Village Gamer

Waterloo – Open Text, a global leader in Enterprise Content Management (ECM), today announced that it has been awarded a 2009 SAP(R) Pinnacle Award as the Regional Software Solutions Partner of the Year, EMEA. SAP Pinnacle Awards were granted to leading SAP partners that have excelled in enhancing the customer experience, addressing critical issues such as accelerating co-innovation and improving return on investment. Winners were selected based on over 300 nominations, twice the amount in 2008, received from partners and SAP employees. Open Text received the award at a special awards ceremony held on the eve of SAPPHIRE® 2009, SAP’s international customer conference being held in Orlando, Fla. May 11-14

“The SAP Pinnacle Awards reflect the continued success we are seeing both in EMEA and around the world helping customers connect their enterprise content with SAP solutions,” said Patrick Barnert, Vice President, SAP Solutions at Open Text. “We are especially pleased to have won an SAP Pinnacle Award two years running and look forward to even greater success in the coming year. By working closely with SAP, we are helping our joint customers lower costs, boost productivity and increase compliance.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto – Breakthrough Films & Television and its distribution company Breakthrough Entertainment have signed a co-production and broadcast deal with History Television (Canada) and Discovery Communications for Greatest Tank Battles (10 x 60’) a military, CGI documentary series that recounts the most dramatic, monumental tank battles in history. The announcement was made today by Nat Abraham, Head of Distribution at Breakthrough Entertainment.

“Breakthrough has a long tradition of delivering top rated and critically acclaimed history series,” said Peter Williamson, Executive Producer. “Greatest Tank Battles blends computer generated images and documentary storytelling and will be our most exciting series yet.”

Greatest Tank Battles will launch on History Television in Canada, Discovery Communications’ Military Channel in the United States, and on Discovery Networks throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – The first keynote of the inaugural GDC Canda event has ended, and conference attendees are now checking out the seminars on a variety of topics on three tracks – production, design and business.

Don & Victor

This morning’s keynote session featured Microsoft Game Studios’ Don Mattrick, who was interviewed by Victor Lucas. There was lively discussion about the past, present and future of the game industry, and Don shared his thoughts on directions and paths we may see traveled in the future. I will cover more of this topic when I write my event wrap-up.

There are loads of great people to meet and talk to at the conference, as well as very informative seminar sessions. There are still passes available, check out the GDC Canada website for more information.

Toronto – A world without downloading, file sharing and iPods seems inconceivable today. But this digital age was ushered in a mere 10 years ago with the creation of Napster, the music sharing software. It opened a Pandora’s box.

Today, The Globe and Mail launches The Download Decade, an in-depth editorial series examining the profound societal, economic and cultural changes resulting from these new digital technologies. The series will examine: Napster’s critical role in the resurgence of Apple; the growth of ISPs; new business models and how they are faring; the fundamental transformation of the music industry; the debate about downloading and whether ISPs should be forced to hand over information on heavy file sharers; copyright law impact; and what the future holds.
Read the rest of this entry »

UK – Develop Magazine, a UK-based magazine for the game development industry has released its annual Top 100 worldwide studio list. While there are more Canadian studios listed this year than in previous years, there is a large shift in their placings.

EA Canada, who held the number one position on the Develop 100 list for 2005, 2006 and 2007, was toppled from that position in 2008 by Nintendo, and this year both were moved down a notch by Blizzard Entertainment. Rockstar North took third place, effectively knocking Canada out of the top three. EA Canada, however, still hangs on to the top Canadian spot at number 4 while Ubisoft Montreal finishes at sixth, down three from 2008. Fourth place is the lowest position EA Canada has ever held in the Top 100, while Ubisoft Montreal has moved up and down the list while always remaining in the Top 10; the studio placed 10th in 2007, 6th in 2006 and 5th in 2005.
Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – Pixelmatic Entertainment Inc. has announced the official launch of Gamerbook on the Facebook platform. Gamerbook is an application designed to connect gamers on Facebook. Users of Gamerbook can create profiles for different games which detail their nickname, which servers they played on, their faction and clan, and the time period for which they played that game; this information is then easily searchable by any other Gamerbook user. With Gamerbook, users will be able to find people they have played with in the past that are known only by an alias. Gamerbook also allows gamers to notify friends about the games they are currently playing, well as keep track of the gaming aliases of friends.

