BUSINESS
Havok bags an Emmy Award
08-01-2008
by Stephen Errity
Irish gaming technology company Havok has won an Emmy Award in the US for 'pioneering new levels of realism and interactivity in movies and games'.
The US National Academy of Television, Arts & Sciences Awards, to give them their full title, were held in Las Vegas on Monday night. Havok received the Emmy for its work on physics models and animation software that have been used to power games such as Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Guitar Hero III and Age Of Empires III.
Havok's tools have also been used to create special effects in major Hollywood movies such as The Matrix, Troy, Poseidon, Kingdom Of Heaven and the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Accepting the award, Havok's managing director David O'Meara said: "This shows just how far Havok has travelled since its inception as an incubation project at Trinity College in 1998. I am proud to accept this award on behalf of the entire team at Havok whose ongoing creativity and dedication has made our physics the global market leader in such a short space of time."
Havok currently has agreements with many of the world's biggest game developers, including Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft and Pandemic Studios.
Headquartered in the Digital Hub in Dublin, the firm also maintains offices in San Francisco, San Antonio, Calcutta, Munich and Tokyo. It employs 75 people in total.
The company made headlines in September of last year when it was acquired by chip manufacturer Intel in a deal worth over USD100 million. It is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company but continues to function as an independent business, creating developer tools for use across all gaming platforms and chipsets.
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