Village Gamer

Burnaby – We attended the AI Grad Presentation last Friday night, and once again we were reminded first hand just how many talented young people are ready for careers in game design, animation, audio design, film and VFX. We spent so much time talking to students and viewing projects that we weren’t able to make it around to everyone – which brings to the forefront the one challenge many of the students said they had problems with during their tenure at AI  – time management. This seems to be a problem wherever we go – perhaps there needs to be a study done about the phenomena and why so many people have difficulty with the issue.

Pritika Prasad

We were pleased to meet the team behind TikiWiki, the 2009 PopVox Award winner for Best Student Project. The tribal sports game was developed on the Unreal Engine and uses team play to collect stone tablets and score points.

All of the students present were well spoken about their projects, and quick to acknowledge any assistance they received from others, as well as to recognize members of their teams on class projects. It was also promising to see so many talented female students in this graduating class, in particular Environment and Prop Modeler Pritika Prasad (right), whose work is very impressive and very professional.
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Mississauga – There’s a new texting champion in Canada and her name is Kathy Spence. Today LG Electronics Canada crowned the winner of its 2nd Annual LG Canadian Texting Championship at the competition’s finals, held earlier this afternoon at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square. Kathy, who is from Scarborough, received $25,000 in cash and prizes from LG’s Pat Button.

Kathy Spence

Today’s event marked the culmination of over three and a half months of preliminary trials across the country, as well as online competitions and Facebook challenges, which saw the participation of more than 20,000 Canadians. A final group of 12 texters participated in today’s finals, with
Kathy coming out on top.

The event, hosted by Nicole Arbour, and featuring a performance by chart-topping band, The New Cities, attracted over 1,500 spectators over the noon hour. Contestants competed on a variety of LG’s QWERTY phones including the LG Dare, LG Keybo, LG Reveal, LG Rumour and LG Voyager as well as new phones, the LG Rumour 2, LG Neon and LG Xenon.
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Burnaby – This past Saturday we took in the Vancouver leg of the annual Canary Foundation’s soapbox derby, the Canary Derby. We sponsored Brenda Bailey of Deep Fried Entertainment, who was representing Women In GamesVancouver as part of the Wired Woman team. While the Wired Woman team did finish in the top ten, they didn’t make the trophy round. That said, the whole team had a great time and raised a total of $2,355.00 for the Foundation. Many thanks to our “Silk Spectre” driver, Sanaz Jahanbakhsh. You can check out our photos of the race in our Gallery. In total, over $ 113 000.00 was raised at the Vancouver version of the Canary Derby. I have not yet found a total for the Victoria race which ran yesterday.

Burnaby’s Acting Mayor presented the speed award to Aquatic Informatics, whose cart managed to hit speeds of up to 46km per hour (in a 30km zone), with a final run time of 16.50 seconds from the upper starting line. Finishing in second place was the Rogers Wireless cart, followed by Webnames.ca and BCTIA. Other teams we saw still in the race included Wired Woman, SalesXperts Closers, ACL Systems Ltd., Clearly Contacts, FinCAD, and 6S Marketing. At least three other teams unfortunately succumbed to accidents in the earlier trial runs. Cisco Human Network received the Bent Wheel Award for their crash – hopefully their driver is recovering from his dislocated shoulder.

6S Marketing took home the Style Award with their very stylish and musical Mario Kart – driven in Saturday’s race by Princess Peach herself, while Mario helped out on the crew. The Princess’ royal kart managed to hit speeds of 32km per hour, despite those who tried to sabotage her run by throwing banana peels in her path.

Congratulations are also in order to the Webnames.ca team for winning the Top Fundraiser Award. Canary Foundation Chairman and Founder Don Listwin presented the trophy to Cybele Negris, COO and a co-founder of Webnames.ca for raising $11,476.10. Cybele was also the winner of the event’s Volunteer Award.

The Canary Derby is an outstanding and fun event, raising funds for research in early cancer detection, something which will undoubtedly save countless lives in the future. Congratulations to all of the organizers, volunteers, sponsors and participants for an exciting day at the races.

Village Gamer is already planning to participate next year with the Women In Games Vancouver – Wired Woman team, and we challenge all of our local associations, game, VFX-CGI and software developers to get involved – along with all of the post-secondary schools and peripheral corporations who support the digital and new media industry.

Chicago – SIGGRAPH 2009 announces the addition of a special Production Session as part of this year’s Computer Animation Festival that will detail the behind-the-scenes production of the much anticipated Fight Night Round 4 and Gears of War 2. Fight Night Round 4, as many of you already know, was developed in Burnaby at EA Canada.

The session, “Big, Fast, and Cool: Making the Art for Fight Night Round 4 & Gears of War 2” will explore the making of the art of these games, and how these processes have exploded the boundaries for what is possible with real-time rendering graphics. This Production Session will take place as part of the special focus on videogames and Real-Time Rendering during the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival program.

“So much of what makes today’s videogames so great are the responsive graphics and the stories that unfold during game play,” stated Evan Hirsch, SIGGRAPH 2009 Real-Time Rendering Chair. “This year’s sessions will offer a rare perspective into how animation and graphics can really enhance and impact game development and the user experience and investigate the future of gaming.”

SIGGRAPH 2009 expanded its programming focus this year to showcase more Games content than ever before. The Games programming will include a Keynote presentation by famed videogame designer, Will Wright, creator of Spore™ and The Sims series, innovative Game Papers, demos and galleries highlighting the best work in experimental game art direction during The Sandbox, and a dynamic new game development competition, GameJam!

