Village Gamer

Toronto – Interactive Ontario today announced the launch of INplay – a new conference that connects creative industries with interactive kids topics. INplay will take place on May 18 & 19, 2010 in Toronto, Canada, and will examine the creation and commercialization of interactive media content and services for kids ages 4 to 15.

“Interactive Ontario is proud to present this unique event for the global kids media entertainment industry,” says Ian Kelso, President and CEO of Interactive Ontario. “ With tremendous support from our partners, all of whom are leaders in the interactive kids space, we are sure INplay will be a highly valued event for kids content producers and creators worldwide.”

“Ontario is home to a dynamic and growing interactive digital media industry with many talented and award-winning content producers,” says Karen Thorne-Stone, President & CEO of Ontario Media Development Corporation. “INplay will provide a unique two-day forum for Ontario companies to network and to share ideas and strategies with the world’s leading producers and distributors of digital entertainment for children.”

This project is spearheaded by IO in partnership with industry leaders including: The Alliance for Children & Television, Astral Media Inc, Bitcasters, Blue Print Entertainment, Breakthrough New Media, Capybara Games, CBC, Corus Entertainment, Decode Entertainment, Earth Rangers, Kids Can Press, marblemedia, Meridian Artists, Portfolio Entertainment, Spin Master Ltd., and zinc Roe Inc.

“Astral is proud to be one of the founding partners of what promises to be a world-class event that will bring together the best minds in Kids Interactive from Canada and around the world,” says Barbara Baillie, Director of Interactive, Astral Media.

“marblemedia is really looking forward to participating at INplay. We’re always working to make sure our stories are on whatever device kids are using. We see INplay as a chance to be inspired by the latest ideas in how to make fun, engaging experiences for kids,” says Ted Brunt, VP Interactive Production, marblemedia.

INplay is INsight, INgenuity and INterchange with a good dose of fun! INplay is for game developers/publishers, broadcasters, content producers/distributors, interactive/mobile/social media developers, toy/game manufacturers, book/magazine/comic publishers, marketers, researchers/child psychologists and all businesses with interest in the kid’s space.

Banff – In our interconnected, globalized economy, information is critical. Get a solid grasp on our new knowledge economy with a three-day workshop at the Banff Centre. Join Digital Alberta and the Banff New Media Institute to explore technology-enhanced learning as a valuable economic resource.

This eLearning workshop is designed specifically for professionals working in elearning, education, human resources and knowledge-based digital media. Stimulate learning opportunities and expand your knowledge in this dynamic field. From open source platforms to game-based learning, you will be exposed to capturing, retaining and transferring knowledge in a digital medium. So if knowledge and information is part of your responsibility, this workshop is for you.

The workshop features:

Lance Dublin, Dublin Consulting – Keynote
Dan Rickard, Okaki Health – Open source eLearning
Lou Russell – eLearning Project Management and SMEs
Kevin McNulty, Coole Immersive – Game-based learning
Dr. Jim Parker – Game-based learning
Martha Burkle, Cisco Chair of e-Learning – Training in virtual worlds

The workshop will be presented at The Banff Centre on December 3 – 6, 2009.

Rates: (all prices subject to GST)

$320.00 Digital Alberta Members or Affiliates
$350.00 Non-Member Early Bird (on or before November 18)
$260.00 Student Early Bird (before November 18)
$400.00 Non-Member after November 18
$300.00 Students Non-Member after November 18

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Toronto – The Canadian New Media Awards recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of individuals and companies in the Canadian digital media industry, in 19 prestigious award categories. Winners will be announced on December 1, 2009 at a gala ceremony at The Design Exchange in Toronto. This is the night our community really comes together to showcase excellence in interactive, and celebrate the promising future of Canada’s new media industry. Read the rest of this entry »

London UK – Team Hungary was announced as the winner of Bioware’s Warden’s Quest, a 24-hour gaming event where 10 teams of gamers from around the world competed for a grand prize of $12,500 for each member of the winning team. Team Canada placed a respectable third, right behind the Bioware Community Team. I was getting worried when the Canadians were lost in the Fade and it seemed they might be eliminated part way through, but they pulled together and escaped into the next challenge.

The ten teams were playing Dragon Age: Origins, one of the most anticipated games of the fall release schedule. They played for the full 24 hours, switching off team members so they could rest up and develop strategies. Dragon Age: Origins will be released to the public on November 3rd.

