Emergent Teams With HP to Help Developers Get Online Games to Market Faster and at Lower Cost

"Pay-as-You-Go" Model to Remove Barriers to Entry in Online Games Business


CALABASAS, CA and AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwire - September 6, 2007) - At Austin Games Developers Conference. Emergent Booth #721; HP Booth #621. -- Emergent Game Technologies today announced an agreement with HP to help game developers and publishers deploy and manage online games quickly and without prohibitive upfront costs. The agreement is part of the Emergent Platform, the interactive entertainment industry's first comprehensive development and deployment platform for creating and launching online games.

This agreement marks the first time in the game industry that the computing power, scale, and reliability required for online games of all types are available with a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model. Under the terms of the agreement, the Emergent Platform will be fully integrated with HP Flexible Computing Services, an enterprise offering that will provide game companies with access to a best-in-class, scalable infrastructure on a "pay-as-you-go" basis.

With the HP-powered Emergent Platform, Emergent will offer game developers of all sizes the world-class tools and all the ancillary game services required to support players and the business of online games.

The Emergent Platform allows developers and publishers to pay as their games scale instead of making a significant financial investment before a game is even ready for consumer availability. Game companies will be able to "stand up" and deploy online games more quickly and at a cost that is much lower than previously possible. The SaaS model dramatically reduces the risk and helps increase the return on investment associated with game development today.

"HP provides the dynamic scale, flexibility and mission-critical reliability that game studios expect and require to effectively serve their audiences," said Geoffrey Selzer, CEO of Emergent. "Together, Emergent and HP are unleashing the massive power of the Emergent Platform to help countless numbers of studios around the world bring creative new concepts to market more quickly and at significantly less cost and risk than ever before."

With HP Flexible Computing Services, the Emergent Platform will be supported by HP expertise in gaming and standards-based technologies including BladeSystem c-Class server blades and StorageWorks solutions, which reside in state-of-the-art HP datacenters managed by experienced professionals. The agreement with Emergent is part of an ongoing HP initiative, HP Game On, to help gaming companies streamline the development, launch and management of games.

"HP is focused on improving the gamer experience using everything in its portfolio, from immersive consumer devices to powerful online game infrastructure technology and services," said Matthew Lane, director, Communications, Media and Entertainment, HP. "Emergent is an innovative company, and our agreement is good news for game developers and, ultimately, gamers themselves."

The beta version of the Emergent Platform's online game deployment service will be available in September 2007 and is the first major step in a multi-lateral initiative from Emergent and HP to meet the technical and business needs of the interactive entertainment development community.

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, California, and has offices in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Austin, Texas, Wroclaw, Poland and London. To learn more, visit www.emergent.net.

Contact Information: Contact: Susan Kramer Double Forte for Emergent Game Technologies (415) 848-8113 skramer@double-forte.com