What's New / Reviews / Home / Help
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EA AND USC SET TO HOST THE SIMS 2 CINEMA CONTEST
Aspiring Film makers to use blockbuster videogame to make movie shortsREDWOOD CITY, Calif. – April 18, 2005Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that it is partnering with the University of Southern California - School of Cinema Television to offer game players and aspiring filmmakers the opportunity to participate in a cinema contest. The Sims™ 2 Student Life Movie Contest invites ambitious movie creators to use The Sims™ 2, the No.1 selling PC game of 2004, to create short films with its in-game movie making feature. With its award winning game play, The Sims 2 allows players to control their Sims from the cradle to the grave while fulfilling Sims’ life goals and aspirations. This is the most recent collaboration between the interactive leader and the university who already enjoy an unprecedented partnership wherein EA’s creative leaders, technology and innovation are shared with the USC faculty and students.
Commenting on the contest, Steve Seabolt, Vice President, Electronic Arts, said, "This contest is further affirmation of the EA/USC partnership. The ability to customize the gameplay experience and ‘tell your own story’ is an increasingly important part of the interactive entertainment experience. This contest taps into USC’s legendary expertise in cinematography and the art of storytelling and marries it to EA’s state of the art technology."
Since its launch in Fall 2004, roughly 7,000 movies using The Sims 2 have been posted on the game’s official web site, www.thesims2.com. With this contest, participants will compete for a grand prize of $5000 or a four-week associate intern position, working alongside The Sims 2 development team at Electronic Arts’ Maxis™ Studio in Redwood City, California. One second place winner will receive a state-of-the-art NVIDIA powered PC computer system (excluding monitor) and three third place winners will each receive one NVIDIA video card. Contest begins April 20, 2005 and submissions will be accepted until the end of May 2005. Contest winners will be announced this summer.
For more information on The Sims 2 and The Sims 2 Student Life Movie Contest, including Contest Official Rules please visit our web site at: http://www.thesims2.com.
###
About The Sims™
The Sims franchise celebrated its fifth anniversary in February, 2005. The game skyrocketed to the top of the charts when it began shipping to stores in February 2000 and quickly become a universal gaming and cultural phenomenon. The Sims PC based product and expansion packs were the best selling PC games of 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003. Translated into 17 different languages, The Sims has inspired seven top selling expansion packs. They include: The Sims™Livin' Large, The Sims™ House Party, The Sims™ Hot Date, The Sims™ Vacation, The Sims™ Unleashed, The Sims™ Superstar, and The Sims™ Makin' Magic. Combined sales for the franchise have topped 45 million units life-to-date. In September 2004, The Sims 2 launched as the next generation sequel selling over 5M units worldwide. The Sims™ 2 University shipped as the first expansion pack in March 2005. For more information on The Sims 2, visit http://www.thesims2.com.
About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City , California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for videogame systems, personal computers and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under three brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA GAMES™ and EA SPORTS BIG™. In fiscal 2004, EA posted revenues of $2.96 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.
Electronic Arts, The Sims, EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS BIG and EA GAMES are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
About the USC School of Cinema-Television
In 2004, the USC School of Cinema-Television celebrated 75 years of training the next generation of creative talent and scholars in film, television, and new media. Co-founded by the University of Southern California and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1929, the School offered the first bachelor’s degree in film in the country and today is consistently ranked as the top program of its kind. Its more than 8,000 graduates — the ranks of which include such stellar figures as Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, Ron Howard, James Ivory, Randal Kleiser, George Lucas, Michelle Manning, Bill Mechanic, Neal Moritz, Walter Murch, Jay Roach, Gary Rydstrom, Edward Saxon, Josh Schwartz, Stacey Sher, Bryan Singer, John Singleton, John Wells, Robert Zemeckis, and Laura Ziskin — are among the entertainment industry’s most distinguished animators, scholars, teachers, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, sound experts and industry executives.