Montreal – The Army of Two: 40th Day team has released the second part of their Dev Series, with Eric Chartrand continuing his discussion about the Multi-Player component for the game. Details are given about matchmaking, client servers and more. Army of Two: 4oth Day is in development at EA Montreal and will be released on January 12 2010.

Vancouver – Disruptive Media Publishers (DP), a leading provider of Xbox 360 personalization content, announced the release of a new collection of avatar apparel items featuring 30 top U.S. universities. The release marks the first time users can personalize their Xbox LIVE® Avatars with officially licensed university branded apparel licensed through The Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), a division of IMG Worldwide. From varsity jackets to fitted caps, hooded sweatshirts, polo shirts and shoes, hundreds of unique university branded items are now available on Xbox LIVE Avatar Marketplace.

“Xbox LIVE Avatar Marketplace has been incredibly popular with our community,” said Christina DeRosa, General Manager, Xbox LIVE. “We know Xbox LIVE members love to represent themselves and their personalities through their Avatars – in fact, people have changed their clothes nearly 150 million times! Now whether you’re a student, alumni or simply a fan, you can wear your university gear with pride, which is truly exciting.”

“Universities have been cautious with regards to the digital personalization space, but we have been impressed with the creativity and capabilities of Disruptive Publishers,” said David Kirkpatrick, Vice President of Non-Apparel Marketing, The Collegiate Licensing Company. “We are excited about Disruptive Publishers’ depth of licensed offerings as well as their plans for collegiate expansion.”

“We see this as a first step in allowing consumers a chance to personalize their avatars beyond the traditionally rooted fashion and gaming apparel often found on Marketplace,” said Otis Perrick, Disruptive Publishers Director of Business Development. “We know that Xbox 360 users are doing much more than playing games, so we’re excited to incorporate licensed real-world elements from the top brands, leagues, artists and photographers into some of the highest quality personalization content on the platform.”

The Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC) has released five new videos which explain step-by-step how to utilize the built-in safety and parental controls for the PC, Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360. Danielle Parr and Marc Saltzman take parents through a quick and easy step-by-step interactive guide on how to use the built-in features to ensure your children enjoy a safe and fun gaming experience. In the Introduction video, Danielle and Marc discuss console placement and choosing appropriate games for your kids and family.

Vancouver Event Reminders For This Week:

ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver and the National Film Board present an Evening with Chris Landreth tonight (and this afternoon) at the VanCity Theatre. Tickets are free, and there are still some available at the door.

There will also be a Get Animated event this Sunday at the Vancouver Public Library main branch:

NFB Co-presentation with Reel to Real Film Festival
Vancouver Public Library 350 West Georgia Street
Info: 604 331-3663

Sunday · November 1, 2009
1:00 pm: Family Program — Kids & Youth Program
2:00 pm: Kids’ Animation Workshop — Scott Kiborn
3:30 pm: Family Program — Kids & Youth Program

Ghoulash Bash takes place tomorrow night (October 29) at the Metropole Pub on Abbott Street. Come out and enjoy the Halloween fun as the Game Industry Gives Back – dress up as your favourite retro game character and help raise funds for the Vancouver Regional Food Bank Society. Take part in a silent auction, buy tickets to win passes to events such as Game Design Expo 2010, Casual Connect Conferences and Games For Change, plus much more. Admission is by donation – either non-perishable food or cash. See the Ghoulash Bash web site for more information.

The Masters of Digital Media programme is holding an open house at the Great Northern Way Campus, also on October 29th, from 5-7pm. You are invited to mix and mingle with current faculty, students and soon-to-be graduates at the Open House. There will be samples of student work, facility tours and information about the program, scholarships and program admission requirements.

Thursday night is apparently a very busy night in Vancouver. There will be a Drupal meet-up at Appnovation Technologies ( L200-560 Beatty Street) for the Vancouver League of Drupalers beginning at 6:30pm. This month’s feature presentation: Information Architecture for Drupal – A User Based Approach with Vanessa Turke. Implementing a fresh design or new CMS without giving some significant thought to the organization of the actual content of the site can be a costly mistake “ a new look or a new system is not a fix for a poorly-structured website with boring content!” Vanessa discuss hows how some careful planning at the beginning of the process can help. There will also be a case study on the newly relaunched Vancouver Observer by Dave Egan and discussion regarding holding a Vancouver Drupal Camp in 2010.

