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Viewing Post from Tuesday Sep 24, 2002

Demo Downloaded by Over 1.2 Million Fans in Just Five Days!

Yo! Matt Frary, the

Infogrames UT PR Guru

sent us this informational email about the demo (paraphrased):

ATARI'S UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003 DEMO EXPLODES ONTO THE INTERNET WITH NEARLY 1.2 MILLION DOWNLOADS IN FIVE DAYS

...LOS ANGELES - Sept. 24, 2002 - Atari today announced that the trial version of Unreal Tournament 2003, one of the most anticipated PC games of 2002, has already become one of the most popular game demo debuts of all time with nearly 1.2 million downloads between its debut last Friday night, September 13 and Wednesday, September 18. The demo is available at

www.unrealtournament2003.com.

..."Fans were waiting for the next big thing in action gaming, and the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo was just what they were looking for," said Jean-Philippe Agati, senior vice president and head of Infogrames, Inc.'s Los Angeles studio. "We couldn't be happier with the popularity of the title. The new game completely lives up to its Game of the Year heritage. Digital Extremes and Epic have done it again!"

According to statistics tracked by Web sites offering the demo, nearly 1.2 million users accessed the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo between Friday night and Wednesday morning. FilePlanet.com and GameSpot.com, two of the most popular online video game download destinations, reported more than 103,000 attempted downloads and more than 50,000 completed downloads respectively. On both sites, the demo is maintaining its position as the top download. In addition, the global Internet 'Traffic Index,' which tracks how fast information is transferred through the Internet, took a sizeable hit when the demo was released on September 13. As a result of so many people downloading the file, the average speed of the Internet worldwide was cut nearly in half.

"After the long hard hours the team spent working on this game it's really gratifying for us to see so many people so eager to play what we've created," said James Schmalz, founder and creative director of Digital Extremes. "It's great to see the incredible reaction we've gotten to the innovations in gameplay that we've added to the sequel. It confirms what we set out to do in evolving the game to the next level."

"It's great to see the community that loved Unreal Tournament embrace the new iteration of the franchise in such overwhelming numbers," said Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games. "I can't wait to deliver the full version of the game and watch the community strengthen and expand as competitions, LAN parties and new, innovative mods are born from the new technology."...