Village Gamer

Toronto – SilverBirch Inc. has announced that it has completed the sale of its 60% stake in Crossroad Mobile, LLC. For
nominal consideration, the assets and related liabilities have been transferred back to the purchasers. Under the agreement, the effective closing date is September 30, 2008.

The transaction will result in the elimination of just over $40K of debt in relation to a Secured Promissory Note and reduces further dilution for SVB’s shareholder with the immediate cancellation of 1,800,000 warrants.
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Annex|Pro, a well-known value-added technology solutions reseller based in Vancouver, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a series of educational seminars. Congratulations to Kerry, Byron and the whole team at Annex|Pro!

November 24 – Eyeon Generation World Tour: Eyeon Generation is a breakthrough family of products that satisfy the demand for an end-to-end VFX environment and delivers timeline editing with up to 4K disk based playback, backed by 20 years of Fusion compositing development. The Generation workflow seamlessly integrates and collaborates with all eyeon products as well as removing the interoperability bottleneck with other products.

November 25 – Matrox MXO2 – Streamline Your Apple Final Cut Studio Workflow: Discover the Matrox Hardware Advantage with MXO2, a portable, affordable, and complete I/O device for the Mac. Be among the first to see this award-winning device in action.

November 26 – Render Farms 101: From Rendering to Reality in no Time: Want to learn more about render farm management? PipelineFX expert Troy Brooks has extensive experience in film and game development workflows, and will show you why using the right tools will improve productivity and increase content quality while optimizing hardware resources.
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Toronto-based distribution company, Breakthrough Entertainment announced Nat Abraham as its Head of Distribution. Mr. Abraham will oversee daily operations including worldwide sales, pre-sales and co-production opportunities.

Most recently Head of Canadian Sales and Acquisitions at Breakthrough, Mr. Abraham has been instrumental in the company’s recent acquisitions including Science of the Senses, Fraud Squad and The World Without Us.  He spearheaded Breakthrough’s collaboration with Canadian-based production company, Partners in Motion producers of Crime Stories, Re-Inventors and Disasters of the Century, all of which are distributed by Breakthrough Entertainment. Under his direction, Breakthrough also became one of the largest suppliers of third party factual programming  as well as high definition concerts to Canadian broadcasters including Coldplay, Gwen Stefani and The Tragically Hip to name a few.

“Nat has had a tremendous impact on our distribution division,” said Peter Williamson, Partner/Executive Producer, Breakthrough Films & Television “As our new Head of Distribution he will continue to drive international sales as well as our growing library of programming.”

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Digital Games-Based Learning Company scores Best in Show and Best Service/Product Provider at DevLearn 2008

DISTIL Interactive Ltd., an Ottawa-based leader in the use of digital gaming technology as a corporate learning environment beat a field of 40 learning technology vendors to win two key awards at last week’s DevLearn conference in San Jose CA.

The Best in Show was awarded for the digital learning environment “Business in Balance: Implementing an Environmental Management System” developed in collaboration with the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) teaches organizations how to develop an environmental system for their workplace. The Best Product/Service Provider category was awarded for across-the-board product excellence.

“This is an exciting achievement by the DISTIL and CSA teams,” said CEO Robert Thompson. “While we strongly believe in digital gaming’s power as a corporate learning tool, being recognized by the attendees at North America’s largest international e-Learning showcase is a great endorsement. We believe a key ingredient in our Best Product/Service Provider award was our integrated assessment technology which mines the game-play data to provide feed-back to learners and to provide their organization with detailed performance information.”
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Experience All-New Game Tempo Control, Authentic College Atmospheres and EA SPORTS ESPN Classic Tournament of Legends

Electronic Arts Inc. has announced that NCAA® Basketball 09 ships to retailers today in North America, delivering a college basketball experience that captures the emotion, intensity and atmosphere of a real college basketball game. Featuring former UCLA star Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves on its cover, NCAA Basketball 09 showcases a new, strategic college basketball gameplay experience that challenges gamers to replicate their school’s style of play and set the game tempo to win.

Experience the electricity of game night with the band playing fight songs, the student section leading the cheers and ESPN college basketball broadcasters Dick Vitale, Brad Nessler and Erin Andrews providing the commentary. Whether your school plays up tempo looking to push the ball in transition, runs a half-court offense that utilizes the clock and limits possessions or features a balanced attack that combines transition offense with set plays, NCAA Basketball 09 rewards the strategic gamer and emphasizes team specific styles of play.

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EA SPORTS announced today that 14 international commentary packs in FIFA Soccer 09 will be available to download free on both the PlayStation Network for PLAYSTATION 3 and on Xbox Live for Xbox 360. For the first time, fans worldwide can now download and experience all language commentary packs featuring different commentators from all over the world while playing FIFA Soccer 09.

