Village Gamer

Montreal – Ubisoft announced today that it has acquired from Activision Blizzard the assets and all of the personnel of esteemed Malmö, Sweden- based studio Massive Entertainment®, as well as the real time strategy brand World In Conflict®.

Created in 1997, Massive employs over 120 developers and was ranked as one of the top 50 best game studios in the world by Game Developers Research in 2008. The studio is world-renowned for its expertise in the RTS genre and for the quality of its innovative proprietary technologies. World in Conflict® was acclaimed by critics, receiving the Best Strategy Game of E3 2007 award, as well as being named Best Online Multiplayer Game of 2007 by IGN, and Most Innovative Game of 2007 by Gamespot, among many other awards.

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Cologne Germany – EndResult, Canada’s top Halo 3 team is now Number 1 in the World. They went 3-0-1 at the 2008 World Cyber Games Grand Finals to bring home the gold. The team defeated TSW.Flowen of New Zealand, Team_nBK of Mexico, Great Britain’s vVv.dignitas and LowLandLions from The Netherlands to win a berth in the Single Elimination (best 2 out of 3) Round. EndResult’s only tie in the preliminary matches was against LowLandLions.

In the final rounds, EndResult went undefeated beating out Italy’s Inferno_Esports in Round 8, American team Mob_Deep in the Semi Final, and France’s SSK in the Final to win top spot on the awards podium.

EndResult’s team members are: Kevin Garcia of Keswick, ON; Max Rawal of Scarborough, ON; Matt Warkentin of St. Catharines, ON and Chris Kerluke of Vancouver, BC. Chris was the only member of Team Canada who hailed from BC.

Team Canada finished 9th overall out of 83 participating countries.

Results for Team Canada’s other competitors:

NoPression (Quebec) – Counter Strike 1.6 – went 4-2-0 but were eliminated in Round 16 by the USA’s x3o

Nic Brownrigg (Ontario) – Project Gotham Racing 4 – eliminated with a 2-4-0 record early in the competition

Daniel Piacampo (Ontario) – Guitar Hero 3 – 4-2-0 but was eliminated prior to the semi-final rounds

Alan Joseph (Ontario) – Virtua Fighter 5 – eliminated early in the tournament with 1-4-0

Jonathan Garneau (Quebec) – Warcraft 3 – Frozen Throne – eliminated early in the tournament with 1-5-0

Crash is Back in Another Ginormous Adventure! Crash Bandicoot: Mind over Mutant, developed by Vancouver’s Radical Entertainment, has hit store shelves worldwide and is available on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Wii™ home video game system, Nintendo DS™, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system.
In the deepest Crash adventure yet, Crash: Mind Over Mutant arms players with new features, including the ability not only to control enemies once they are ‘jacked,’ but to store the mutants in Crash’s pocket, upgrade them and utilise their unique powers. Players can also roam through Wumpa Island in a two-player cooperative mode with Crash’s sister Coco.
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Toronto – SilverBirch Inc. (TSX-V: SVB), a leading digital entertainment company, today announced the appointment of Mr. Kevin Astle as interim President and Chief Executive Officer. Under Mr. Astle, a seasoned business and marketing strategist with extensive global experience, SilverBirch will refocus exclusively on the fast-growing gaming sector. Mr. Astle succeeds Derek van der Plaat, who resigned today as President and CEO, and as a Director of the company.

The refocused strategy leverages SilverBirch’s core strengths in gaming. The company’s primary goal will be to become a premier publisher and operator of Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) as well as video games for PCs and leading console platforms. The new corporate focus will build upon the company’s existing operations including video game developer SilverBirch Studios, Netherlands-based interactive entertainment publisher Lighthouse Interactive, and a co-venture to operate licensed English language online multiplayer games. The company is also acquiring Red Mile Entertainment, publisher of console games Sin City and Heroes Over Europe, in a deal expected to close in early 2009, subject to shareholder, legal and regulatory approvals.
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Burnaby – Electronic Arts Inc. today announced that Peter Moore, President of EA SPORTS™, will present at the BMO Capital Markets 16th Annual Interactive Entertainment Conference on November 13, 2008 in New York, NY. at 09:00 ET. During the course of this event, Electronic Arts may disclose material developments affecting its business and/or financial performance. An audio webcast will be available on Electronic Arts’ website at http://investor.ea.com through November 20, 2008.

Toronto – YANGAROO Inc., the industry’s leading secure digital media distribution company, has integrated its Digital Media Distribution System (DMDS) with the MusicMaster Scheduling software produced by A-Ware Software, Inc.

As a result of this integration, the more than 2,800 MusicMaster Scheduling software users at radio stations worldwide can now import new music available through YANGAROO’s DMDS directly into their music library. The new music imported from DMDS also includes the related track information.

YANGAROO’s DMDS is a web-based delivery system available free to the radio industry. It replaces the physical distribution of music, allowing radio stations throughout North America to receive broadcast-quality music and promotional materials digitally and securely from independent, as well as major, record labels.

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Toronto – Creativeworks Productions Inc. is pleased to announce that their video Mobile Productions was an award winner in this year’s prestigious Crystal Vision Awards competition, honouring the best in television and film productions.

Mobile Productions was created for the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), a not-for-profit membership-based association serving business, industry, government and consumers in Canada and the global marketplace. A leading developer of standards and codes, and a solutions-oriented organization, CSA provides products, services and training that help enhance public safety and health, improve the quality of life, facilitate trade and preserve the environment.
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Our congratulations to the Cinematics team at Bioware – Mass Effect was honored with the award for the 2008 Mackie for Outstanding Achievement in Game Cinematics from the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences Film Festival in New York over the November 1st weekend.

Vancouver – Flarium Ltd. announced today the release of FlashSlider 4.3 – easy to use tool for creating flash slideshow creation.

FlashSlider 4.3 is a tool for easy creating flash slideshows with digital images, transition effects, background music, captions and navigation buttons and publishing them to the Web.
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