Theale, UK - March 17th, 2022 – Mattel, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAT) and Milestone, a leading global racing game developer, announced today the winner of the Hot Wheels Unleashed™ Design Battle, an exclusive contest for the global community of the fast-paced arcade racing game. Hot Wheels Unleashed has sold over one million copies worldwide.
The contest ran between January 14, 2022 and February 14, 2022, and more than 10,000 unique livery designs for the Hot Wheels® Rodger Dodger™ die-cast model were submitted using the in-game Livery Editor.
The winning Rodger Dodger will now be transformed into a real Hot Wheels toy (scale 1:64) available for purchase globally beginning December 2022.
After a meticulous process of evaluation, Mattel’s judges selected “Digigold” made by Hot Wheels Unleashed player ‘Reds’ as the winning Rodger Dodger™ livery. Characterized by a dominant white color-way, this livery is a stylish addition to the classic Rodger Dodger™ vehicle thanks to its gold details and enriched black abstract inserts that complete a stunning look.
The winner has been chosen by a special judging panel of Mattel’s world-class Hot Wheels designers:
- Ted Wu - Vice President and Global Head of Vehicle Design, Mattel
- Bryan Benedict - Director of Product Design, Mattel
- Dmitriy Shakhmatov - Manager of Product Design, Mattel
- Jerry Thienprasiddhi - Principal Graphic Designer, Mattel
"Hot Wheels is all about encouraging the challenger spirit and we really saw that come through with the design battle,” said Wu. “The brand has always pushed the limits of automotive performance and design to create the perfect car which was echoed in fans’ creativity with an astounding 10,000+ entries in the contest. Reds’ ‘Digigold’ livery was truly unique, and we look forward to making it available for fans to purchase at retail later this year.”
The Reds’ Rodger Dodger die-cast will be available from major retailers for purchase globally beginning December 2022.
For more information, visit hotwheelsunleashed.com. Drivers can also join the #HotWheelsUnleashed conversation online at Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.
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About Hot Wheels
As the #1 selling toy in the world*, Hot Wheels is the global leader in car culture. For the last fifty plus years, Hot Wheels has proven its influence on the automotive community with legendary design and epic performance. Today, Hot Wheels has become a worldwide powerhouse franchise, with live and virtual events on almost every continent, highly sought-after consumer products and top-tier collaborations, a #1-rated content channel on YouTube, and more. While 16.5 Hot Wheels are sold every second and over 8 billion cars have been sold to date, the brand continues to expand its presence in digital gaming, with success across mobile, console and PC platforms.
Founded in Milan in 1996, Milestone S.r.l. is one of the leading and longest established racing game developer in the world. The 200+ people team is responsible for hit series like MotoGP™, MXGP and Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame, as well as own IPs Ride and Gravel. For more information please visit www.milestone.it
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The group’s publishing activities, marketing and distribution extend throughout Europe, America, Australia and Asia. Koch Media has more than 25 years of experience in the digital media business and has risen to become a leading global publishing partner. The Koch Media Group runs a multi-label strategy with fully owned publishing units such as Prime Matter, Deep Silver, Milestone, Vertigo Games and Ravenscourt, publishing games for consoles, PC and VR platforms across all physical and digital channels.
Additionally, as global publishing partner Koch Media has formed long-term multi-national publishing collaborations with numerous game publishers including Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, Capcom, CI Games, Giants Software, Kalypso, Koei Tecmo, Konami, Paradox, Sega, SNK, Square Enix, Techland, Tripwire, Warner Bros, and many others.
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The Koch Media Group owns ten game development studios: Deep Silver Volition (Champaign, IL / USA), Deep Silver Dambuster Studios (Nottingham / UK), Deep Silver Fishlabs (Hamburg / Germany), Warhorse Studios (Prague / Czech Republic), Milestone (Milan / Italy), Voxler (Paris / France) , Flying Wild Hog (Warsaw, Kraków, Rzeszów / Poland), Free Radical Design (Nottingham / UK) and Vertigo Games (Rotterdam /The Netherlands), DigixArt (Montpellier, France). Additionally, the Koch Media Group collaborates with numerous independent development studios around the world.
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