APB: All Points Bulletin

Grand Theft Auto Creator, David Jones, Awards Worldwide Publishing Rights for His First Online Game, APB To Webzen, Inc.

Seoul, Korea, (February 15, 2005) – At a joint press conference in Seoul, Korea, it was announced today that global online entertainment company, Webzen, Inc. (Nasdaq: Wzen) was awarded the worldwide online game publishing rights to All Points Bulletin (APB), the first online game developed by David Jones, the creator of the multi-million unit selling video game, Grand Theft Auto, and his UK-based game development company, Real Time Worlds (RTW).

APB is scheduled to release in early 2007 and will be showcased at the video game industry’s largest trade show, the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo, in Los Angeles this May. During today’s press conference, Jones unveiled the first screen and character images from the game.

“As an avid gamer and creator of many single player games, it has been my dream to create an online game experience that provides the player with the ultimate freedom to do whatever he wants, in a thriving, living environment,” said David Jones, founder and creative director of Real Time Worlds. “When looking for a publishing partner for APB, it was imperative to find a company that was a worldwide leader in online games and we found that in Webzen, Inc.”

“APB is an online game that we think will fuel the worldwide growth of online gaming,” said Nam Joo Kim, CEO of Webzen, Inc. “As Webzen, Inc. continues to expand into new markets around the world, it was important to find a property that translated to a broad audience. We are very excited about the APB’s potential.”

APB is a massively multiplayer online game based in living, breathing cities that will feel familiar to players, as they precisely replicate famous cities all over the world. APB is a turf war involving two main factions, the Squads, whose goal is to uphold the law, and the Gangs, who seek to break the law at all costs. Players will be able to choose their side, in a classic good guy versus bad guy scenario. The Gangs are all about graffiti, attitude, custom cars and earning cash any way they can. The Squads stand for honor, teamwork, firepower and destroying the Gangs. APB will provide the player with the ultimate customization options from their weapons, vehicles and clothes to their attitude, music and environment.

With APB, Real Time Worlds and Webzen, Inc. are looking to set a new standard in online entertainment. Thousands of players will form gangs or squads all around the world, and will play in hundreds of online cities. APB is scheduled to release in early 2007.

In January of this year, Webzen, Inc. announced its expansion into the U.S. market and the opening of Los Angeles office. In addition to APB, Webzen, Inc. plans to bring multiple online game titles to the U.S. market. The titles include the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), SUN, releasing in the third quarter of 2005, and a massively multiplayer online first person shooter (MMOFPS) called Huxley, that leverages the latest Unreal 3 game engine and is scheduled to release in 2006. Webzen, Inc. is also developing game properties for the next generation game consoles to enhance its appeal to the mainstream gaming audience.

Webzen, Inc. has developed some of the world’s top online game and client/server technologies. The company also prides itself in the creativity department, publishing some of the most highly acclaimed titles for the Asian market. For its tremendously successful 3D MMORPG title, MU. Webzen, Inc. has attracted over 56 million users and a half million concurrent users from the Asian market alone.

For more information about Webzen, Inc., go to www.webzen.co.kr

Source:

Webzen press release (February 15, 2005)

Realtime Worlds Regains Global Distribution Rights to Ground-Breaking Online Game APB Following Second Round Funding

BOULDER, Colo. and DUNDEE, Scotland, UK – April 21, 2008 – Realtime Worlds, Inc., a leading independent video game developer, today announced that it has regained the global distribution rights to All Points Bulletin (APB), the highly-anticipated urban-themed massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) under development in the company’s Dundee studio. The move follows Realtime Worlds’ recent US$50 million second round funding and provides the company with the independence to push creative boundaries in the development of the game and to take a more active role in managing APB’s global distribution strategy.

“Owning the distribution rights to APB marks a major milestone in Realtime Worlds’ evolution into a premier online entertainment company,” said David Jones, founder and CEO, Realtime Worlds. “By controlling the rights to APB we can ensure that gamers around the globe experience the revolutionary gameplay we envisioned when we first began creating the property. We are excited about the prospect of having direct, personal relationships with our players, which is a dream come true for many development studios.”

APB is an original MMOG for the PC platform featuring an immersive urban-based community where players choose between playing the criminals or those out to catch the criminals. Players will carry out or thwart opposed crimes and build up areas of the city they control, all with unprecedented levels of character and vehicle customization.

Realtime Worlds regained the global distribution rights to APB from leading Korean online entertainment company Webzen, Inc., which originally partnered with Realtime Worlds in 2005.

