Epic Games, Inc. hass announced the Phase 4 winners in its $1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest. The game development competition rewards top modifications, or “mods,” created for Unreal Tournament 3 with cash and hardware prizes in four preliminary phases and a grand final judging. The mod contest is designed to help independent and aspiring game developers learn Unreal Engine 3 technology and gain recognition for authoring high-quality game experiences.
In this portion of the contest alone, over $100,000 in cash prizes is distributed to winning mod authors. Grand final judging has commenced, and winners receiving $175,000 in cash along with a commercial Unreal Engine 3 license will soon be announced.
“Phase four of the $1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest is like graduation of sorts,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. “It’s the culmination of long-term game development efforts resulting in outstanding mods we’ve seen evolve from phase to phase. Mod authors have built up their creations, sought feedback from their peers in the Unreal community, received support through previous phase winnings, and now we’re down to where the best and the brightest teams really shine. We’re so pleased to shower these guys with prizes and recognition, and we’re eager to help them all achieve professional success.”
Many exceptional mods are being ported to the recently released Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free edition of Unreal Engine 3 that provides uncompromised access to the same award-winning toolset used by many of the world’s best game developers. UDK games require no additional software for installation, so anyone can easily try them out. Demo versions of Prometheus and The Ball are available now as free UDK downloads at www.udk.com/showcase.
Epic Games and Intel will reveal the grand prize winners of the $1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas next month. The grand prize winning mod team will receive an Unreal Engine 3 commerical license in addition to a check for $50,000. Runner-up winners will receive $40,000, $30,000, $20,000 and $10,000 in cash prizes. Educational category winners will receive a total of $25,000 in cash.
See The Phase 4 Winners!