Calgary – The Basement to Boardroom Series features two local companies per year, where successful Alberta based companies share with the Digital Alberta membership their success stories. From their embryonic stages, start-up financing to what they would and would not do again.

Join us for a wicked awesome session on Tuesday November 17 with Patrick Lor, President, Fotolia North America. Fotolia.com is one of the world’s leading providers of affordable stock imagery, with a database of over five million images and over one million international members. With web sites in 10 languages, Fotolia, LLC is based in New York and has offices in 11 countries. In 2007, Fotolia became the first independent microstock agency to enter the traditional stock marketplace with the launch of Fotolia Infinite Collections.

Patrick helped pioneer the microstock industry, joining the world’s first microstock agency (iStockphoto) in 2001 as co-founder. Upon his departure, the company was selling over 12 million images annually, and was sold to Getty Images for US$50 million in 2006. He has also held senior marketing and product development roles at Adobe’s Image Club Graphics Division, which produced and marketed fonts, photography, clip art and design applications to professional designers throughout the world. Patrick has extensive experience mentoring startups, and currently sits on the advisory boards of Aviary.com, Benevity.com and Bumptop.com.

This seminar is free for Digital Alberta members and $15.00 for non-members; it takes place at the Seven Restoloung in Calgary, with registration beginning at 5pm.

Vancouver – ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver Chapter is proud to present Bringing Dragon Age To Life: Digital actors in an epic RPG on Wednesday November 18 at the VanCity Theatre – and now that we have our tickets, I’ll let you all know that tickets are now on sale.

BioWare’s Lead Animator Clove Roy and Lead Character Artist Shane Hawco discuss the challenges faced in creating digital actors for BioWare’s newest award-winning role-playing epic Dragon Age: Origins. This presentation will provide an in-depth look in how to tell a huge complex story through an interactive narrative complete with hundreds of emotionally engaging digital actors.

Clove Roy, Lead Animator at Bioware is a graduate of Sheridan College, and over the past 9 years in his career as a professional animator, he has contributed to several acclaimed titles including Eternal Darkness, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Too Human and recently Bioware’s newest award winning role playing epic Dragon Age: Origins. Clove enjoys the challenges of combining his own personal self-expression, love for animation and film into the digital commercial art known as Video Games.

Shane Hawco, Lead Character Artist at Bioware is a graduate of the Alberta College of Art and Design. Shane has been working as a professional artist over the past 15 years. The last 7 years of his career have been working with role playing giant, Bioware; working on the award winning titles Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and the newest role playing epic Dragon Age: Origins. Shane loves to question the line between uncompromising high fidelity digital art and technological limitations; with aim of delivering a peak game play experience.

Tickets to this event are $10.00 for SIGGRAPH members and $20.00 for everyone else. This event is sponsored in part by AnnexPro and 3vis.

Dragon Age: Origins will launch on November 3 2009 (which, by the way, is only seven more sleeps!).

Vancouver – This just in from New Media BC – Fusion Forum organizers New Media BC are pleased to announce that with the support of the National Research Council Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) and Bootup Entrepreneurial Society, all entrepreneurs can participate at the Fusion Forum for no additional cost above the regular attendee price of $100. All companies attending the Fusion Entrepreneur Boot Camp held on November 5 as well as the twenty selected to pitch to top tier investors during the Fusion Venture Forum on November 12, will pay this same affordable rate as conference attendees.

“Our community has a history of producing some of the most notable digital media companies in the world,” says Maura Rodgers, Executive Director of Bootup Entrepreneurial Society. “We challenge our best entrepreneurs to step forward and show the international investors what our community is made of.”

The package includes full access to the event, including networking lunch and reception. Presenting companies will also have free access to “Entrepreneur Bootcamp” training sessions, presentation coaching, and a chance to pitch at the Forum on November 12th and potentially have one-on-one meetings with visiting investors from Silicon Valley.

“New Media BC is thrilled to have the support of NRC-IRAP and Bootup Entrepreneurial Society to provide such great value to BC and Canadian entrepreneurs.” said Rochelle Grayson, Interim President at New Media BC. “We have lined up first-class investors and industry experts, and we are looking forward to showcasing the best digital media talent and opportunities BC and Canada has to offer.”

The deadline for registrations has been extended to Friday, October 30th to allow entrepreneurs to take advantage of this special rate. Reimbursements will be made for companies who have already signed up at the full rate.

