[ May 27, 1998 ]

Sierra Studios Games Get Nod From Industry E3 Awards: Half-Life Wins Overall Best PC Game, Homeworld Wins Most Promising New Game.

BELLEVUE, Wash., -- Sierra Studios announced today that two of their upcoming games have been honored with prestigious awards from Unified Gamer's Online Best of E3 Show Awards. Twenty-seven journalists from the industry's top gaming magazines, including Computer Gaming World, PC Gamer, GameSpot, PC Games and GamePen executed the voting on Monday. The Sierra games received four out of a possible fifteen game awards. Valve's Half-Life was named Best Action Game and also won the coveted title of Best Game, PC from a field of over 1,000 PC games, including such titles as Command & Conquer 2, Duke Nukem Forever, Tomb Raider 3 and SimCity 3000. Relic's Homeworld was awarded two awards: Most Promising New Game and Best Real-Time Strategy Game. Details on the winners can be found at Unified Gamer's Online E3.net website (http://www.e3.net).

"Rather than taking the path of creating more 'me-too' products, both Valve and Relic are pushing the boundaries of existing game genres," said Scott Lynch, senior vice president of Sierra Studios. "There are risks involved in doing that, but the payoff can be enormous: a game that captures the imaginations of both hard-core fans and the vast number of people who don't normally turn to computer games for their entertainment. Winning these prestigious awards from such a respected panel of journalists-particularly against such stiff competition-confirms that we've made the right choices. We're confident that Half-Life and Homeworld will offer tremendously entertaining and fresh experiences to a wide audience, with bestseller standing."

Geoff Keighly from GameSlice and E3.Net Awards Committee Assistant Chairman raved about Half-Life, stating "3D action games used to be about walking into a room and mowing down 20 enemies that point and shoot with the intelligence of a tic. That was before Half-Life." He added, "From characters that actually come up and talk to you in the environment, to huge advances in artificial intelligence and dramatic plot twists, this game feels like a cinematic tour-de-force. Valve has successfully broken the mold of what we expect from 3D action games." Half-Life is scheduled to ship this summer.

Aaron Loeb, E3.Net Awards Committee Chairman described Relic's Homeworld, its foray into the game industry, as, "...a game that looked like so much fun, with such obvious potential, it had us itching to get into all night head-to-head brawls. At a show filled with games, great and not-so-great, that's what we call promising." Homeworld is scheduled to ship in time for the holiday 1998 selling season.

Unified Gamer's Online is the largest independent game community on the Internet, representing twenty-two websites and print magazines from around the country.

Sierra Studios is a member of the Sierra family and a brand division of its parent company Cendant Software. Cendant is the world's premier provider of consumer and business services. Cendant operates in three principal segments: Alliance Marketing, Travel and Real Estate Services. Headquartered in Parsippany, NJ, the company has more than 40,000 employees, operates in over 100 countries and makes approximately 100 million customer contacts annually.

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