Stainless Steel currently is in development with the first title under the agreement, which is being spearheaded by Rick Goodman, the lead designer of the award-winning, multi-million unit best-selling real-time strategy game Age of Empires.
"Stainless Steel is one of the few organizations with the talent and track record to create a franchise that can compete with the very best real-time strategy games in the market today," said Larry Goldberg, executive vice president of Activision Worldwide Studios. "We are very excited about our new alliance and together we will be able to deliver another great franchise in the real-time strategy genre."
"Our agreement with Activision is great for both companies and especially casual and hardcore strategy gamers, " agreed Rick Goodman, President of Stainless Steel Studios. "We looked for three main things in a publishing partner: a strong philosophical dedication to create the best games possible; help in identifying and aggressively integrating consumer suggestions and critiques into our products; and excellent production services including outstanding quality assurance capabilities and a commitment to ongoing post-release support. Activision more than fulfilled all these criteria."
Stainless Steel Studios, Inc., founded by Rick Goodman in 1997 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, released its first award-winning title, Empire Earth(TM), in November 2001. Empire Earth is an epic real-time strategy game spanning 500,000 years of human history. Prior to founding SSSI, Rick was the cofounder of Ensemble Studios and lead designer for Microsoft's award winning Age of Empires®.
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted revenues of $786 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2002.
Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company's World Wide Web site, which is located at www.activision.com .
The statements contained in this release that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements." The Company cautions readers of this press release that a number of important factors could cause Activision's actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements. These important factors, and other factors that could affect Activision, are described in Activision's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2001, which was filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers of this press release are referred to such filings.
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