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Munich, 29 January 2002. Electronic Arts introduced NXN Alienbrain 5.0 to manage game development across its studios worldwide. Alienbrain was described as a digital production management system designed for digital entertainment, animation studios and new-media agencies.
Frank Russell, Director of Studio Information Systems at Electronic Arts, said trial installations and testing had shown Alienbrain to be sufficiently mature, powerful and flexible for EA’s development processes. He said NXN’s broad approach could improve the overall production management of demanding game projects.
Tested on NHL 2002
EA tested Alienbrain during development of NHL 2002 and fully implemented it for the production management of NHL 2003 and other titles. The worldwide rollout was intended to make production management consistent across internal studios including EA Canada, EA Redwood Shores, Westwood Studios, EALA, Maxis and EA Tiburon.
Support for international teams
The NXN system was expected to improve collaboration and transparency in local and international projects. It helped teams manage the large files generated by several simultaneous productions. Some licences were also assigned to EA’s publishing operation to support producers and marketing departments.
Gregor vom Scheidt, CEO of NXN Software, said EA’s decision demonstrated the confidence that game developers placed in the technology. The Alienbrain system remains a visual version-control product for art and design workflows.
About the companies in 2002
Electronic Arts was founded in 1982 and reported revenue of US$1.3 billion for its 2001 financial year. It developed, published and distributed games for PCs, the internet and game systems under the EA Sports, EA Games, EA Sports Big and EA.com brands.
NXN Software AG supplied digital production management systems to game developers, animation studios and new-media agencies. Its customers included Sony Online Entertainment, Electronic Arts and Infogrames. The company employed 60 people in Munich, London, Paris and Los Angeles and distributed Alienbrain through partners in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China. The agreement connected Electronic Arts with a managed game-development workflow.
