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[sonycowboy]

Wednesday March 9, 11:29 am ET

Undergraduate Curriculum to be Bolstered By Free Access to Award-winning Game Development Platform

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 9, 2005-- Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS - News) and Criterion Software today announced that they have made a ground-breaking move towards bolstering the scholarly study of interactive entertainment by donating a special academic version of the award-winning RenderWare(TM) software development kit to any accredited institution that would like to use the software to create graphic and game design curriculum. Institutions that are interested in participating need only send a letter describing their intended use for the software to renderwaredeployment@ea.com.

Developed by Criterion Software, RenderWare is the most widely adopted middleware solution in the interactive entertainment industry with over 500 games to its credit. RenderWare is a portfolio of game development tools, which include RenderWare Platform and RenderWare Studio for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Xbox® videogame system from Microsoft, Nintendo Gamecube(TM), PC and the Nokia N-Gage(TM) game deck. The technology suite is used extensively within the game development community worldwide and is regarded as the premier development solution. The game authoring software assists publishers and developers in managing the complexities of next generation game production. Criterion also licenses the software technology to other developers.

"This gift is a shot in the arm for academic institutions that are looking to accelerate their graphic and game design programs," said Steve Seabolt, VP at EA. "Academic institutions throughout the world are building programs to help students achieve their dream of a career in interactive entertainment. By providing this tool, students and teachers can get first hand experience with the game development platform used by the world's top designers and leading game companies. We're sharing one of our most important tools with the hope it will further inspire and better inform students about real world game development."

Dr. John Buchanan, University Research Liaison dude at EA states, "This is a great opportunity for researchers who are working in real time interactive graphics since they will have access to a state of the art real time graphics engine."

This gift is the latest in a series of long-term investments EA is making to interactive entertainment education which includes a robust internship program, an aggressive on-campus lecture series and the creation of the EA Interactive Entertainment Program at the University of Southern California.

 

[Kleegamefan]

Perhaps this makes up for the NFL and ESPN buying shennanagins???

 

[VictimOfGrief]

Perhaps this makes up for the NFL and ESPN buying shennanagins???

Hardly makes a dent if you ask me.

 

[Gattsu25]

smart business move...nothing but positive press as well as familiarizing potential developers/designers to their tools before they even step into the field

 

[Fafalada]

Perhaps this makes up for the NFL and ESPN buying shennanagins???

Nah, I think they are just trying to explore new venues now that their internal teams are mostly refusing to use it.

Like you know, nothing like training new recruits eary

 

[Solid]

I once played Criterion games. They were awesome.

Those were the days.

 

[Slayven]

no harm in feeding the herd you will soon cull

 

[rastex]

Nah, I think they are just trying to explore new venues now that their internal teams are mostly refusing to use it.

Uh... no?

 

[Kleegamefan]

I was being a smartass...

 

[Fafalada]

Uh... no?

Well I figure it makes sense to train conformant staff replacements when they are still too young and stupid to be able to tell the difference

 

[rastex]

Tell the difference to what?

 

[monchi-kun]

they're doing this because ever since the buyout RENDERWARE went from First Choice to Last Resort. by giving it away to universities EA is making sure that development studios will "have" to license their tech because grads have spent so much time getting familiar with the dev tool.

 

[Nerevar]

looks like EA is learning from Microsoft how to assimilate, I mean train, young workers to use their proprietary tools.

Why weren't they doing stuff like that when I was in college? It would've at least been fun to play around with.

 

[Hooker]

What good is this without a NGC/XB/PS2/etc. dev-kit?!

 

[Nerevar]

What good is this without a NGC/XB/PS2/etc. dev-kit?!

You can use it for PC games too ...

 

[Shig]

Doesn't Renderware only act as middleware for current-gen systems? Won't they have to come up with a completely new middleware solution for next-gen ones?

So essentially, they're donating the equivalent of out-of-date textbooks.

 

[bishoptl]

As EA continues to adapt Renderware to the next-gen platforms, you can be sure that they'll be providing updates to the university licensees. Or did you think that this was a "one and done" situation?

As it stands right now, this won't make a difference at all with any other developer or publisher - Renderware is anathema now, thanks to the EA takeover.

 

[Lord Error]

Faf, so they (EA) are still sticking to their own earlier developed middleware engine?

 

[Fafalada]

Faf, so they (EA) are still sticking to their own earlier developed middleware engine?

Ok I was exagerating/teasing in first post, but basically the things I've been hearing is that while policy to use renderware is in place, there have been troubles adopting it for nexgen development, as well as indications that it won't be anywhere near ready in time.
So while it's officially "used", many teams are apparently working around it as they can.

As for their earlier middleware - afaik that was never even close to being a standard. I've heard of there being like 3(perhaps more?) EA internal solutions as well as a bunch of external ones still being used by different studios.