Source:

Realtime World press release (April 21, 2008)

Realtime Worlds puts out an APB for NVIDIA PhysX technology

SANTA CLARA, CA—AUGUST 18, 2008— Often underappreciated by those who only casually play games, fast and accurate physical models and calculations are a key to a game’s playability and realism. From the effect of explosions on nearby objects, to the impacts of car accidents, to how a character reacts when hit, physics is as important to realism as high-quality graphics. Because of this, Realtime Worlds’ upcoming massively multiplayer online game, APB, will take advantage of NVIDIA® GeForce® GPUs and PhysX™ technology to enhance the game’s free-form combat and real-time driving environments.

APB will bring players into a living, breathing city where cash is king and territory equals respect. Scheduled for release in 2009, APB is one of many titles to take advantage of NVIDIA PhysX technology, the world’s most pervasive development platform for physics acceleration in interactive entertainment.

“Realtime Worlds, by our very name, defines what games we aim to create,” said Dave Jones, the CEO of Realtime Worlds. “APB is a vastly ambitious project, combining the key elements of action gameplay in a living, breathing world with millions of players around the globe. In order to fully realise the vision of APB, it was essential to include next-generation physics in our game world. This is why we choose to standardise our development on GeForce GPUs and NVIDIA PhysX technology, the combination of which has given our developers the power and freedom to deliver the first action and physics based combat gameplay into the massively multiplayer online space.”

NVIDIA PhysX technology consists of a robust physics engine, API, and middleware platform that give developers the ability to add additional levels of realism into their games across all major gaming platforms, including Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and the PC. PhysX technology can run on either the CPU or any CUDA general-purpose parallel computing processor, including many current and all future NVIDIA GeForce GPUs. But the massively parallel architecture in GeForce GPUs can handle 10 to 20 times more visual complexity than what’s possible today on a CPU alone and can leverage the best of both GPU and CPU architectures to deliver the ultimate experience to the user. More importantly, PhysX supports hardware scaling with the GeForce GPUs to deliver much faster performance and richer environments on multi-GPU gaming platforms.

“We are very excited that Realtime Worlds is incorporating PhysX technology into APB,” said Roy Taylor, NVIDIA vice president of content relations. “APB is a marvel in free form story innovation and promises to bring an entirely new approach to multiplayer online gaming. We can hardly wait to play!”

NVIDIA PhysX technology is already included in more than 140 shipping titles for Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and the PC. For more information on NVIDIA PhysX technology, please visit: www.nzone.co.uk/physx.

Source:

Realtime Worlds press release (August 19, 2008)

Realtime Worlds Taps Vivox® to Provide Voice Chat for All Points Bulletin (APB)

NATICK, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vivox, Inc., the market leader in voice services for games and virtual worlds, today announced an agreement with Realtime Worlds to provide voice chat for players in their upcoming title, All Points Bulletin (APB).

Through this agreement, the APB player community will get high quality, feature rich voice chat from Vivox. Players will be able to communicate one-to-one or in groups in 3D voice via the proven Vivox Network. In addition, players can customize the voice of their avatars with voice fonts, further immersing themselves into the game experience. All of these Vivox voice services will be integrated with the APB game code to maintain the game’s fast-paced environment that the Realtime Worlds team is known for.

“We decided early on that integrated voice chat was a must for APB,” remarked Ray Miller, vice president of business development for Realtime Worlds. “We do everything best of breed and we knew we needed the best voice chat available. We evaluated all of the alternatives, and in the end it was clear that Vivox is the best and most cost-effective solution in the industry. Not only will we deliver a first-rate communications experience to our players, but we will also minimize our technical and business risks with Vivox.”

Rob Seaver, CEO of Vivox commented, “The developers at Realtime Worlds are renowned for creating a compelling game experience that engages players. Always pushing the norms of game design, they appreciate how voice will add an additional element of community and intensity to the game. We are excited to work with these industry pioneers and to add them to the growing Vivox Network.”

Source:

Vivox press release (March 2009)

EA Joins Forces with Realtime Worlds for All Points Bulletin™

Redwood City, CA – June 1, 2009 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Realtime Worlds, Inc. announced today that they have entered an exclusive marketing and distribution agreement for North America and Europe that will bring the highly-anticipated All Points Bulletin™ (APB) to PC in early 2010. Founded by industry veteran David Jones, creator of Lemming’s, Grand Theft Auto 1&2 and Crackdown, Realtime Worlds’ latest project takes the universal theme of Criminals and Enforcement and brings it to a persistent, open world multiplayer setting in a modern, crime-ridden city.

