HeroEngine Technology, Critical to Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Successful Launch Now Used by Thousands of Game Developers
LONDON–(January 16, 2011)– On December 20, 2011 the highly anticipated game from Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA – News)/BioWareTM, Star WarsTM: The Old RepublicTM, was released to the wider public. Importantly, this also marks the first release of a major game built using the HeroEngineTM, an integrated development platform for building online games.
The HeroEngine originally was designed with huge multiplayer scalable games such as the Star Wars MMO in mind. BioWare made its decision to build this complex, large scale game on the HeroEngine foundation because of its superior, integrated offering of development tools that provide live collaborative development and real-time updates, dramatically streamlining the process of building online games.
When Idea Fabrik Plc. (Boerse Berlin symbol GB00B61CVK31, TI4.BE) acquired the technology from Simutronics in 2010, Alex Shalash, Idea Fabrik’s Chairman and co-founder saw a great opportunity to bring innovation in both technology and services to the broader online game development space. Shalash said, “We saw HeroEngine as a very powerful toolset where through some changes in technology and additions of complementary services we could provide a new business model for smaller game studios in both the MMO and Social Game markets.”
In a matter of months, Idea Fabrik launched the “HeroCloudTM” service developed to provide continuously updated HeroEngine technology in combination with a new service layer designed for the needs of medium and smaller game studios. HeroCloud also supports developers post-launch with hosting and bandwidth as well as global billing and marketing solutions. HeroCloud is free to use for developers, and applies a revenue sharing model upon game launch.
There are already thousands of developers using HeroCloud and according to President and COO Neil Harris, “Developers are seeing a significantly reduced time to market. The Star Wars MMO was a major, multi-year undertaking, but other MMO games have shipped on our platform in as little as 15 months.”
The HeroCloud has been available to the wider public for only a few weeks as a free download from the website. For more information about HeroCloud, visit the official site at heroengine.com.
About Idea Fabrik:
Idea Fabrik is an industry leading online games company. The company licenses its HeroEngine game development technology platform to dozens of studios worldwide for online games which include Electronic Arts / Bioware’s MMO title, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Idea Fabrik also provides the HeroCloud managed service, offering to thousands of independent developers low-cost access to the HeroEngine technology. For more information about Idea Fabrik, including details about the company’s online game development studios across the globe, visit the official website at ideafabrik.com.
Safe Harbor: Statements contained in this news release, other than those identifying historical facts, constitute ‘forward- looking statements’. Such forward-looking statements relating to the Company’s future expectations, including but not limited to revenues and earnings, technology efficacy, strategies and plans, are subject to safe harbors protection. Actual Company results and performance may be materially different from any future results, performance, strategies, plans, or achievements that may be expressed or implied by any such forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.
STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates.
BioWareTM is a Label of Electronic Arts Inc.
