With global sales of $500 million in its first week, the much-awaited launch Grand Theft Auto IV has created controversy about violence in computer games. It also promises to enrich the University of Oxford, which owns 14 per cent of NaturalMotion, the middleware company whose Euphoria engine creates the games real-time simulations on the fly through a combination of artificial intelligence, biomechanics and biodynamics.
NaturalMotion was spun out by Oxford University tech transfer company Isis Innovation in 2001. It founders, Torsten Reil and Colm Massey, used research emanating from Oxford’s Department of Zoology.
More Euphoria-based blockbuster games are expected later this year, including one based on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and one on Indiana Jones.
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