Mod Unreal Tournament 3 For $1 Million In Prizes

Fri, Apr 4, 2008

Hardcore modders take note: You've got exactly twelve weeks to tweak your PC copy of Unreal Tournament 3 to the tune of $1 million dollars in prizes. From level design to machinima, simple mutators to complex new weaponry, Epic Games is judging mods of all shapes and sizes starting June 27th.

Co-sponsored by Intel, the $1 million includes a variety of Intel PC hardware, as well as cash prizes; but the lion's share will go to the grand prize winner, who gets a full Unreal Engine 3 license valued (by Silicon Knights, circa March 2006) at $750,000.

The deadline for Phase 1 is June 27th, though the contest will continue through August 29th, 2009, with finalists in Phase 4 being eligible for the grand prize.

Following their big win with WWII shooter Red Orchestra four years ago, developer Tripwire Interactive made it to the big time... any GameCyte readers think they're up to the challenge?

Full press release below, and check out the rules and your competition at the official website.

CARY, N.C. – April 3, 2008 – Epic Games, Inc., the award-winning developer of multimillion-selling games and the world’s leading game engine, Unreal Engine 3, today announced plans to follow up the original “$1 Million Make Something Unreal Contest” with an all new competition to include esteemed sponsor, Intel Corporation. Winnings exceed $1 million in value, and consist of one coveted Unreal Engine 3 license as a grand prize and other cash awards and prizes, including Intel® Software Development Products and Velocity Micro PCs based on the Intel® Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform with two Intel® Core™2 Extreme quad-core processors. The 2008 “$1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest” will be judged in four preliminary phases and a grand final. Judging will begin in June 2008 and will conclude, with the grand final prizes being awarded, in fall 2009.

To participate, aspiring game developers create modifications (“mods”) for the PC version of Unreal Tournament 3 in a wide range of categories including environments, characters, weapons, gameplay, tools, vehicles and more.

Through the contest, players can unleash their creative skills, make new content and game experiences using cutting-edge game technology, and reap rewards on many different levels. The content created for this contest will be freely available to players of the PC version of Unreal Tournament 3 worldwide.

“To all you aspiring game developers out there – this is your chance to get in the big leagues. We have categories for all kinds of creatively talented people including programmers, artists, 3D modelers, designers and even aspiring film directors,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. “You get to use the same world-class Unreal Engine 3 toolset we used to create Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War. Unreal Engine 3 is used by many of the industry’s leading game companies, so this is truly a chance to prove your worth and get your foot in the door of the game business while having your work potentially exposed to millions. To get mod-makers started, the collector’s edition of Unreal Tournament 3 includes over 20 hours of 3D Buzz’s professional-level video training materials for the Unreal Engine 3 toolset.”

“The ‘$1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest’ demonstrates Intel’s ongoing commitment to helping game developers harness the capabilities of the PC gaming platform,” said Elliot Garbus, vice president, Software and Solutions Group, general manager, Visual Computing Software Division, Intel Corporation. “We are passionate about unleashing developers’ innovation through our popular software developer tools, our Intel® Core™ 2 processor family, and high-performance platforms, like the eight core Intel® Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform, formerly codenamed ‘Skulltrail’. Combining Intel products with the Unreal Engine modding tools provides a wonderful opportunity for aspiring developers, machinima artists, and modders to jump in and truly change the game.”

The last “$1 Million Make Something Unreal Contest” catapulted World War II shooter Red Orchestra to fame. Its development team, Tripwire Interactive, was awarded the grand prize, an Unreal Engine 3 license, for overall Best Mod and throughout the contest earned nearly $80,000 in cash and computer hardware prizes. Red Orchestra was later shipped to retail outlets worldwide.

“A few years ago, we were just a group of fans with an idea to make a mod that we would all like to play," said Tripwire Interactive President John Gibson. "The Unreal Engine and its mod tools were perfect for the game we wanted to make, and with the hard work and determination of our team we used those tools to create Red Orchestra and win the mod competition. Winning the ‘Make Something Unreal Contest’ helped the Tripwire Interactive team realize our dream of founding our own development studio and bringing our game to retail. It is a real life 'Rags to Retail' story.”

Universities and students can participate as well. “We were pleased to be a winner in the educational category of the first contest sponsored by Epic and look forward to being part of this year’s competition,” said Dr. Peter Raad, founder and executive director of The Guildhall at SMU. “Unreal Engine technology has been a cornerstone of our program and has been a big part of us sending more than 180 artists, level designers and programmers since 2004 to work at more than 70 video game studios around the world.”

For more information about the “$1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest,” visit www.makesomethingunreal.com.