WON.NET GIVES GAMERS FIRST CHANCE TO PLAY HALF-LIFE: OPPOSING FORCE
Twelve first-round winners in Live the Dream Tournament compete over Halloween weekend for place in championship event

BELLEVUE, WA (October 28, 1999) - WON.net™, dedicated to integrating the Internet into games, and Sierra Studios™ today announced the 12 Round One winners in the Half-Life®: Opposing Force® Live the Dream Tournament being hosted by WON.net and Clan World Network (http://www.clannetwork.com/). Round One winners will spar again over Halloween weekend for a chance to participate in the live championship event held at Club-i in San Francisco, Calif. on November 10, 1999. Championship players will compete using Half-Life: Opposing Force (a.k.a. Op For), developed by Gearbox Software. This will be the first time consumers will play this entirely new episode for Half-Life®, the action-packed thriller from Valve that has won over 45 Game of the Year awards.

"This contest offers Half-Life fans a cool way to get involved with the launch of Opposing Force," says Scott Fasser, product manager at WON.net. "We think this is a great opportunity for fans to test their skills playing a totally new game for the very first time."

The 12 Round One winners competing over Halloween weekend use the following screen names: K*Doc, LMS 007, !gnoleb, tommyd {PSU}, J.E.D.I. Bigbull, One Eye Rooster, Voltron, DFA Recognize, DFA Mystical, DFA Max Xevious, DFA Fenixx and _Genyosha_.

In related news, WON.net plans to launch a new website supporting Op For. The new site, which will goes live today, can be found on WON.net at www.won.net/channels/action/half-life/opfor/. WON.net, who provides the multiplayer tools and technologies for Op For's Internet gameplay, is supporting this anticipated release through broad community services such as user-created home pages, tournaments, demos/downloads, previews and more.

Half-Life: Opposing Force includes over 12 new multiplayer levels created by 3D action industry All Stars. Op For also features an expansive new single player episode where players return to the Black Mesa Research Facility from the exciting new perspective of a soldier sent in to eliminate Gordon Freeman. The title, which is being developed by Gearbox Software, is on schedule to ship in November.

About the Tournament
The Live the Dream tournament takes place in three rounds. The first round of tournament play, which had over 400 players and was completed on October 24, consisted of 16-player free-for-all (single player elimination) style matches played on Valve's Half-Life Bootcamp map. The top 12 players in Round One will compete in Round Two over Halloween weekend, October 29 through October 31. The four top players from Round Two will then advance to the Championship Tournament.

The Championship Tournament will take place during a live event on November 10, 1999 at Club-i in San Francisco, Calif. Championship players will compete using Half-Life: Opposing Force. This tournament will be the first time Op For is seen and played by consumers. Game Dive will broadcast the championship round live over the Internet at www.gamedive.com.

Prizes for Round Two winners who advance to the championship tournament include airfare to San Francisco, hotel accommodations provided by Renaissance Stanford Court Hotel and $200 spending money for the purpose of participating in the championship round. Prizes for the championship round include $1000 and a WON.net jacket (retail value $200) for first place, $500 and a WON.net jacket for second place and a WON.net jacket for third and fourth place winners.

Additional information and tournament rules can be found online at http://www.won.net/community/tournaments/half-life.

Founded in 1996, Valve develops entertainment software. Half-Life is Valve's debut title. Since its release in November, 1998, Half-Life has won more than 45 game of the year awards from publications that include PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, and CNET's Gamecenter. Valve's upcoming title, Team Fortress™ 2: Brotherhood of Arms� recently won the E3 Game Critics' Award for Best Action Game and Best Online Game. More information about Valve is available through the company's web site at www.valvesoftware.com.

Founded in January 1999, Gearbox Software is a team of veteran 3D game developers collected in Dallas, Texas. The Gearbox crew is made up of artists, designers, and programmers who joined forces to form their own development house after stints at a variety of companies, including 3D Realms, Microprose and Ritual. Half-Life®: Opposing Force® is scheduled to be the first offering from this talented new studio.

Sierra On-Line, Inc. http://www.sierra.com/ is one of the original developers and largest worldwide publishers of interactive entertainment and productivity software. Sierra is a division of Havas Interactive, a global leader in interactive content, and is one of the world's largest publishers of education, entertainment and home productivity software. Its divisions, Blizzard®, Coktel, Knowledge Adventure®, Sierra™ and WON.net™ are famous for releasing critically acclaimed and award winning titles. Havas has operations in the US and in Europe and is a subsidiary of the French publishing house Havas, part of Vivendi Communications.

WON.net™(http://www.won.net), dedicated to integrating the Internet into gaming, is one of the largest aggregators of Internet enabled games, with over 40 live and playable choices, including 22 free online-only games from seven major developers. Some of the site's highlights include YOU DON'T KNOW JACK® the netshow, HOYLE® card and board games, Homeworld, Half-Life™, TRIBES™, Starsiege™, Red Baron® 3D, Wordox, The Cypher, Acrophobia and SpiritWars™. WON.net also features daily game news from the industry leading site Imagine Games Network (http://www.ign.com) and strategy guides from leading publisher Prima Publishing. WON.net also develops proprietary technology tools for games including WONswap™ (http://wonswap.won.net), the easiest way to download and install user-created content; Game Detector™, offering players the easiest way to find and join a server-based game on the web; and GameSearch.net (http://www.won.net/search), the best, most complete internet search engine focused solely on games. WON.net is an autonomous business unit incorporated within Havas Interactive, the largest publisher of consumer PC software in the world.