Toronto – This year marks the 10th anniversary of DesignThinkers, Canada’s largest annual design and communications conference. Presented by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario (RGD), DesignThinkers 09 will be held November 3 – 5 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, where creative professionals will gather to celebrate strategic design thinking.

“More timely and relevant to a broader audience than ever before, design is now the great differentiator and key to engaging customers,” says Lionel Gadoury R.G.D., president of RGD. “Design thinking, brand experience and conversations on creative innovation are occurring at leading companies.”

The speaker lineup includes Ben Blumenfeld, communication design manager at Facebook; Conor Brady, senior vice-president and chief creative officer of digital marketing agency, Organic; John Bredenfoerder CMG, design director at Landor Associates; Robert Brunner, author of Do you Matter? How great design will make people love your company; Matthew Carter, principal of Carter & Cone Type Inc.; Marty Neumeier, best-selling author of The Brand Gap and Zag; V Sunil, creative director at Wieden + Kennedy Delhi and Gael Towey, chief creative officer and editor-in-chief at Martha Stewart Living.
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Victoria – The TCS Bootcamp, being held on Tuesday September 15, is a full day event being offered by the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service in partnership with VIATeC.  This event starts with a morning seminar that first teaches you what California investors are looking for, then helps you to polish your pitch.  The morning session is open to any individual who wants to learn how to access investors. The seminar will be held at the Vancouver Island Technology Park Conference Centre in Victoria, BC

In the afternoon you will pitch your company to a panel of California investors and local judges.  You will receive instant feedback from the panel on your product and presentation.  All ICT (Information and Communication Technology) emerging tech companies are eligible to apply for the limited number of presenter spots available. Applicants will be juried before the event.

After the presentations in the afternoon, the 6-8 Vancouver Island ICT companies who stand the best chance of success in California will be invited to the next round of presentations in Silicon Valley and San Diego.
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Quebec – The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), in cooperation with the Quebec-based new media association Alliance Numérique, are pleased to present an information session on the gaming industry in China. Attendees of the webinar will learn the business and revenue models in use in the operation of online video games in China; successful games in China; and criteria to meet in order to success in a video game commercialisation initiative in China.

Date: Tuesday, June 23rd
Time: 13:00 (Montreal Eastern Standard Time)
Duration: Approximately 1 hour

To participate in this live presentation, please contact Neil Swain at the Regional Office in Montreal (neil.swain-at-international-dot-gc-dot-ca) . Note that this webinar will be recorded for viewing after the live presentation.

Calgary – Digital Alberta is pleased to announce the first in a series of upcoming workshops. These one day intensive workshops are geared to providing DA members with a unique opportunity to train directly with experts in their fields.

The First Work Shop is entitled “Digital Painting” with instructor Jaysin from the brilliant DPI Studios. He will run you through the process he uses as you follow along, creating the digital painting yourself. As an artist looking to branching into illustration, design, animation, or gaming this course offers you an opportunity to expand your portfolio and to showcase the pieces that potential employers want to see.

When: Saturday, July 18, 2009
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Where: Calgary Technologies Inc. – 100 3553 31 Street NW – Calgary, AB
What you will need: Laptop, wacom tablet, PhotoShop
Cost: $ 150+ GST for Digital Alberta Members only OR Affiliated Partners (this includes snacks, full lunch and free parking)

Online registration is now open.

Vancouver and Montreal – Since the conclusion of this year’s E3 conference, I’ve had the opportunity to discuss Canada’s presence with a few people from around the country who were there. The general consensus is that the conference is very much worth attending, whether you have a title or product being launched or not. The experience is very educational and offers many chances to meet new people and to try products you may not otherwise have a chance to.

Wendy Boylan from Ubisoft Vancouver was very pleased with the launch of their first title, Academy of Champions at E3. She said that press reception was fantastic and that their pod in the Ubisoft sector was very busy throughout the show.  Pele’s endorsement of the title and interaction with those at the conference adds to the anticipation for the game’s release, and those who tried the title were impressed with the amount of detail and attention which has been paid to this game’s development.

Chammi Kim, a member of the Big Park crew who unveiled their new title, Joy Ride, as part of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 presentation was attending E3 for the first time, and she likened the experience to what it must be like arriving at Mecca after a long pilgrimage. She said that when she wasn’t working at the Microsoft booth helping with Joy Ride demonstrations, she tried to see as many Vancouver-developed games as possible, and it was very exciting to see such a strong presence at the show. Chammi also said that the Vancouver titles showed a wide range of diversity in talent, with a healthy mix of both hardcore and casual games on display. She also said that one of the best aspects of the show was getting to  see first hand how people reacted to the gameplay in Joy Ride and that getting instant feedback was gratifying.
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Toronto – Interactive Ontario today announced that GameON: Finance 2009 will take place October 27 & 28 in Toronto. This two-day investment summit is designed to bring investors and video game developers together to explore financing possibilities for the Ontario games industry. This year, Jason Della Rocca, Senior Consultant for Perimeter Partners and former Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association, will head up the GameON: Finance advisory board.

Event attendees will receive access to special features including case studies, business discussions, examples of successful corporate models, project financing ideas and one-on-one meetings between developers and financiers. More information can be found at www.gameonfinance.com as it becomes available.
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