Village Gamer

Montreal/San Francisco – Ubisoft Montreal’s Prince of Persia was the recipient of the Best Visual Arts award at last evening’s 9th Annual Game Developers Game Choice Awards, held at the Moscone Convention Centre in conjunction with the Game Developers’ Conference. The artwork in Prince of Persia is hauntingly beautiful, with rich, highly detailed environments. We at Village Gamer were lucky enough to have attended a recent SIGGRAPH Vancouver event which featured the artwork and creative processes used in developing Prince of Persia, and we extend our congratulations to the many artists who worked on the title.

Game Choice Awards Winners’ List

Game of the Year: Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks)

Best Game Design: LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Writing: Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks)

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Vancouver – The BC Innovation Council is pleased to be a title sponsor for the 2009 New Ventures BC Competition and the Impact Microcredit Competition which are both open to all British Columbians:

* 2009 New Ventures BC Competition – BCIC will be providing a total of $180,000 towards the Proof of Concept Awards towards the competition prizes. BCIC’s Proof of Concept Development Prize provides funding to New Ventures BC winners, to demonstrate the commercial potential of a new technology product, process or service. The funding supports advancement of the technology along the commercialization continuum in order to attract investors, commercial partners, and future customers.

The competition is open to everyone in British Columbia and entries will be accepted from a person, team or business. NVBC welcomes technology business ideas from all sectors. Registration for the competition will open shortly. Deadline to enter is midnight, April 20, 2009.

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Vancouver – Yummy Interactive Inc., today announced that its software protection solution, SoftwareShield, has been selected as a finalist for the 2009 SIIA CODiE Awards in the Best Digital Rights Management category. SoftwareShield addresses the increasing demand from software publishers worldwide for an integrated Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution which offers a wide variety of flexible licensing and unmatched security options with options to completely automate product activations online.

The CODiE Awards recognize outstanding achievement and vision in the software, digital information and education technology industries, as determined by journalist and a peer review process.

“It’s truly an honor to be recognized among such an accomplished group of industry leaders. SoftwareShield is the most powerful tool for protecting Intellectual Property and promoting incremental sales available. This acknowledgement by the CODiE judges supports our assertion that software publishers are pushing for rights management software that exceeds basic protection. We will continue to innovate with SoftwareShield in order to meet our customer’s needs and the needs of the digital marketplace,” said Christopher Hennebery, Director of Software Distribution for Yummy Interactive.
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Voice actors take note! The finalists for the 2009 Voicey Awards, sponsored by Voices.com, have been revealed

Toronto – After much waiting and anticipation, finalists of the 3rd Annual Voicey Awards recognizing voice talent have been announced. Voice talents record various projects for organizations, companies, and institutions requiring voice over services including commercials for radio and television, promos, movie trailers, audio book narration, podcasts, videos, animation, videogames, telephone recordings and more. Theirs are the voices of the unseen narrator, heard but not seen.

The only awards show of its kind to exclusively honor voice-over professionals, the Voicey Awards features 9 categories of significance and prestige, including Best Male Voice, Best Female Voice, Best New Voice, Best Child Voice, Best Teen Voice, Best Voice Team, Best Foreign Voice, Best Personal Branding, and Lifetime Achievement. Similar to awards such as the Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, honoring actors and filmmakers, the Voicey Awards recognize voice actors and voice talents for their contributions and efforts over the year in the voice over industry.

“The finalists for this year’s Voiceys, organized by category, and in no particular order are…”

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Vancouver International Partnering Forum and New Media BC’s Digital Media PopVox Awards return with bigger outreach and expanded programs

Vancouver – New Media BC announced its second annual Vancouver Digital Week will be held May 11-14, 2009 at the brand new Vancouver Exhibition and Convention Centre. Partner events include the Game Developers Conference (GDC) Canada, marking the first time the famed gamers meet up has come to Canada; Cossette West’s Convergence Conference, a digital marketing and social media gathering; and nextMEDIA’s first Vancouver event. New Media BC will present its own Vancouver International Partnering Forum and its People’s Choice PopVox Awards during Vancouver Digital Week. For a full list of events, visit: www.vancouverdigitalweek.com

“British Columbia is a global leader in digital media”, says Kenton Low, President of New Media BC. “Vancouver Digital Week is a partnership of top notch events focusing on digital media that brings attention to the world class talent and companies we have here in BC.”