“We see Gamerbook as an extension of Facebook – an embedded social network within Facebook built specifically for gamers,” said Samson Mow, founder and director, Pixelmatic Entertainment. “We envision that Gamerbook will reconnect gamers much in the same way that school and work networks on Facebook bring together classmates and coworkers.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – The Leo Awards, established in 1998 to celebrate excellence in British Columbia film and television held their annual awards celebration and gala over the past two days at the Westin Bayshore. Since 2003, they have been a project of the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Foundation of British Columbia, a non-profit society formed to celebrate and promote the achievements of the B.C. film and television industry.

The Awards Celebration on Friday evening was hosted by twin brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott, with Saturday night’s Awards Gala hosted by Gary Jones. The Leo Awards Film Festival, held prior to the awards offered public screenings of this year’s Leo Awards nominees in several leading program categories — Best Feature-Length Drama, Best Documentary, Best Short Drama, and Best Student Production. We, however, are only concerned with the VFX, CGI and Animation sectors of the Awards program.

Best Visual Effects in a Feature Length Drama was won by Artifex and Spin VFX for Impact
Best Visual Effects in a Dramatic Series was won by the Stargate Atlantis team of Mark Savela, Shannon Gurney, Kodie MacKenzie, Viv Jim and Dan Weir for the First Contact episode
Best Animation Program or Series went to Kid vs Kat from Studio B Productions
Best Direction/Storyboarding in an Animation Program or Series was won by Nerd Corps Entertainment for Storm Hawks – Stratosphere
Best Screenwriting in an Animation Program or Series also went to Nerd Corps for Stormhawks, but for the Fire & Ice episode
Best Overall Sound in an Animation Program or Series was picked up by Rainmaker Animation & Visual Effects for Max Steel: Bio Crisis
Best Musical Score in an Animation Program or Series went to Bob Buckley for Stormhawks – The Storm Hawks Seven
Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – Earlier this week, Toronto’s Yangaroo Inc. announced that it had received a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office for  its “Content Distribution System and Method.”  The US Patent, #7529712,  will be in effect until 2026.

The announcement went on to say that “The U.S. patent for “Content Distribution System and Method” covers a method of distributing digital content, such as music and advertising, to selected individuals over the Internet, in which the uploading content provider selects the individuals that are entitled to access the content and sets release conditions, such as a time and date. Once the identities of the selected individuals have been verified at login, they are provided with access to the uploaded content if those release conditions are met.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – The BC Technology Industry Association (BCTIA) have announced the finalists for the 2009 Technology Impact Awards (TIAs). Marking the awards’ 15th year, the 2009 finalists reaffirm British Columbia’s status as a global leader in innovative software solutions, mobile communications, and energy conservation technologies.

“This year’s TIA finalists are making their mark on the world with innovative solutions that are improving productivity and environmental sustainability, while saving their customers millions of dollars every year,” observed Pascal Spothelfer, President of the BCTIA. “Innovation and best business practices are essential for our industry to weather the current economic storm. The TIA finalists are representative of the class of companies that come out of a downturn strong and well positioned for the recovery.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver – The Canadian Tourism Commission has announced their unique approach in promoting our great country. It’s kind of hard to sum up one of the world’s largest and most physically, geographically and culturally diverse countries in a few words — even if we had unlimited advertising dollars and time in the world (which we don’t). So in today’s world of “live well, spend less” and “if you can’t tweet it, it’s too much information”, we distilled the essence of the amazing Canadian vacation experience into 15 seconds — a bit shorter than your average elevator ride.

But get this — it gets better. We didn’t even shoot our own commercials! We went on YouTube and discovered real people having real experiences in Canada with real and raw emotion and really loving it! That’s right. Real people, real experiences, real emotion!
Read the rest of this entry »