Start Your Shockwave Players... Daytona 500 Speeds Online With New 3D Game

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 18 Macromedia, Inc. today announced that the green flag has been waved on Extreme Acceleration, a new interactive, 3D-enhanced Shockwave game created to commemorate the first NASCAR Winston Cup race of the season. Racing fans can drive their own customized car through a variety of immersive 3D courses at high speeds, bringing the excitement of auto racing to their home computers.

``Extreme Acceleration enables computer users to play a full-featured driving game within their Web browser, through the power and rich 3D visuals of Macromedia Shockwave Player,'' said Miriam Geller, senior product manager, Macromedia. ``The game shows an example of how a company can effectively use the power of Internet-based games to augment offline marketing and branding campaigns.''

The game was created by MindComet for International Speedway Corporation (ISC). ISC wanted to provide racing enthusiasts with something beyond the basic sporting information on their websites, and decided to bring the racing experience to the web due to the unprecedented 3D experiences now available with Macromedia Shockwave Player. MindComet authored the game in Macromedia Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio, utilizing the Shockwave 3D exporter in NewTek's Lightwave 7.0.

``The combination of the amazing interactive capabilities in Director and Lightwave's powerful modeling tools allowed us to produce an outstanding game without the cost or long development cycles associated with other 3D web content authoring packages,'' said Ted Murphy, president and CEO, MindComet.

``Extreme Acceleration is definitely one of the most extreme 3D games on the web. MindComet has included everything in this game for us from the ability to choose between 16 different cars, and three outrageous tracks, to member logins for the accumulation and banking of point winnings over an entire race season,'' said Matt Colwell, Director of Internet Operations, ISC. ``Gamers can not only upgrade their car with faster engines, better tires, and brakes, but they can purchase tickets for races at any of our 13 facilities across the country. Along with having the game on our website, we will be distributing the game through our Interactive Program CD. That's really where the fantasy world meets the financial world.''

The free game is now available at http://www.ISCmotorsports.com/ .

Macromedia Shockwave Player is installed on 65 percent of web desktops, and it enables a clear majority of online users to experience interactive, magnetic web content. 270 million Web users already have Shockwave Player installed and more than 300,000 are installing the 3D-enhanced Shockwave Player daily.

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY CORPORATION

ISC is a promoter of motorsports entertainment activities in the United States. The company owns and/or operates 12 motorsports facilities, including Daytona International Speedway in Florida, home of the Daytona 500. For more information on the company, visit http://www.iscmotorsports.com .

ABOUT MACROMEDIA

Macromedia is passionate about what the Web can be. Its award-winning products empower designers and developers to efficiently create and deliver the most engaging experiences on the Web, and enable innovative Internet business applications. Headquartered in San Francisco, Macromedia has more than 1,400 employees worldwide and is available on the Internet at http://www.macromedia.com/ .