San Francisco, CA (February 4, 2010) – Havok™ today announced that it has signed Cohort Studios into its Independent Developer Program.  Cohort will have access to the company’s full suite of cutting-edge, award-winning products and technologies including Havok Animation™, Havok AI™, Havok Behavior™, Havok Cloth™, Havok Destruction™, and Havok Physics™.

“A key part of Cohort’s business strategy revolves around the concept of ‘Partners in Development’ – working together with other key players in the games industry to help manage cost and risk”, said Lol Scragg, CEO of Cohort Studios.  “With this in mind, we’re extremely excited to have joined Havok’s Independent Developer Program.  By gaining access to Havok’s entire suite of technologies, we’ll be able to turn around concept demos and prototypes in much shorter timescales, at less financial risk, and expand our cross-platform expertise in the process.”

The Independent Developer Program enables independent game studios around the globe to execute their creative visions using Havok’s premium, developer-preferred middleware technology.  The Program helps studios minimise the overall risk and high cost associated with internal creation of the tools and technologies required to power today’s sophisticated video and PC games.

Bruce McNeish, Cohort Studios’ CTO adds, “Our in-house engine, Praetorian Tech™, has been designed from the ground up for extensibility and easy integration with middleware.  Havok’s program allows us full access to the company’s many fantastic technologies, and, in tandem with Praetorian, means we now have a very broad creative palette to draw from.  With the Havok agreement, we can integrate cutting-edge technology into our prototypes at an early stage.  This will give our teams more freedom to concentrate on the implementation of unique gameplay and internal technologies to differentiate us in the market, while giving publishers a far better idea of how the final product will play, mitigating risk all round.”

“We are absolutely thrilled to be working with the highly-motivated and creative team at Cohort,” said David O’Meara, Managing Director of Havok.  “Cohort’s focus on gameplay innovation and scalable production practices, when combined with Havok’s technologies and support system, will make a real difference to the gamer’s experience.”

Havok’s modular suite of tools puts power in the hands of creators, empowering them to reach new standards of believability and interactivity in video games.  Havok’s products include access to a powerful and flexible set of art tools tailored to work within a studio’s particular production pipeline and assistance from the most experienced support team in the middleware industry.  All of Havok’s software tools are fully multithreaded and cross-platform optimised.

Havok’s Web site (www.Havok.com) offers downloadable versions of Havok’s Animation, Behavior, and Physics software.

July 31, 2009

Cohort Studios Join TIGA

TIGA, the trade association representing the UK’s games industry, today announced Cohort Studios as its newest member.

Founded in Dundee in 2006 by Lol Scragg CEO, Darran Thomas CCO and Bruce McNeish CTO, Cohort Studios has enjoyed continued success and measured expansion over the last three years and is now Scotland’s third largest game developer.

Cohort Studios specialise in experiences that appeal to a wide audience and that are accessible to players of different skill levels. To date the studio has worked on titles for PS3, PSP, PC, PS2 and PSN including Buzz!™ Junior: RoboJam, Buzz!™ Junior: Ace Racers, Buzz!™ Junior: Dino Den, as well as Journeys Through Sound, an advergame project released on PC to support the relaunch of the Audi TT motor vehicle.

Lol Scragg CEO stated: “The companies’ success is largely due to a unique company culture and ethos, which promotes strong teamwork, professionalism, creativity and positivity. Another key element is our business strategy ‘Partners in Development’ where we look to partner and collaborate with other companies and studios rather than staff up internally, which increases overheads and depersonalises the company culture”.

On joining TIGA Scragg stated: “We have always felt that TIGA’s agenda makes complete sense for the industry, however recent achievements in terms of Government lobbying and TIGA’s efforts to engage Holyrood have convinced us that now is the right time for us to join.”

Richard Wilson, CEO TIGA, stated: “Cohort Studios is an exciting company with a fresh approach to issues such as skills shortages and education, something which is also very much at the heart of the TIGA agenda. We will be working closely with Cohort Studios to achieve key objectives for the gaming industry both in Scotland and throughout the UK.”

Ends