Village Gamer

Vancouver – It’s been a somewhat busy week as I’ve tried to keep up with all of the news from our Canadian developers and industry representatives down at E3 – and I have decided that next year I am going to the expo. Once everyone has returned from their E3 adventures, I hope to be able to sit down with them and get their views in a look back at this year’s event.

Tuesday evening we attended Launch Party 7, where we met up with a few friends and met a few new ones. It’s always interesting to find out what projects are being worked on in the city, as we have such a vibrant development community. I found out about this event when we attended the recent Digital Kung Fu event presented by MDM during Vancouver Digital Week, and I believe Launch Vancouver is an event which we will be attending more often. Some of the interesting people we met include the Twitter Boot Camp instructor Gregg Scott, who will be leading a soldout boot camp session tomorrow.

We also listened to a very interesting presentation by Nick Bouton about his site, Protaganize. This site is an interactive community for writers and aspiring writers, supporting “addventures” which is an “add-your-bit” style of story writing that the whole community can participate in. The site also supports linear story writing and allows authors to both give and get feedback on their writing efforts.

Tynt Tracer was the winner of the “Startup Most Likely To Succeed” presentations for this event, winning over both the judges and the attendees. Tynt Tracer is a Calgary-based referral tracker, which lets you know when and where your site’s content is being copied. Tynt has received funding from iNovia and AVAC to develop its product.

Wednesday evening we attend the GD12 students’ project presentations at VFS, and even though I’ve already written about the evening, I will say again that once again the students at VFS have much to be proud of as they leave the school and venture out into the working world.

Yesterday I had the chance to have a long and very interesting conversation with Dean Prelazzi, the new Director of ICT, Wireless and New Media at BCIC. He has been in the position for one week now, and has been trying to get to know members of our development and production community. Dean will be attending next week’s Canada 3.0 conference in Stratford, and I had wanted to glean his thoughts on planned events for the conference and how he sees the future unfolding for our province. The conference’s main purpose is to develop a national strategy for Canada’s future in the digital media industry and Dean is hoping to make it very evident that BC is active, engaged and interested in being a major part of that strategy.  Dean brings a new enthusiasm and perspective to the Vancouver new media scene, and I am looking forward to collaborating with him as Vancouver moves forward in the development of both local and national strategies of innovation and development in the technology fields.

In other news, Kenton Lowe has resigned as the President of New Media BC. The association will be issuing a statement to its members in regards to this news and to convey information about transitioning and the future of New Media BC. We at Village Gamer wish Kenton all the best in his future endeavours.

Several reports and decisions were released this week, including a decision by the CRTC to leave the internet as it is in Canada – at least for now. According to the CRTC report,

“While broadcasting in new media is growing in importance, we do not believe that regulatory intervention is necessary at this time,” said Konrad von Finckenstein, Q.C., Chairman of the CRTC. “We found that the Internet and mobile services are acting in a complementary fashion to the traditional broadcasting system. Any intervention on our part would only get in the way of innovation.”

Secondly, the Commission was not presented with convincing evidence that would suggest additional support, as proposed, was needed for the creation and presentation of Canadian broadcasting content in new media.

Thirdly, given the dynamic nature of the new media environment, the Commission expects to review its approach within the next five years. In the meantime, the Commission will introduce a reporting requirement for new media broadcasting services to ensure that it has the best information available for future reviews.

Fourthly, the Commission will initiate a reference to the Federal Court of Appeal to clarify the status of Internet service providers (ISPs). The Court will be asked to determine whether the Broadcasting Act should apply to ISPs when they provide access to broadcasting content.

Finally, the scope of the Commission’s examination of the new media phenomenon was limited given its mandate under the Broadcasting Act. The digital era presents many opportunities and challenges, which can only be addressed through a holistic approach. Many countries have already developed their own plans to respond to this environment. The Commission therefore fully endorses the National Film Board’s call for a national digital strategy.

“Canada needs a comprehensive national strategy to secure its digital future,” said Mr. von Finckenstein. “Such a strategy is essential if we want to maintain a competitive advantage in this global environment.”

As the National Film Board stated, the digital era will have enormous consequences for Canada’s political, social, economic and cultural future. The Commission believes that a focused and concerted approach is warranted, and stands ready to make its contribution to the development of a national digital strategy.

I’ve also received a few finalized study reports on the Canadian new media industry, and once I’ve had a chance to read through them, I will be posting my thoughts on these other studies. I also have a new book review and a few game reviews coming – there are some excellent new Vancouver titles which I’ve been playing, and soon I will share my thoughts about them with the rest of you.