New Media BC also announced that Fusion’s “Best in Show” judges will be Tom Duterme, Corporate Development Manager at Google Inc., Saeed Amidi, CEO/President and Founder of Plug and Play Tech Center and Steve Hnatiuk, Founder and Partner at Yaletown Venture Partners. The “Best in Show” presenter will receive paid airfare to San Francisco and three month placement at the prestigious Plug and Play Tech Centre accelerator in Sunnyvale, California.

Studio staff at Rockstar Vancouver will be taking part in the local Movember movement, as Rockstar Games is proud to be a major sponsor of Movember, the annual month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer. Grow a rugged moustache and send us a photo by the end of November for a chance to be immortalized as a character in Rockstar’s next epic – Red Dead Redemption (in development at Rockstar San Diego).

Historically men have been very poor at looking after their health, especially when compared with the efforts of women. Men still access health services less frequently and when they do visit the doctor, they typically present late, thereby denying themselves the chance of early detection and treatment of common diseases.

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EA Montreal has released a new Army of Two: 40th Day trailer. This short video focuses on the multiplayer extraction mode. Army of Two: 40th Day is slated for release on January 12 2010.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4lPGdoe6o4]

Vancouver Film School is holding a Halloween makeup contest. Impress their judge, film industry veteran and Head of the Makeup Design for Film & Television program Stan Edmonds (The Butterfly Effect, I, Robot, Unforgiven), and you’ll have the chance to win some great prizes, including a selection of professional-quality makeup supplies! All you have to do is show your Halloween-themed makeup skills – and that can be anything you imagine as long as you’ve created the makeup yourself – on the photo-sharing site Flickr between October 26 and November 1. Once three finalists are chosen by our judge, the public will get to vote on the winner.

Ottawa – Corel has introduced Corel® Paint it!™ touch, a new digital art studio built explicitly for the Windows 7 platform. Corel Paint it! touch is optimized for use on touch-screen computers, Paint it! touch provides budding artists of any age with a unique artistic experience. Using the program, consumers can create original artwork with the touch of their fingertips. The program’s touch-enabled capabilities let consumers add artistic touches to photos or create art from scratch using a number of realistic brushes and effects.

“With Paint it! touch, it is now possible to bypass mouse clicks and interact directly with your digital canvas, all with the touch of your fingertips,” said David Toeg, Paint it! touch Product Manager for Corel. “Windows 7 and Windows Touch have enabled Corel to create new possibilities for our users by removing barriers and helping them to connect with their digital content in more personal ways. Whether they are creating painted masterpieces, photo projects, or home videos, it can now be an even more spontaneous and interactive experience.”

IUGO Mobile Entertainment has released information about their latest game which is headed for the Apple App Store – Implode, where players are tasked to carefully plant limited dynamite bundles in order to demo obsolete structures. Sounds easy enough, right? WRONG! Implode! is a classic “easy to learn, hard to master” casual game that will pull you in and won’t let go. IUGO currently has three games in the pipeline for the App Store – Implode, Zombie Attack Second Wave and Cliffed.

Features include:

• 60 dynamite levels
• Reactive UI, touch and drag control options
• Fun chalkboard theme and clean graphics
• Two different types of bombs (traditional bombs and blast bombs)
• Varying structure shapes for ongoing challenge
• Submit score online (online score is the sum of all levels’ high scores)
• Grading system for high scores adding replayability to each level
• 3 Difficulties; Casual, Veteran, and Expert
• In-level help system: Learn as you play!
• IUGO VIP: Sandbox cheat gives you more bombs and you never fail! (high scores disabled with this feature)
• Watch buildings tumble with real physics!

Victoria – Island Tech 09 is looking for speakers. Island Tech takes place on November 13th at the Crystal Garden and will feature an afternoon of thought-provoking discussions, much in the style of the TEDx conferences. They are looking for people that have an interesting topic they would like to present. Talks should be rooted in innovation, or at least connected to technology. The organizers would prefer talks with a broad and/or unconventional scope. Do you have anything you’d like to say that fits this bill? The format for the talks is a 20 minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of Q&A with the audience. People should come away from this part of the Island Tech event thinking “I’ve never thought about it that way”, or “man, that was interesting”, or maybe even “that was brilliant!”. We want these talks to stretch the boundaries a bit, and make people think. Please email Island Tech 09 with a synopsis of your talk.

