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EverQuest Gears Up for 5th Anniversary Celebration

Game pulls in wide range of players, from 9 years old to 78

Sony Online Entertainment is celebrating the 5th Anniversary of EverQuest this week -- an amazing accomplishment, considering the average video game shelf-life is four months.

SOE is also pleased to announce that best-selling fantasy author R. A. Salvatore has just agreed to create a series of novels based on the world of EverQuest. Salvatore has been an EQ player for a number of years and now has the chance to make his own mark upon the world of Norrath.

  • Over 2.5 million copies of the game and its expansions have been sold in box or digitally downloaded since 1999.

  • If stacked end to end, the total number of EverQuest boxes created would reach a height of more than 265 miles, which would stretch out of the Earth’s atmosphere and past the orbit of the International Space Station.

  • EverQuest averages about 250,000 new subscribers every year. Currently, there are more than 420,000 people playing the game.

  • At peak times, more than 100,000 people around the globe will be playing EverQuest simultaneously. Heaviest hours of operation for EverQuest are from 5PM Pacific Standard Time to 11PM PST, with the biggest days being Thursday and Sunday – traditionally, the biggest nights for prime-time television viewing.

  • There are almost 12 million characters created by players within the game. Of these 12 million, more than 3 million have been played in the last six months.

  • The oldest EQ player is 78 (part of three generations of a single family that play together from different states). The youngest is 9 (he plays with his mother and father).

  • There are more than 1 million non-player characters populating the world of EverQuest, made up of nearly 400 unique types of creatures.

  • Total play time for all current players in the game equals more than 184,000 years.

  • Only 17% of the characters played within EverQuest are human. 83% are comprised of the fourteen other fantasy races available in the game.

  • EverQuest currently has more than 420,000 inhabitants, making the game’s population larger than 42 of America’s state capitals. Based on 2000 Census figures, EQ’s population is four times that of Berkeley, CA, Springfield, IL and Gary, IN; three times that of Pasadena, CA, Hartford, CT, Lansing, MI or Tallahassee, FL; twice the population of Orlando, FL, Des Moines, IA, Providence, RI or Richmond, VA; and roughly equal in population to Atlanta, GA, Kansas City, MO, Fresno, CA and Virginia Beach, VA.

  • There are over 350 square miles of dungeons, mountains, plains, valleys, cities and forests to explore in the game.

  • There are more than 40,000 unique items for players to discover, create or buy within the game. More than 3,000 of these items have never been discovered by players.

  • There are almost 100,000 trees within the world of EverQuest.

  • More than 1500 servers run the world of EverQuest, which is the equivalency of one of the world’s top 100 supercomputers. More than 18 miles of wire and cable connect all these boxes together.

  • Over 10 quadrillion bytes of EverQuest data have left the SOE network in the past five years. That’s a ten, followed by 15 zeroes.

About EverQuest
Developed and published by Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), EverQuest launched in 1999 and has since become both a gaming and cultural phenomenon. The game has sold more than 2 million copies while continuing to grow with award-winning expansions The Ruins of Kunark®, The Scars of Velious®, The Shadows of Luclin™, The Planes of Power™, The Legacy of Ykesha™, Lost Dungeons of Norrath™ and Gates of Discord™, making it the largest online 3D fantasy world ever created. During peak periods, more than 118,000 simultaneous adventurers have explored the fully detailed world of Norrath, filled with monsters, magic, adventure and more. The active global EverQuest subscriber base of more than 420,000 players is comprised of people from 40 different countries. Sony Online is committed to bringing EverQuest to various entertainment platforms, releasing titles such as EverQuest Online Adventures for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, EverQuest for the Pocket PC and EverQuest: Hero’s Call for wireless phones. In 2004, SOE plans to launch the highly-anticipated EverQuest II on PCs around the globe.

About Sony Online Entertainment
Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Digital Inc., is a recognized worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online games, with a subscriber base of over 700,000 active accounts around the globe. SOE creates, develops and provides compelling entertainment for the personal computer, online, game console and wireless markets. Known for its blockbuster franchises, EverQuest® and PlanetSide®, as well as for developing Star Wars Galaxies™: An Empire Divided™, SOE continues to redefine the business of online gaming and the creation of active player communities while introducing new genres on various entertainment platforms. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, with an additional development studio in Austin, TX, SOE has an array of cutting-edge online games in development.

EverQuest is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. SOE, the SOE logo and PlanetSide are registered trademarks of Sony Online Entertainment Inc.