GT INTERACTIVE ACQUIRES AWARD-WINNING SOFTWARE DEVELOPER, LEGEND ENTERTAINMENT
Legend Currently Creating Wheel of Time Utilizing Unreal Engine
Company to Create Unreal II
New York, January 6, 1999 -- Further expanding its internal software development capabilities, GT Interactive Software Corp. (Nasdaq: GTIS) announced today that it has acquired the business of Legend Entertainment, a leading entertainment software developer known for hit titles such as Mission Critical and Death Gate, in a cash transaction. Legend becomes GT Interactive's seventh fully integrated software development studio.
Legend joins GT Interactive's established development studios -- Cavedog Entertainment, Humongous Entertainment, SingleTrac, Oddworld Inhabitants, Bootprint Entertainment and Reflections -- in creating original and innovative entertainment software.
"Today's announcement furthers GT Interactive's strategy to expand our internal development capabilities as well as our portfolio of brands," said Ron Chaimowitz, chairman and chief executive officer of GT Interactive. "Legend is a highly professional and creative company that we welcome to the growing family of GT Interactive studios. We believe, as they have shown in the development to date of Wheel of Time, that Legend produces ground-breaking games that will serve to propel the interactive entertainment experience forward."
"We are delighted to become a part of the GT family," said Michael Verdu, chairman of Legend. "We've been working with GT for the last year on a new generation of products and this acquisition is a natural extension of that relationship." Bob Bates, president of Legend, added: "This move allows Legend to concentrate on what we do best - creating great games."
GT Interactive's acquisition of Legend Entertainment strengthens the company's internal development capabilities and provides it with the potential to have greater control over development delivery schedules. To this end, GT Interactive recently announced that on an exclusive global basis it will publish Unreal II, which Legend is creating on behalf of Epic MegaGames. Published by GT Interactive and developed by Epic MegaGames, Unreal broke new ground in 3D action games and has been among the industry's top 10 best-selling PC games since its release in May of this year. Legend is also creating the Unreal Level Pak, which includes 10 new previously unreleased Unreal levels. In addition, Legend is currently developing the PC game Wheel of Time, which utilizes the Unreal engine and is being published by GT Interactive in 1999.
Established in 1989, Legend has created 16 titles to date for personal computers, including the award-winning game Shannara, based on the book series by author Terry Brooks; and Mission Critical, an original science fiction adventure game.
Headquartered in NY, with 1997 revenues of $531 million, GT Interactive
Software Corp. is a leading global cross-media
entertainment company which develops, markets, merchandises and distributes
game software; creates e-commerce, electronic storefront leasing,
advertising, content licensing and multiplayer gaming opportunities on the
Internet; and produces television programs. Via its OneZero Media
subsidiary, GT operates a specialized entertainment portal, www.getwild.com,
which acts as the Entertainment Zone on AltaVista; and produces the
nationally syndicated television program, The Wild Wild Web. The company's
software labels include GT Interactive, Humongous Entertainment, Cavedog
Entertainment, SingleTrac, WizardWorks, CompuWorks, MacSoft and Slash.
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