Black Bean sign Alfa Romeo Rights to develop S.C.A.R.

Black Bean announced
today that it has signed an exclusive deal with Alfa Romeo to develop a racing
videogame based on the prestigious Italian car brand.

Black Bean’s acquisition of the worldwide Alfa Romeo rights underlines its
determination to make an impact in the world of multiplatform videogame development
and publishing. The Alfa Romeo brand is well-known and synonymous of stylish
sport cars.

The game is being developed by award winning developer Milestone, critically
acclaimed for its Screamer franchise, the Superbike series published by Electronic
Arts under the EA Sports brand and the recently released Racing Evoluzione,
an Xbox exclusive game published by Atari.

S.C.A.R. – Squadra Corse Alfa Romeo (this is the title of the game)
is in development for the PS2, Xbox, PC platforms and Mobile and will be released
in the second quarter of 2005. . .

“We are thrilled to be working with such a strong brand“,
said Marco Minoli, Head of Marketing at Black Bean. “Italy is traditionally
a country with a few number of companies working on the development and publishing
segment; our intention is to create synergy with local strengths, such as car
design and styling and prestigious brand like Alfa Romeo which have a high level
of awareness both nationally and internationally“.

“Working on S.C.A.R. with Alfa Romeo is really exciting“,
said Antonio Farina, Milestone’s President, “it is in fact a dream
come true for us: to combine the leading-edge of Italian technology both in
real life racing and in simulation to produce a game which celebrates the Italian
leadership in driving; Alfa Romeo is not only a winning company nowadays (being
one of the leading brands in the World Touring Car Championship, ndr), but a
glorious brand from the early years of racing, and this will be reflected in
the game“.

“Driving an Alfa Romeo“, said Hans Hoegstedt, head of Marketing
and Communication in Alfa Romeo, “is not like driving an ordinary car
in an ordinary context. It is pure driving desire turned into a car which is
also the expression of one’s personality. When you are in the driving seat,
your hands on the leather steering wheel, you are at one with your Alfa Romeo:
the road before your eyes, the tyres’s grip on the road, your heart beating
at the same rpm of your engine.“

“This new alliance with Black Bean, allows us to offer our clients
as well as all those who share our passion for driving the chance to re-live
the unique experience of being at the steering wheel of an Alfa Romeo“

Black Bean is the games label of Lago Srl, which is part of the Leader Group.
Leader SpA has been the leading independent distributor in Italy since it started
business in 1984. Leader is based in Gazzada (Varese) which is situated 30 miles
north of Milan in northern Italy.

Black Bean philosophy is to focus on a wide range of games genre leveraging
on an friendly gameplay, additional contents and fully localised products in
order to give the player an immersive and addictive gaming experience.

Milestone was founded on 1996 in Milan, by Antonio Farina.
The company’s first products were the successful Screamer series of driving
games published on the Virgin Interactive label.
In the following years Milestone has specialised in the production of racing
simulations and has rapidly become the most successful games developer in Italy.

Until 2001 Milestone has developed, exclusively for Electronic Arts, under
the EA Sports brand, the officially licensed simulation of the Superbike World
Championship, which became the best motorbike racing simulator ever. In 2003
Milestone completed its first console title, with the critically acclaimed Racing
Evoluzione (Apex in the US), developed exclusively for the Xbox and launched
by Atari.

Filed under: Games

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