LADYDRAGON.COM - WESTWOOD STUDIOS ANNOUNCES MASSIVE EXPANSION TO EARTH & BEYOND PUBLIC TEST

Wednesday September 04, 2002

WESTWOOD STUDIOS ANNOUNCES MASSIVE EXPANSION TO EARTH & BEYOND PUBLIC TEST

Westwood Studios(tm) announced today that it has launched multiple servers for the Earth & Beyond(tm) public test, and will be accepting tens of thousands of additional testers in the coming weeks. Earth & Beyond(tm) is an online role-playing galaxy that will be published by Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) under the EA GAMES(tm) brand this fall.

Previously limited to only one server, the public test for Earth & Beyond has grown to include tens of thousands of registered players over the past few months, and is opening multiple servers to accommodate the large volume of testers.

"This is a huge milestone for the project," said Craig Alexander, vice president and executive producer of Earth & Beyond. "We've proven that the game servers are stable, even with a high amount of traffic, and we are excited to open up multiple servers to accommodate even more testers. With this achievement, we are now on the homestretch to shipping Earth & Beyond to stores."

Tens of thousands of additional testers will be selected in September through the official Earth & Beyond website at www.earthandbeyond.com.

In Earth & Beyond, players become the captain of their own starship and live star-spanning adventures as they explore, trade and fight with thousands of others. Testers will be part of the creation process and will see the universe take shape around them as the developers add more sectors, planets, missions, quests, monsters, characters, features, evolving plot lines and more.