More than 400 aspiring 3D artists and game developers from around the world entered game and entertainment mods (a new game or add-on created with tools from the original title) into the contest. Mods were entered in various categories, such as "Best Mod," "Best Level with Original Content," "Best Level," "Best Mutator," "Best Model," "Best Tool," "Best Voice Pack or Audio Modification," and "Best Game Type." The winners of the first-of-four contest rounds take home a share of $50,000 in cash and high-end PC equipment. The contest is one year long and set to conclude in the fall of 2004.

"The first-round finalists and winners developed some phenomenal mods," said Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic Games. "We have been so impressed with the entries received that we've decided to extend the contest by adding a fourth phase and additional prize money."

Winners were selected by an expert panel of judges comprised of programmers, artists and designers from the sponsoring companies. First-round winning mods demonstrated great originality and technical expertise in all the categories. The first-round winners in the "Best Mod" category made significant changes to the Unreal Tournament 2003 gameplay by creating new game experiences. The winning mods include Deathball (the first place winner), which is a futuristic soccer/lacrosse/football-like sport, and fourth-place winner Jupiter Effect: Influx, which was created as an art school project and is an anime inspired battle between giant robots. In the "Best Game Type" category, winners created a new type of gameplay with the mod Riftwar, which incorporates three teams within the structure of the existing Unreal Tournament 2003 game. Created by a young man currently serving in the German military, the "Best Original Level" is Aristocracy, a mod with deathmatch gameplay set in an old European fantasy village map.

The winning mods can be viewed and downloaded today at http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2003/contest_winners.php. Additionally, NVIDIA will have each of the winning mods on display at their booth during the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) Winter Championship event taking place this week in Dallas, Texas.

Events Supporting the Contest

In order to make the contest accessible to the widest audience, Epic Games contracted with Jason Busby at http://www.3dbuzz.com to create the website http://www.masteringunreal.com, which contains more than 100 hours of free downloadable Video Training Modules (VTMs) geared toward educating users on how to program and build content using the Unreal Tournament Game Engine. This fall Busby conducted the "$1,000,000 NVIDIA Make Something Unreal Buzz Tour," an educational tour conducted at iGames game centers nationwide, where Busby lectured on mod making. In addition, in November, 2003, Epic Games sponsored Unreal University, a weekend-long event at North Carolina State University, where modders from around the world came to learn about how to create mods to enter into the contest, win cash, or possibly jumpstart a career in gaming. Most recently Busby joined Alias at their annual 3December event in London, England where he brought down the house with demos of how to use Maya Personal Learning Edition to build a mod for the contest. More than 1,000 artists and computer graphics professionals and games enthusiasts attended the event.

Upcoming Rounds of Contest