The Vancouver International Partnering Forum (VIPF), to be held from May 12-13, 2009 was first launched in 2004 by New Media BC and continues as a significant annual event for leading Canadian digital companies to meet international decision makers, to explore partnership opportunities and negotiate deals. The forum attracts high calibre delegates from all over the world including the UK, USA, France, Germany, Korea, Australia, China, Singapore, Thailand and Japan. 2009 ushers in a new two day format allowing participants more networking components and the opportunity to double the number of business meetings during the hand-picked B2B sessions. Companies that have confirmed interest to attend this year’s forum include Google, Disney, Nokia, Rainmaker, Mediasense and Next Level Games. On-line registration is open at: www.vipf.ca

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With the highest sales growth in North America, Annex Pro Is Named As The Top Autodesk M+E Dealer in Canada

Vancouver/Las Vegas – At its annual channel partner conference, One Team Conference (OTC), Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) honored Annex Pro for the second year in a row, by inducting them into Platinum Club 2009, an elite group recognized for top sales performance and outstanding customer service in fiscal year 2009.

“The Autodesk Platinum Club comprises a talented group of professionals dedicated to our customers,” said Steve Blum, Autodesk senior vice president of Americas Sales.

Annex Pro, a Vancouver-based value-added reseller, was recognized for having the highest sales growth in North America for Autodesk Media and Entertainment, and also has the highest sales volume in Canada. “There is no team like the Annex Pro team!” said Kerry Corlett, President and founder of Annex Pro. “Without false modesty, I have to say we’ve earned this. Annex Pro works hard towards the success of our customers, and to be recognized in this way by Autodesk is a genuine honor.”
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Victoria – In the turmoil created by economic worries, business awards provide a reassuring note of continuity and success that buoys the entire community. Celebrating the efforts and success of Vancouver Island businesses, the Business Examiner (BE) Awards highlight the best and brightest in the community. Winning the Technology Company of the Year award, ParetoLogic was pleased to have its efforts recognized and honoured to be in such distinguished company. Proceeding into 2009 with the same vigor and confidence that has become the hallmark of ParetoLogic, the Island’s top Tech company has big plans to produce more software titles that will put British Columbia on the technology map.

“Winning the BE Award for Technology Company of the Year is a great way for us to start 2009,” comments Elton Pereira, ParetoLogic Co-Founder and CEO. One might think that adding another award to the company’s already impressive lineup would take a backseat to concerns generated by the ever-present economic bad news, but Pereira would argue that vehemently. “ParetoLogic has done and continues to do, extremely well, despite the recession that we seem to be experiencing. It’s important for people to remember that the good news is out there – Tech companies on the Island continue to thrive,” states Pereira.

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Alberta – The Banff World Television Festival (BANFF) announces the extension of the Program Competition submission final deadline for the Banff World Television Awards (“The Rockies”) to Friday, February 20, 2009. BANFF will take place at the Fairmont Banff Springs in Banff, Canada, June 7-10, 2009.

“Extending the final deadline for submissions is our way to ensure producers can participate in this opportunity to showcase their work on the international stage,” says Georges Leclere, Director of the Banff World Television Awards.

Recognized as one of the world’s most prestigious program competitions, “The Rockies” honor excellence in international television, covering 21 genres and 2 interactive categories. The 2008 competition attracted close to 1000 entries from 44 countries.
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Montreal – Mia’s Reading Adventure – The Bugaboo Bugs has won a Gold Medal from Mom’s Choice Awards. Developed by Kutoka Interactive of Montreal, Mia’s Reading Adventure is for children aged 5-9. The game follows primary school curriculum and enables the player to lead Mia the Mouse through a reading adventure. Designed to entertain, teach and spur imagination, the Mia series of titles feature lovable 3D characters who also happen to be house pests who have moved into Mia’s mansion.

Mia’s Reading Adventures, comprised thus far of six chapters, “includes 12 exciting reading and writing skills activities each with 4 distinct levels of difficulty. Topics covered: associating images to words, adverbs, phonics, rhymes, spelling, sentence structure, vocabulary, reading comprehension, word recognition and more.” Mia’s Reading Adventure comes in DVD-ROM format, and runs on both Windows and MAC platforms.

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– Backbone Entertainment Magazine and KPMG are searching for the Top 20 Web 2.0 pioneering companies in Canada. Is yours one? Do you know one that is? Backbone and KPMG are looking for the companies who are leading the way across four implementation categories:

1) Problem solving: customer response, idea generation, solution brainstorming ?
2) Innovation: crowdsourcing, market prediction, participatory feedback
3) Collaboration: jams, customer input, user rankings?
4) Knowledge sharing and management: teamware, wikis, blogs and collaborative content creation

To nominate your company or someone else’s, visit the PICK 20 nomination page. Winners will be announced in the August/September issue of Backbone Magazine. The deadline for submissions is March 2 2009.