i32 LAN Party to host colossal Quake IV prize tournament

London, 2nd November 2007: Multiplay - organisers of the largest UK gaming LAN events – have announced Intel’s $20,000 sponsorship of the Quake IV 1v1 tournament being held at their i32 LAN party next week. With over 80 hours of non-stop gaming, social activities spread across multiple venues and with most of the attendees camping on site, the i-Series events are often described as the "Glastonbury of Gaming". It all takes place over 9th-12th November at Newbury Racecourse, Berkshire, UK.

The Intel Quake IV Championship storms the i32 LAN festival as a last minute entry to the event which also sees a $17,000 Counter-Strike: Source tournament and the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Contamination Cup, featuring a $6,000 prize fund. There are twelve prize-winning positions with first place taking home $5,500 and 12th winning $500. The player who scores the most frags of the tournament will win a top of the range Intel powered gaming PC with an Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX9650 45nm at its heart.

"Intel’s sponsorship brings our total prize fund for the event to over $64,000 – or £30,000 – by far the biggest prize fund we’ve seen at the i-Series" said Craig Fletcher, Managing Director of Multiplay. "Of course we’re always pleased when we receive sponsorship for a tournament, but this particular tournament is extremely exciting. The kind of money up for grabs will attract the best players in the world, giving both the i-Series and the UK pro-gaming scene a welcome spotlight."

The tournament runs from Saturday 10th to Sunday 11th November at Multiplay’s i32 LAN gaming festival in Newbury, UK. Entry is either via “Bring Your Own Computer” or with a “Turn Up and Play” ticket, allowing players to enter without bringing their own hardware. To read more about i32 and the Intel Quake IV Championship further information can be found at http://i32.multiplay.co.uk.About Multiplay:

Established in 1997 as a games-orientated event management company, Multiplay pioneers the development of gaming festivals in the UK and hosts one of the World's largest online PC gaming services. With the synergy of real-life events and a large online presence, Multiplay is at the forefront of PC gaming in the UK and beyond.

Nicknamed the "Glastonbury of Gaming", Multiplay’s "i-Series" gaming festivals are unique in the UK, seeing over 1,500 attendees who all bring their own computers to connect to a large temporary network for four days of entertainment. Having expanded in scope, the events now attract a much wider audience, who attend for the interactive exhibition, social activities or just to watch the action unfold in the finals arena. Regular attendance by leading games publishers and hardware manufacturers has built the i-Series into the must-attend event in the UK gaming calendar.

Multiplay spearheads the development of the professional gaming scene in the UK, working with big-name brands to stage world-class tournaments. These are stage-managed and video-streamed by Multiplay’s in-house team onto the Internet, attracting a growing audience. Online viewing figures for individual game finals number in the tens of thousands.

Multiplay's online gaming service has gone from strength-to-strength from its inception in 2002 to the mammoth service of over 1,000 game services playing host to over 10,000 players concurrently each night. This makes it one of the largest services of its type in the World. As an ISP running its own network, from gaming-optimised broadband service to high-end hosting operations, Multiplay is able to ensure the quality of connectivity is second-to-none.