Village Gamer

Edmonton – Leading video game developer BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc., today announced that the release of Dragon Age™: Origins on PC has been rescheduled to the last half of 2009 from the previously announced early 2009 release date, coinciding with the release of the console versions of Dragon Age: Origins.

“Dragon Age: Origins is shaping up to be quite amazing in its level of quality and polish,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, General Manager and CEO, BioWare and General Manager and Vice President, EA. “I’m really proud of our team, who are working very hard to make Dragon Age: Origins the biggest and most exciting BioWare game yet, and we will work to ensure it not only meets, but exceeds the expectations of our loyal audience of fans.”

Dragon Age: Origins is the spiritual successor to BioWare’s critically acclaimed Baldur’s Gate™, featuring deep character customization and roleplaying, morally challenging decisions, tactical party-based combat, and a wealth of gritty, mature sub-plots that together make it one of the most highly-anticipated PC and console releases of 2009.

Vancouver – Today Ubisoft announced it will be expanding its studio operations to Canada’s west coast through the acquisition of video game developer Action Pants Inc. This marks Ubisoft’s first in-house development studio on the North American West Coast.

Established in 2006 by industry veterans Simon Andrews, Nik Palmer and Omar Al-Khafaji, Action Pants Inc. currently employs more than 110 video game developers. Based in the trendy Yaletown area, the studio was ranked as one of the province’s Top 50 employers in 2008 and 2009, and among BC Business magazine’s “Best Companies to work for in BC in 2007.” 2009 will see the release of the studio’s first title, a sports game developed exclusively for Wii™. This new intellectual property will expand upon Ubisoft’s recent success in the sports genre with the Shaun White Snowboarding franchise.

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Edmonton – Leading video game developer BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc., today announced that the release of Dragon Age™: Origins on PC has been rescheduled to the last half of 2009 from the previously announced early 2009 release date, coinciding with the release of the console versions of Dragon Age: Origins.

“Dragon Age: Origins is shaping up to be quite amazing in its level of quality and polish,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, General Manager and CEO, BioWare and General Manager and Vice President, EA. “I’m really proud of our team, who are working very hard to make Dragon Age: Origins the biggest and most exciting BioWare game yet, and we will work to ensure it not only meets, but exceeds the expectations of our loyal audience of fans.”

Dragon Age: Origins is the spiritual successor to BioWare’s critically acclaimed Baldur’s Gate™, featuring deep character customization and roleplaying, morally challenging decisions, tactical party-based combat, and a wealth of gritty, mature sub-plots that together make it one of the most highly-anticipated PC and console releases of 2009.

Vancouver – We dropped by SFU Harbour Centre on Saturday afternoon to check in on the local entries for IGDA’s Global Game Jam event.  There were 26 entrants for this inaugural competition, which was opened with a Keynote address given by Kyle Gabler (World of Goo). This was followed with the reading of the competition’s constraints and team formation.

The smallest team, Scorched Physics, was comprised of just 3 members, while One Tonne Punch weighed in with an 8 member team. Several participants came from UBC, SFU, VFS and the Masters of Digital Media programme at GNWC, while several were recent graduates now working in the
game development industry at studios such as Relic, Radical and Deep Fried Entertainment, with one competitor hailing from Seattle, who works at Satori Software. The only female competitor, freelance artist Rachel Curtis worked on The Treelings’ team.
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