FIFA Soccer 09 currently features specific languages by region but beginning today gamers can download and experience play-by-play commentary from other regions of the world. This will deliver a new international experience to FIFA Soccer 09 fans.

The following commentary packs will be available beginning today:

Language – Commentator’s Names

English Andy Gray Martin Tyler
French Herve Mathoux Franck Sauzée
Italian Giuseppe Bergomi Fabio Caressa
German Tom Bayer Sebastian Hellman
Spanish Paco González Manolo Lama
Mexico Perro Bermúdez Ricardo Pelaez
Dutch Youri Mulder Evert Ten Napel
European Portuguese David Carvalho Hélder Conduto
Hungarian Richard Faragó István B. Hajú
Russian Yuri Rozanov Vasily Solojov
Swedish Glenn Hysén Henrik Strömblad
Czech Bosák Jaromír Petr Sv?cený
Polish W?odzimierz Szaranowicz Dariusz Szpakowski
Brazilian Portugese Paulo Vinícius Coelho Nivaldo Prieto

Additionally, FIFA Soccer 09 offers a whole new commentary pack for download on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Marketplace. An additional English commentary pack featuring Andy Townsend and Clive Tyldesley previously unavailable on any version of FIFA Soccer 09 is available for download for only $4.99 US.

EA SPORTS Active Coming in Spring 2009; First in New Line of Fitness Products

Vancouver – Do you find there are too few hours in the day to run a household, hold down a job and fit in a workout? Or, are you just getting bored of the same old fitness routine? EA SPORTS™, a label of Electronic Arts Inc. today announced the development of EA SPORTS™ Active, an innovative new customizable and personalized fitness product that will get you motivated to move in the comfort of your home. EA SPORTS Active will launch exclusively for the Wii™ worldwide next spring.

Developed in collaboration with fitness experts, including Bob Greene – renowned exercise physiologist, author and Oprah’s personal trainer – EA SPORTS Active is perfect for the whole family, though designed specifically for women seeking a simple, fun and cost-effective way to achieve a healthy lifestyle. The product will be the first in a new line of EA SPORTS fitness and sports performance products in development to improve the well-being of people of all ages.
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Karemaker Sculpture

Vancouver – Earlier this week the artists and developers of Action Pants, Inc. took over Ginger 62 on Granville street to showcase their varied artistic talents. The purpose of this showing, organized by Action Pants’ Marketing Manager Wendy Boylan, who emphasized that “the artistic talents possessed not only by our staff, but by many others who also work in the videogame industry. These artists, programmers and support staff are an integral part of the Vancouver arts and culture community, which is why Action Pants holds external studio space in the Eastside where our staff are encouraged to work on their art whenever they get a chance.”

Paul Tanner Artwork

Upon entering the showing, visitors were greeted by a pair of large Tiki masks, which I thought had been carved in wood. On closer inspection I found that the artist, Paul Tanner had carved them from styrofoam and then painted them to resemble aged wood. These large masks are easily of a high enough quality to be used in any type of display, from a museum scene to a movie scene. Paul’s other work which was on display included a sharp-shooting skeletal being and a Hulk-sized drummer, shown in the photo on the right. The sculpture to the left was created by environment artist Sean Karemaker. With such amazing attention to detail, one can look at this creature and almost expect him to continue his advance across the terrain.

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VFS Release – Paul St. Amand’s widely acclaimed documentary Parallels has taken top honours at the 2008 Triggerstreet Online Film Festival, an initiative for emerging filmmakers co-founded by two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey. Chosen by festival judges Sam Mendes, Robin Williams, Jeff Goldblum, Rufus Wainwright, Roger Waters and Dave Stewart, this is the latest in a long line of accolades for the up-and-coming director, a graduate of the one-year Film Production program at Vancouver Film School (VFS).

Telling the captivating story of two US Army deserters of the American and Vietnam wars, the short documentary was produced during Paul’s year at VFS.

“I knew my student work at VFS could be a calling card and a career springboard, but I am surprised and delighted that Parallels is still making noise after more than two years,” says Paul, now based in Bedford, Nova Scotia.
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New Resource Provides Parents with More Detailed Information on Game Content Just in Time for the Holiday Shopping Season

NEW YORK – The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which assigns age and content ratings for computer and video games, today announced the availability of “rating summaries,” a new, supplementary source of information about game content that parents can use when considering which games to purchase for their children this holiday season and beyond. The new rating summaries will be accessible when searching for rating information via the ESRB website at www.esrb.org, its rating search widget, and a new mobile website at m.esrb.org.
“Research shows that the vast majority of parents who purchase games for their kids are aware of and regularly check ESRB ratings, but parents can always use more help when making choices as to which games are right for their children,” said Patricia Vance, president of the ESRB. “With our new rating summaries, which provide exclusive and unprecedented insight into the nature of the content that triggered a given rating assignment, parents will be that much more empowered in making those choices.”

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