“Blue Fang has tried many project management tools over the past ten years, ranging from industry standards to homegrown systems. Each had their strengths and weaknesses but only Hansoft has brought it all together in a single package that is useful for both our developers and producers. The ability to work with agile and traditional methods makes Hansoft the most attractive option for the way we develop games,” said Blue Fang producer Fred Galpern.

Hansoft is used by development teams in 20 countries for collaborative scheduling, task tracking, instant communication, Agile, QA / bug tracking, resource usage, portfolio and document management.

“Blue Fang is well known for its high quality games and we are excited to provide them with a tool that will help them increase studio productivity and maintain the inspirational environment that makes the team so successful. Teams using Hansoft don’t have to choose between agile and scheduling project management styles. Hansoft enables these different styles to be run side by side, within the same development project,” said Hansoft CEO Patric Palm.

About Blue Fang Games

Blue Fang Games is an independent game developer dedicated to creating compelling, emotionally engaging games focused on the animal kingdom that set the benchmark for broad-based family entertainment. Blue Fang's Zoo TycoonTM franchise has sold over seven million units worldwide and the studio is now developing a new multiplatform videogame property with THQ, Inc. Founded in 1998, Blue Fang Games is located in Waltham, MA. For more information visit Blue Fang Games on the web at www.bluefang.com.

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"We first introduced Hansoft in a project that was near the end of pre-production. We were very impressed by the ease with which we could adapt Hansoft to support our existing production processes and the real-time visibility it gives both management and staff on project status. We are looking forward to using it on more projects and value the new functionality brought by frequent updates. This we think will allow us to plan, scope, manage and execute projects much more effectively," said Peter Schoeler, Technical Director at A2M.

Hansoft, an integrated solution for project management, bug tracking, workload coordination, and document management, is today used by developers in 20 countries. The company is now working on version 5.3, due for the release in December 2008.

"Hansoft 5.3 will feature revolutionary new tools for creating art task pipelines and automated workflows for quality sign-offs. I am looking forward to see how leading studios such as A2M will use this to make the process of asset creation more lean," said Hansoft CEO Patric Palm.

About A2M

Based in Montreal, Quebec, A2M is dedicated to creating great games and original concepts that capture the player's imagination. Since 1992, A2M has developed over 40 titles across every genre, on every viable platforms. The studio has also partnered with the industry's top publishers and licensors, including Activision Blizzard, Disney, Electronic Arts, LucasArt, Sony and Warner Bros. A2M is Canada's largest independent game developer, employing over 450 talented people, and is committed to producing unparalleled game experiences with original or licensed Intellectual Properties, in a creative environment where talent thrives. Over the past three years, A2M has ranked amongst the Deloitte Technology Fast 50^TM and also as Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies^TM, two years in a row. www.a2m.com.

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"Hansoft integrated with our existing development processes seamlessly and has delivered solid productivity gains across the whole team. It provides every member of the team with a complete view of the project and a single place to go for all their allocated work. This has enabled improved communication of critical project information throughout the studio and gives us a much greater ability to effectively manage our projects," said Matthew Hart, Head of Production at Ninja Theory.

Hansoft is an integrated solution for project management, bug tracking, workload coordination, and document management, used by game development teams in 20 countries. The tool builds on principles of team empowerment, increased communication, transparency, and collaboration, and is also popular for cooperating with outsourcing partners, publishers and external QA teams.

"We are now seeing a larger focus on productivity in games development and there is an increasing demand for methods and tools like Hansoft to make teams more efficient. We are excited to work with Ninja Theory and I feel confident that Hansoft will help them getting the most out of their talent," said Hansoft CEO Patric Palm.

About Ninja Theory Ltd.
Ninja Theory, formerly known as Just Add Monsters Ltd, is a videogame developer based in Cambridge, UK and creators of the visually stunning PS3 title Heavenly Sword. The studio also produced Kung Fu Chaos, an Xbox exclusive game published in 2003 by Microsoft Games Studios. Ninja Theory believes that the next-generation of games consoles offer an opportunity to elevate the games experience into one that can rival film and literature and was one of the first development studios to commit exclusively to next-generation consoles.

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Hansoft is a used by a rapidly increasing number of development teams in Australia, Asia, Europe and North America for collaborative scheduling, task tracking, instant communication, Agile, QA / bug tracking, resource usage, portfolio and document management.

"Hansoft have market leading performance through our unique technology and we have designed the tool on principles of team empowerment, increased communication, transparency, and collaboration. Black Lantern Studios are committed to its team, processes and technology and using Hansoft will further help them bring great games to the market in short time," says Patric Palm, CEO at Hansoft.

Philip Cohen, Senior Producer at Black Lantern Studios, Inc., commented: "When I first heard I would be using Hansoft to track my projects, I was very resistant to the thought of giving up my previous tracking methods to learn an entirely new program. After just a single day of using it, I'm not sure how I ever tracked projects effectively without it.

The interface is so easy to use that I never felt stumped. Within a single day, I had multiple short and long term projects implemented with complete tasks tracking per employee, including automatic report generation and milestone tracking based on task completion. By mid-day, I was able to evaluate the balance of all my projects and employee resources across my entire business, and was using the powerful communication features to write notes, attach documents, and share images on a per-task basis; all of this without reading a single instruction or watching any of the tutorial videos Hansoft makes available via their website.