“After a few years of quietly working on APB I’m extremely excited to be able to show it publically for the first time” said David Jones, Founder and Creative Director of Realtime Worlds. “To also be able to announce our marketing and distribution agreement with EA Partners at the same time is the cream on top. It’s very evident that EA Partners are clearly in-sync with our vision for APB and between us we aim to ensure gamers understand why it’s unique, and share our excitement”

“Throughout his career David Jones has continually forged new creative paths in interactive entertainment,” said David DeMartini, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EA Partners. “David and the team at Realtime Worlds are set to do it once again with APB. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with them in introducing online persistence to 3rd person, open-world action games and defining a new category within the genre.”

APB is a new breed of online game. Set in a persistent living, breathing open-world urban environment where fame and fortune awaits all players. Some players will achieve this by feeding on the city, its people and its businesses…the Criminals. Some will live by a higher code and instead feed on the criminals and their organizations…the Enforcers. This dynamic where players become the core content for other players is one of the many unique features of APB. Its deep, rich customization system provides players with the ability to completely personalize their identity. Looks, clothing, vehicles and even music, all to astonishing detail and quality.

To download the debut trailer for APB, as well as new screens and artwork, please visit http://info.ea.com.

For more information on APB please visit http://www.apb.com/.

Source:

Electronic Arts press release (June 01, 2009)

Realtime Worlds and EA Announce Global Ship Dates for APB (All Points Bulletin™), Pre-Order Incentives and Evolutionary Payment Model

Guildford, UK – April 30, 2010 – Realtime Worlds, Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), today announced that APB (All Points Bulletin™) will be released for the PC on June 29th in North America, July 1st in mainland Europe and July 2nd in the UK. APB takes the universal theme of Criminals and Enforcers and brings it to a persistent, open-world, online multiplayer setting in the modern, crime-ridden fictional city of San Paro. Some players will achieve notoriety by feeding on the city, its people and its businesses…the Criminals. Some will live by a higher code and instead feed on the criminals and their organizations…the Enforcers. This dynamic where players become the core content for other players is one of the many unique features of APB.

David Jones, Creative Director of Realtime Worlds said: “We’re delighted to finally be announcing the release date for APB, and we’re looking forward to welcoming players on to the mean streets of San Paro. Gamers will soon get to experience a world of unparalleled customization, conflict and celebrity – whether they choose to be a Criminal or an Enforcer.”

Founded by industry legend David Jones, creator of Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto 1 & 2 and Crackdown, Realtime Worlds’ latest project, APB, introduces a unique payment model defined by three core concepts: value, flexibility and no commitments. Players pay precisely for time spent in the game’s action districts.

Gamers can purchase a retail version of APB either in-store or via digital download at standard retail price of SRP £34.99. The game includes 50 hours of action gameplay out of the box plus unlimited time in APB’s social districts customizing, socializing and trading in the marketplace. Once the 50-hours are up, players have flexibility: top up their game time from as little as SRP £5.59 for an additional 20 hours, or opt to purchase a 30-day unlimited package for only SRP £7.99 with discounts available for 90 and 180 days. In addition to this flexible payment model, players can also earn game time by actually playing the game. APB provides avenues for accomplished gamers or creators to earn rewards for their creativity and subsidize their ongoing costs with their in-game efforts.

David Jones added: “We wanted to provide a simple and flexible way for occasional and core players alike to pay for their play without being financially tethered to the game. The model also provides an opportunity for customers to subsidize their costs by leveraging their talent or market savvy in the ‘points’ Marketplace. Highly talented players could potentially even play for free in this way”.

Customers can pre-order the game from leading retailers and online from www.apb.com and www.eastore.com. Pre-order incentives include early access ‘APB VIP’ game time, access to the ‘Key to the City’ demo, exclusive in-game Asylum Upgraded Criminal Car and Enforcer upgraded Patrol Car, C.S.A Enforcer and Asylum Criminal clothing, ‘Chicken’ and ‘Strike-a-pose’ exclusive Emotes.

David DeMartini, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, EA Partners, added: “It’s an honor to be working with Realtime Worlds to bring an exciting and original new IP to PC gamers. We’re confident that the action and customization in the game will prove to be a huge hit.”

APB is rated 18 by PEGI and is not yet rated by the ESRB. Please visit www.pegi.info for more information. For more information on APB, please visit www.apb.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/apbgame and Facebook www.facebook.com/apbgame.

Internet connection required

Source:

Realtime Worlds press release (April 30, 2010)

EA Ships Realtime Worlds' APB: All Points Bulletin™

DUNDEE, UK – June 29, 2010 – Realtime Worlds, Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), today announced that APB: All Points BulletinTM is on sale in North America and has shipped to retailers around the world. APB will be available to buy at retail in Europe on July 1 and in the UK on July 2.

