calabasas, Calif., and has offices in Chapel Hill, NC, Austin, Texas and London. To learn more, visit www.emergent.net.

About Winking Entertainment

Winking Entertainment is a leading developer of games in China. Leveraging over 10 years of technology development and marketing experience, Winking Entertainment is devoted to being a 100% outsourcing company specializing in large scale Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) Role Playing Games and Casual Game development. Winking has developed a wide range of products including the award-winning PC titles such as "Heroine Anthem I," "Heroine Anthem II" and "Fantastic Melody Online." etc. Winking takes pride in its commitment to quality and on-time delivery. To learn more, visit www.winkingworks.com.

Contact Information: Contact: Susan Kramer Double Forte for Emergent Game Technologies (415) 863-4900 x8113 skramer@double-forte.com