Hansoft's ease of use and common sense approach to interface and project scaling makes it an invaluable tool for any game developer or publisher, regardless of the number or size of projects being tracked. The pricing is so reasonable that it pays for itself in the amount of time saved through the solid tracking and communication it provides to each team member."

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"We were pleasantly surprised how easy it was to set it up and get the entire team to use it and really buy into it. Games are big business now, competing with budgets of films. Team sizes are rising dramatically and it's important to manage these teams as efficiently and effectively as possible and Hansoft has the perfect answer in their project management software," says Andrew Oliver, Chief Technology Officer at Blitz Games Studios .

Hansoft features an integrated solution for project management, bug tracking and coordinating team workload. It is also a popular tool for collaboration with outsourcing partners, publishers and QA teams.

"Blitz Games Studios is today one of the largest independent studios in the world and we are very happy to provide their team with our fast and easy tool. Attention to constantly increased productivity is key to making good business in large scale games development. Using Hansoft will help Blitz even further leverage productivity, says Patric Palm, CEO at Hansoft.

About Blitz Games
Award-winning Blitz Games Studios is based in Leamington Spa and was founded in 1990 by twin brothers Andrew and Philip Oliver. The company is now one of the largest independent developers in the world, boasting five distinctly different divisions. The Olivers are responsible for developing over 100 games since the early 1980s and their company is currently working on top secret mature titles, multiple casual games and ground-breaking serious games in addition to the high profile family games for which the company has historically been well-known. In addition, the company recently released one of the most successful branded games promotions of all time with the three games developed for Burger King selling over 3.2 million copies across the US. The company continues its huge long-term investment into Blitz Tech, its in-house technology, which provides one of the best game development environments of any independent developer for PlayStation®2, PlayStation®3, PlayStation® Portable, PSN, Nintendo Wii®, Nintendo DS, WiiWare Xbox 360 and XBLA. Blitz Games Studios enjoys an award-winning working environment, with staff enjoying a wide range of benefits. www.BlitzGamesStudios.com

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Struan Robertson, Producer at Gusto Games commented "Moving to Hansoft from our previous project management system has been a quiet revolution. Rather than using separate programs for waterfall and agile development, it's allowed us to bring all of our production methodologies under one roof with minimum disruption and learning; if you know about agile development, then you already know how to use Hansoft because it does everything you'd expect and more."

Patric Palm, CEO of Hansoft also added, "Gusto Games is a successful and fast growing studio that just branched into several sites. Using Hansoft will support them in sustaining this exciting growth and leverage their team productivity even further," says Patric Palm, CEO, Hansoft"

Simon Phillips, Managing Director of the Gusto Games Group explained, "As we grow our business organically across both of our studios in Bloxham and Derby, we want to make sure that we install the correct tools and procedures to ensure that our growing process is a painless one. We have numerous projects in place, we are pro-actively recruiting and as a result, we want to appeal to the industry's best within the development field."

About Gusto Games
Since Gusto Games was formed in 2003; the company has gone from strength to strength by building on its original goals to deliver quality gaming titles on time, within budget and across all leading gaming platforms. Gusto Games originally brought Eidos' hugely successful Championship Manager franchise to the console and PSP platforms with all console versions selling through at retail in impressive numbers

More recently with the opening of their Derby Studio in mid 2007, Gusto has continued to expand and is always looking to add to its current head count. Gusto is uniquely positioned within the industry to offer opportunities to new staff in two separate development disciplines. The recently opened Derby studio is focused on developing products for the action and adventure genres, whilst the Bloxham based studio has a pedigree and proven track record in developing games in the sporting genre.

Gusto Games has become one of Europe's most respected development studios and this fact was underscored in 2005 when, amongst others, the studio was nominated for the "Best New European Studio of the Year" at the Develop's Industry Excellence Awards. Building on that success Gusto also featured within Intent Media's ‘Develop 100' in 2007.

For further information contact Dene Landucci on 07967-177779 or d.landucci@btinternet.com or visit www.gustogames.com

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Hansoft 5.1 comes with many improvements across the whole solution. Teams using a task scheduling approach and/or an Agile workflow will benefit from the new release. The most significant updates are however found in the Agile and QA functionality.

“With Hansoft 5.1 Agile teams can choose to view the product backlog in three different ways depending on situation and preference. The new wall view is pretty stunning but not for the ones easily prone to motion sickness. We have also improved the fast and easy QA functionality to satisfy the needs of larger studios and publishers. They will now find more advanced bug workflow settings and detailed access and restriction rules,” says Patric Palm, CEO, Hansoft.

The multi view product backlog allows Agile teams to work with the backlog in three different ways:

- Items in a hierarchy. Create and structure items in a hierarchy. By delegating parts of the backlog team members and externals can participate as well.

- Items on a wall. Analyse, create and work with items in alternative ways by arranging them on a virtual wall.

- Items sorted/prioritised. Prioritise and sort items in this view before moving them from the backlog to a sprint/iteration.

In addition to the bug workflow improvements Hansoft 5.1 also features detailed access and restriction rules. This gives or restricts resources/groups to edit data in columns/fields, deleting bugs, customising workflow, documents and many other parts.

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