PRESSRELEASE

Bringing together US and UK MMORPG* talent, Dragon Empires to satisfy transatlantic gameplay tastes.

US and UK talent is involved in Dragon Empires' creation, constructing a game that combines the best of British and American game design techniques to satisfy players on both sides of the pond.

The game's design is the product of the two teams' collaboration. Headed by producer Ted Carron, the game's development is split between Codemasters' UK development studios in Warwickshire and its Oakhurst studio in California.

The US team has over 10 years experience in MMORPGs with Mark Zechiel as US Studio Head and Designer. Server Programming and the game's visuals are led from the US. The majority of Client Programming and World Building comes from the UK.

Similarly, Dragon Empires' forthcoming Beta Test programme seeks a good spread of players from the US and Europe. With tens of thousands of prospective players already registered to participate, Codemasters is eager to hear from more Beta Testers who want to help shape Dragon Empires in this massive 'hands (and talons) across the ocean' project. The sign up page for Beta Test is located at: http://www.codemasters.com/dragonempires/beta_form.php

Before the Beta Testing begins, the Dragon Empires community is building with much activity on the game's forum. The forum sees both gamers suggesting ideas and the teams using it as a sounding board for their concepts and research. Gamers can make their opinions heard and make them count by being an active participant in the forum, which is easily accessible from the game's web site at: http://www.codemasters.com/dragonempires

Says Ted Carron, Dragon Empires' Producer: "Dragon Empires is an intense and competitive game that drives people into groups. We've been aware from the game's inception that its design must accommodate and appeal to US and European players alike, whether we see the formation of transatlantic clans or not. The location and experience of the teams ensures we produce a play environment that works across international boundaries."

The English language version of Dragon Empires is scheduled to be available in Q3 2002 for PC gamers. The game will be launched as a boxed product with players subscribing on a monthly basis to play.

MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLL PLAYING GAMES

Dragon Empires is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). The game allows players to enter a virtual world running at a single physical location using their own computer as a terminal. In the virtual world players can see all the other players who are logged on as well as the monsters who inhabit the world. All game information - such as status information about characters - is stored at the central server and is stored between sessions so that each character has a persistent presence in the virtual world.

TED CARRON

Producer of Dragon Empires

Ted Carron, 38, is a Codemasters Studio Head and currently Producer of Dragon Empires, the company's groundbreaking Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

Ted is a Codemasters lifetimer and one of the driving forces behind the company's key innovations.

His foray into the video games market and his association with Codemasters began with his first game, Rugby Simulator for the Commodore 64 and Atari ST. The game was one of Codemasters' early successes.

However, it was the invention of the Game Genie™ that was Ted's first taste of real achievement in the industry. Together with Codemasters' founders David and Richard Darling, the trio devised a hardware device for cartridge-based games systems that allowed players to change settings of a game, such as the level difficulty or the number of lives available to the player.

Ted joined Codemasters full time to help with Game Genie0™ development, which became a global best seller, selling over five million units.

Ted returned to pure games after Game Genie and concentrated on managing Codemasters' migration from home computers onto 16-bit consoles with the successful Sega Mega Drive version of Micro Machines. A string of other Mega Drive hits followed and Codemasters positioned itself at the forefront of the full-price console games market.

More recently, Ted's work has included the creation of the Codemasters' Multiplayer Network (CMN), the online play connectivity software, enabling thousands of gamers worldwide to battle against each other online.

His current production, Dragon Empires, is due for colonisation Q2 2002 by PC gamers seeking advancement over the MMORPGs currently available.