APB, recently nominated for Best PC Game by 1Up.com at E3 2010, takes the universal theme of Criminals and Enforcers and brings it to a persistent, open-world, online multiplayer setting in the modern, crime-ridden fictional city of San Paro. Some players achieve notoriety by feeding on the city, its people and its businesses…the Criminals. Some live by a higher code and instead feed on the criminals and their organizations…the Enforcers.

Dave Jones, Creative Director of Realtime Worlds, said: “APB shipping to retail represents the fruits of five-years hard work from everyone here at Realtime Worlds. We’re delighted that APB has launched and look forward to seeing how the player-base drives the San Paro story forward through urban conflict and in-depth customization.”

APB has already achieved critical acclaim from the press, with accolades such as:

“Frantic and enormously entertaining.” Edge

“Original, daring and exciting.” PC Zone

“APB could well be the definitive action game.” IGN.com

“APB innovates to dominate.” NowGamer.com

“It’s going to be something else. Truly something else.” Guardian.co.uk

David DeMartini, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, EA Partners, added: “It’s a great source of pride for us to work with Realtime Worlds in the launch of APB, a game that defines a new genre in online multiplayer action. We look forward to seeing how the streets of San Paro will be shaped over time by the creativity of its virtual citizens.”

APB is rated 18 by PEGI and M for Mature by the ESRB. APB is available from leading retailers and online from www.apb.com and www.eastore.com at a standard retail price of $49.95 / RRP £34.99 / €49.99. Game includes 50 hours of action gameplay plus unlimited time in APB’s social districts customizing, socializing and trading in the marketplace. Once the 50-hours are up, players have flexibility: top up their game time from as little as $6.99 (£5.59, €6.29) for an additional 20 hours, or opt to purchase a 30-day unlimited package for only $9.99 (£7.99, €8.99) with discounts available for 90 and 180 days. APB also provides avenues for accomplished gamers or creators to earn rewards for their creativity and subsidize their ongoing costs with their in-game efforts.

For more information on APB, please visit www.apb.com or http://info.ea.com. Follow APB on Twitter at http://twitter.com/apbgame and Facebook www.facebook.com/apbgame.

*Internet connection required

Source:

Electronic Arts press release (June 29, 2010)

Curfew To Be Lifted In San Paro

Irvine, Calif., November 16, 2010 – GamersFirst (www.gamersfirst.com) today's most popular Free2Play® MMO publisher, announces that Reloaded Productions, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Gamersfirst, has acquired all the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) for the massively multiplayer online third-person shooter game “APB: All Points Bulletin,” previously developed and owned by Dundee-based Realtime Worlds Ltd.

In September 2010, the joint administrators, Ken Pattullo and Paul Dounis, from business and restructuring specialist Begbies Traynor, said efforts to rescue Realtime Worlds had been unsuccessful but renewed efforts were made to conclude a sale of the IPR.

“We are obviously very happy to have concluded the sale but at the same time very much regret the loss of jobs as a result of the closure of Realtime Worlds," said Paul Dounis of Begbies Traynor. "As a consequence of the IPR asset sale all outstanding wages and holiday pay claims will be met in full. GamersFirst is a pioneer in the free-to-play space, thus APB will be re-launched as a free-to-play model game rather than the previous retail model. People who previously bought the game can now look forward to playing it again once it’s back online."

“The acquisition of APB is an important complement to our main Free2PlayTM third-party publishing business,” says Joshua Hong, CEO of GamersFirst. "We believe in putting our gamers first by encouraging the community to tell us what they like or dislike and then incorporate that feedback into our evolutionary development process. The core principle is to completely eliminate all economic barriers for gamers to experience our games."

GamersFirst will publish APB: Reloaded as a AAA Free2PlayTM title, developed by US based Reloaded Productions Inc. using Unreal Engine 3.

"APB was a game that had several exceptional features and some brilliant ideas, even though it was plagued by some initial balance and monetization issues," says Bjorn Book-Larsson, CTO and COO of GamersFirst, and responsible for GamersFirst’s studio and game development efforts. "We want to take all the unique features of this title, such as its unparalleled character, weapon and car customization systems, and convert the game to a true free-to-play game. We are deep into the planning and early execution stages for this next chapter of APB and we will share more details in the near future. In order to put ‘Gamers First’ we will also actively engage the community in many aspects of all the planned changes.”

APB: All Points Bulletin is a massively multiplayer online third-person shooter game based in the modern-day fictional city of San Paro featuring two factions, Enforcers and Criminals. Players can join either faction, and then form their own customized team and group to join the constant battle across the urban landscape.

GamersFirst and Reloaded Productions plan to launch the next chapter of APB in the first half of 2011.

Source:

GamersFirst press release (November 16, 2010)