San Francisco (February 20, 2008)--
Havok™, the premier provider of interactive software and services to
digital creators in the games and movie industries, today announced
that the company will offer the PC version of its award-winning physics
and animation software product – Havok Complete – for download free of
charge.
Available for non-commercial use, Havok Complete for the PC will be freely downloadable in May 2008.
Havok’s
core platform, Havok Complete combines the industry-leading Havok
Physics engine and Havok Animation, the company’s premier character
animation solution. Havok Complete is already the most popular solution
in the cross-platform AAA games market, featuring technology used in
over 200 games. By making Havok Complete for the PC freely
downloadable, Havok will further build on its leading position by
completely removing the barriers to entry for the large number of
independent developers, academic institutions and enthusiasts in the PC
space.
“Havok has an excellent revenue base generated by sales
of our three products across multiple platforms and into multiple
industries,” said David O’Meara, Managing Director at Havok. “This
enables us to make an industry-changing move and opens up a much
broader market for products such as Havok Behavior – and our new
products Havok Cloth and Havok Destruction – that really come alive
when adopted on top of our core platform, Havok Complete.”
Havok
has entered into an agreement with Intel, Havok’s parent company, under
which approved game developers on the PC platform can execute a
commercial distribution license with Havok for free.
“Intel
is very pleased to be sponsoring this direction in the PC market. This
aligns well with our ongoing strategy of putting the best software
tools in the hands of PC games developers,” said Renee J. James,
Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Software and Solutions
Group, Intel Corporation.
With the free PC download of Havok
Complete, Havok enables broad non-commercial development use for
artists and engineers around the world, which Havok believes will boost
creative game development throughout the industry.
“This is
fantastic news for commercial PC game developers as well as the
independent game development community, who will really benefit from
this move,” said Mark DeLoura, creator of the Game Programming Gems
series. “It’s great to see a leading middleware company like Havok show
such support for PC game developers by making its physics and animation
system freely available.”
Havok’s overall focus remains
cross-platform and Havok will continue commercial licensing of Havok
Complete for other platforms and in other industries such as movies and
serious gaming. This initiative does not apply to license fees that may
be payable to Havok for console versions of Havok Complete or to
applications developed for other purposes such as game engines for
redistribution, other middleware, movies, training, military or
industrial simulation.
Havok’s physics software is featured in
over 200 AAA games available on stores shelves today. With well over 90
games currently in development to be released this year, use of Havok’s
ubiquitous software is up 100% over last year at the same time.
Best-selling titles featuring Havok physics include: Halo 3, Assassin’s
Creed, Guitar Hero III, BioShock, World in Conflict, Half Life 2: The
Orange Box, and Heavenly Sword. Havok’s software will also be featured
in the highly-anticipated upcoming games Alan Wake, Indiana Jones, Star
Wars: The Force Unleashed and Starcraft II.
With a broad and
deep range of tech partners including AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Nintendo,
Sony and Microsoft as well as a host of world-class publishers and
developers, Havok is well known industry-wide for its excellent
customer service.
In addition to the PC software download, Havok
also unveiled two new software products, Havok Cloth™ and Havok
Destruction™ at this year’s Game Developers Conference. Havok Cloth and
Destruction provide artists with dramatically increased control over
interactive cloth and destructible objects within games. The company
also announced several new features and enhancements across its award
winning modular suite of run-time technology and artist tools.
Havok
also celebrated a number of key entertainment and technology awards in
2007, including a National Academy of Television, Arts & Sciences
Award, Game Developer Frontline Award, and a Develop Industry
Excellence Award.
About Havok
Havok,
an Intel company, was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1998, and is the
premier provider of interactive software and services for digital media
creators in the games and movie industries. With world leading
expertise in physics, animation and tools, Havok’s business is to turn
our customers’ creative aspirations into technical realities. Havok’s
modular suite of tools gives power to the creator, making sure that our
clients can reach new standards of realism and interactivity, while
mitigating the overall cost and risks associated with creating today’s
leading video games and movies.
Havok works in partnership with
the world’s best known game developers - including Sony, Nintendo,
Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft and Pandemic Studios. Havok’s cross-platform,
professionally supported technology is available for the PlayStation®2,
PLAYSTATION®3, PSP™, Xbox™, Xbox360™, Wii™, GameCube™, and the PC.
Havok’s combination of superior technology and dedication to delivering
for our customers every time has led to our technology being used in
more than 150 of the world’s best known game titles, including
BioShock, Halo 3, MotorStorm, Stranglehold, Crackdown, Age of Empires
III and Cars.
Havok products have been used to drive special
effects in movies such as Poseidon, The Matrix, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven
and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Havok has offices in Dublin, San Francisco, San Antonio, Calcutta, Munich, and Tokyo.
Havok.com,
the Havok logo and the buzz-saw logo are trademarks of Havok.com Inc
(or its licensors), in the United States and other countries. All other
brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective
holders.
