GameSpy Announces 2005's Technical Excellence Award Winners; Battlefield 2, Civilization IV, Nintendo WiFi Connection Earn Top ``Powered by GameSpy'' Honors

Business Wire, March 16, 2006

BRISBANE, Calif. -- IGN Entertainment's GameSpy division, the supplier of multiplayer technology used in more than 300 PC, Sony PlayStation(R)2, Sony PlayStation(R)Portable and Nintendo DS(TM) game titles, today announced the 2005 "Powered By GameSpy" Award Winners. The awards honor games and game developers who have achieved excellence using GameSpy software and services. Winners were chosen from the 78 games released in 2005 that implemented one or more of the GameSpy game software or services.

Four categories were awarded in 2005: Technical Excellence Award for Multiplayer, recognizing most appropriate use of matchmaking modes, excellent server list filtering, preferences for buddies, indication of online presence; Technical Excellence for Stats and Awards, recognizing innovative in-game data collection, processing and display of results to game players and spectators; Technical Excellence for Online Innovation, recognizing the most significant overall achievement in spreading the value and fun of connected gaming; and this year a special Award was given to a publisher who has showed continuous innovation across platforms and franchises.

"We are delighted by the innovation we saw in 2005 and are proud to recognize the best of the best today. It is exciting to see what creative developers achieved using GameSpy online software and how that delights consumers," said Mark Stieglitz, vice president and general manager of IGN Entertainment's Publisher Services. "We applaud the winners and all of our other excellent partners as we look forward to an even more exciting 2006."

The winners of the 2005 "Powered By GameSpy" Awards are:

2005 Technical Excellence Award for Multiplayer Winner: Civilization IV developed by Firaxis and published by 2K Games for its easily set up matches and user interface that allows seamless chatting between buddies, staging rooms and the main lobby. Other finalists for this award were Mario Kart by Nintendo and Battlefield 2 from Electronic Arts.

2005 Technical Excellence Award for Stats & Awards Winner: Battlefield 2 developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts for is advanced teamplay and tightly integrated stats and awards systems which track and awards individual results across servers and with recognition of real time even if the player is offline. Other finalists for this award were Lord of the Rings by Electronic Arts, Infected by Majesco, and Star Wars Battlefront by Lucas Arts.

2005 Technical Excellence Award for Online Innovation Winner: WiFi Connection developed by Nintendo for linking to the GameSpy registration system in a way that combined excellent matchmaking with excellent online safety. And Nintendo found a way to offer the service for free at hotspots around the world. Other finalists for this award were VietCong II by Take Two and Infected by Majesco.

2005 Special Excellence Award Winner: NeverSoft for being the first developer and Activision for being first publisher to deploy GameSpy technology on the PSP platform and for being first to deploy on the PlayStation 2 in 2002.

About IGN Entertainment

IGN Entertainment, a unit of Fox Interactive Media, Inc., is a leading Internet media and services provider focused on the videogame and entertainment enthusiast markets. Collectively, IGN's properties reached more than 31 million unique users worldwide in the month of September 2005, according to Internet audience measurement firm comScore Media Metrix. IGN's network of videogame-related properties (IGN.com, GameSpy, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, Direct2Drive and others), is the web's number one videogame information destination and attracts one of the largest concentrated audiences of young males on the Internet. IGN also owns and operates the popular movie-related website, Rotten Tomatoes and one of the leading male lifestyle websites, AskMen.com. In addition, IGN provides technology for online game play in videogames. IGN is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices throughout the U.S. and in Montreal.

About IGN Entertainment's GameSpy Division

GameSpy is the premier provider of online gaming infrastructure and technologies used in over 300 PC, PlayStation(R)2, PlayStation(R)Portable and Nintendo DS(TM) game titles. From matchmaking and networking to revenue enhancing subscription-based play, GameSpy products and services allow publishers to easily enhance game functionality and reduce development time. GameSpy's products and services have become the industry standard in multiplayer gaming, back-end systems/infrastructure and cross-platform developer tools for the $8-billion interactive entertainment industry. For more information on GameSpy technologies, please visit www.gamespy.net.