The MindShare Learning Report—Canada’s, Leading, Learning & Technology eMagazine and title sponsor Microsoft Canada Co., are set to officially launch the Microsoft – MindShare Learning Report™ 21st Century Digital Classroom Challenge (Contest Info – PDF). In its second year running, this event aims to inspire teachers, along with their students from across Canada to share their successful classroom practices using technology. Teachers from publicly funded schools can qualify to win one of three technology prize packs valued at over $15,000 for their school.

The office launch takes place at W.H. Day Elementary School in Bradford, Ontario, the site of one of last year’s contest winners, grade 5 teacher, Mali Bickley. “It is an honour to have the Mindshare Learning Contest launch hosted in my classroom. Winning the Mindshare Learning contest and having the technology for the class helped us connect with so many other classes throughout the world. The technologies were the tools that connected my students in curriculum based projects that truly made a difference in their lives and other students globally,” says Mali Bickley.

Through a video submission, K-12 educators from publicly funded schools across Canada are challenged to share their success stories using technology to support student success. Qualified entrants will be eligible to win one of three classroom technology prize packages, each valued at more than $15,000, from leading classroom technology providers, including: Microsoft Canada, Advanced Education, Dell, EPSON, FrontRow, ISTE, NECTAR Foundation, netTrekker, Pearson, SMART Technologies and MindShare Learning.

“Canadian teachers are excellent stewards in marrying technology with education and are critical in developing instructional environments that use technology to ignite the imaginations of students,” says Shann McGrail, Director of Education, Microsoft Canada. “Microsoft Canada is committed to helping educators to prepare students for today’s and tomorrow’s workforce with education-specific tools and technologies, and this contest maps to our belief that technology is one way to deliver enriched instruction to engage students and improve learning outcomes.”

“The awesome prize packages were carefully selected and represent best-of-class technology to enable 21st century digital learning in the classroom. I’m humbled by the generosity of our sponsors,” says Robert Martellacci, president and publisher, The MindShare Learning Report.

Ottawa – Miltons IP has joined together with Wiley, the publisher of the popular For Dummies reference book series, to create a resource for Canadians that outlines core intellectual property rights, how to make money from IP (whether your own or others), and a series of checklists.

The book contains a primer on the various types of intellectual property assets, from patents and trademarks, to copyrights and industrial designs. Each of the introductory chapters deals with one type of protection, provides definitions, pros and cons and instructs how to protect one’s IP rights. Later chapters discuss how to profit from IP and how to enforce one’s IP rights. A chapter on deriving income from someone else’s IP through licensing follows later in the book, with the final chapter dispelling some common misconceptions about IP. It is a quick read, suitable for individuals in a wide range of occupations and industries.

Just a reminder that New Media BC will be holding its Annual General Meeting at Rainmaker (#500 – 2025 West Broadway) in Vancouver tonight, beginning at 5pm. There are some important issues on the table, including the proposed merger with winBC and the formation of a new trade association. It’s imperative that all voting members participate in this process.

Tickets are now available for the ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver and NFB speaker session with animator Chris Landreth. This is a free event being held in conjunction with the National Film Board’s Get Animated cross-Canada tour. An evening with Chris Landreth takes place at the VanCity Theatre in Vancouver on Wednesday October 28th. This event is sponsored in part by vanARTS, Annex|Pro and 3vis.

In other news, Best Buy Canada will be celebrating the grand opening of their new store at Sevenoaks Mall in Abbotsford, BC this weekend. They are planning a full schedule of special events, including:

Grand Opening Weekend Schedule of Events:

Friday, October 23, 2009

– Before 9:45 am: Line up for a chance to win a $500 Best Buy gift card
– 9:30 am: Ribbon-cutting ceremony and $5,000 cheque presentation to Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Abbotsford, Mission, Ridge Meadows
– 5 pm: Meet Alexandre Burrows for an autograph session

Saturday, October 24, 2009

– Before 9:45 am: Line up for a chance to win a $500 Best Buy gift card
– 6 pm: Meet Default for an autograph session
– 1 – 3 pm: Meet Dora the Explorer™

Sunday, October 25, 2009

– Before 10:45 am: Line up for a chance to win a $500 Best Buy gift card
– 2 – 4 pm: Meet Spider-Man™
– 11am – 6pm: Play in the PlayStation Big Rig

The grand opening specials and $500 daily Gift Card giveaways are also included at all Lower Mainland Best Buy locations!