Q

27th August 2008

Embargo 00.01GMT Wednesday August 27th 2008

London and Mumbai based developer and quality assurance specialist EC-Interactive (EC-I) has picked Qube Software’s ‘Q’ engine to spearhead the expansion of its games division.

The deal is part of EC-I’s strategy of positioning itself as a one-stop-shop for the games industry offering services from funding through to testing, conversion and development.

EC-I has already built a strong reputation for games testing; its team of over seventy specialists having already put more than 350 titles through their paces on multiple platforms. In the four years since its launch it has added more than a dozen well-known publishers and developers to its client list through recommendation.

Meanwhile EC-I’s development team, which has released a number of Nintendo DS™ and Game Boy® Advance titles, is gearing up for projects on the PC, Wii™, Sony PS2 ® and PSP®.

“Q’s big attraction is that it works on any platform with floating point support and it lends itself to any game genre,” said EC-I’s founder and Managing Director Rupert Young.

The company is targeting the Indian games market; a region it believes is hungry for new titles. Meanwhile EC-I is also taking on work from clients who have developed games for the Western market and who want them ported to other platforms.

“This is an important step for us,” said Young. “Not only are we taking our game development onto PCs and consoles but we’re also expanding our testing services.

The company already provides a comprehensive testing service on Nintendo DS, PSP, PS2, Wii and PC and to select clients on Next Gen platforms as well. Over the coming months EC-I plans to offer testing on the latest consoles to all.

Offering such a comprehensive range of services to customers who want both quality and competitive prices, Young is mindful of the need to keep his operation as efficient as possible.

“We looked at the options and concluded that Q is the only engine offering a future-proof solution that works rights across every single pipeline in a big studio.” said Young.

Young says the most efficient way of offering such a comprehensive range of services is to train staff on what he believes is a genuine cross-studio solution.

“Good developers are always at a premium. With Q, we can deploy their skills on any project, at any time,” Young said. “It makes our workforce highly flexible and that allows us to deliver on time while maintaining high standards and keeping costs down.”

From its inception, Qube’s Doug Rabson and Servan Keondjian set out to make flexibility one of Q’s defining qualities. Their experience of creating Direct3D in the mid 1990s convinced them that middleware had to work for any platform and any game but also have to put developers in charge.

“We’re hearing the same message louder and louder,” said Keondjian. “We heard it in Paris from some of the world’s biggest games companies; they want a cross-studio solution that pulls all their people’s efforts together.”

”I really believe that in five years time the idea of having multiple teams working on mutually incompatible systems will seem very dated and instead we’ll see studios trying to unify their production streams,” Keondjian said.

Young agreed. “My gut feeling is that over the next two or three years we’ll see the industry move that way,” Young said. “I think adopting Q will leave us really well-placed to take on outsourcing work as well as producing our own titles.”

To try Q today contact Jamie Fowlston on +44 20 7431 9995 or via info@qubesoft.com Further details are available at www.qubesoft.com

For media enquiries contact Qube’s Director of Communications, Jonathan Kent, on +44 (0) 7981 803 144 (m) or email jonathan@qubesoft.com

Qube Software produces 'Q', the only truly cross-genre, cross-platform 3D game solution on the market today. Q is a complete game solution in a completely customisable and extensible framework. Q has been designed to revolutionise game development by offering a standard for developers to use on all platforms across all projects. Qube Software is a privately held company that was founded in 1998 by Servan Keondjian and Doug Rabson, the creators of Direct3D, and is headquartered in London, UK.

EC-Interactive is based in London and Mumbai and offers games studios and publishers a full range of services from funding through to testing, conversion and development. For further information please ring +44 (0) 845 2266 932 or email info@ec-i.co.uk

105-109 Sumatra Rd, London NW6 1PL, UK

Tel +44 (0) 207 431 9995 Fax +44 (0) 207 431 7308

www.qubesoft.com