Village Gamer

via University of Alberta ExpressNews: A joint research project between the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Education and the Department of Computing Science has found that, for high-school girls, the fun is in making video games, not just playing them.

Computing science professor Duane Szafron and fellow U of A researchers Mike Carbonaro, Jonathan Schaeffer and Maria Cutumisu say that women in computing science are rare, but their study shows that if you want to get more females interested in computing science, you have to rewrite the program, so to speak.

“There’s been a huge push throughout North America to try and get girls to go into computing science, but [educators are] having a lot of challenges convincing them,” said the Faculty of Education’s Carbonaro. “The findings are important, as they demonstrate a way to motivate girls’ interest in computing science”

In their study, the researchers wanted to see whether girls would gain as much interest in game development as they boys in the class control group. To facilitate the experiment, they introduced a group of local Grade 10 students to a program called ScriptEase, a tool that allowed them to develop and design their own games. A key factor in the study was having male participants who had more experience than the females in gaming.

Duane Szafron and Maria Cutumisu Photo: U of Alberta

Szafron says that there is an inherent creative component to computing science, and that having a student design and construct something using the tool is one way to allow them to investigate that aspect of computing science. “We thought we should have female students create games and see if they are just as excited about making games as male students and see whether it’s an attractor to computing science that is independent of gender,” he said.

Their findings indicated that female students enjoyed creating games as much as their male counterparts; further, they preferred game construction to activities such as story writing. Further, he noted the female students gained and used practical skills that are crucial to understanding computing science.

“The female students built games that were every bit as good as the male students made, even though the male students had more experience with playing games,” said Szafron. “In terms of the quality of the games developed and the abstraction skills that the students learned, which could translate to knowledge of competing science—and in terms of the amount of fun that they had—there was no difference between the two groups.”

According to Carbonaro, computing science teachers need to look at redesigning the types of projects and content they use in class to make them more “female-user friendly.”

“If you want more females in computing science, you need to radically change the curriculum. You need to provide activities that are more gender neutral so that they’ll be attracted to the discipline.”

The research study was recently published in Computers and Education.

Montreal-based Di-O-Matic has revealed details about Voice-O-Matic v1.61 for Maya. Created to meet the needs of 3D character animators all over the world who require an easy-to-use, lip synchronization plug-in for their Autodesk Maya software, Voice-O-Matic is used by top 3D animation studios to achieve highly accurate voice-to-character matching. Voice-O-Matic v1.61 for Maya is available now for US $349.

Di-O-Matic heard your call animators. Spending hours to create lip sync animations for CG characters is tiring, and manually generating every lip movement is a long and tedious task. That’s why Voice-O-Matic was designed! Combining a user friendly interface with a highly efficient and time saving system. Some of the most admired CG characters including Batman, Spider-man and Superman carry Voice-O-Matic at the heart of their facial animations.

Designed for animators by animators, Voice-O-Matic v1.61 for Maya only requires an audio file to automatically produce an accurate lip sync animation. Afterwards, the results can be easily tweaked to perfectly match any style of animation. Voice-O-Matic v1.61 for Maya works with any type of character setup and with every language. Voice-O-Matic has also already earned its stripes with its use in leading feature films, popular television shows, commercials and award winning video games.

Oscar Marquez, coordinator of the 3D department at Cromosoma reveals “Not only did we manage to increase our productivity with Voice-O-Matic v1.61 for Maya, but it allowed us to focus on other aspects of our animated series. What we liked most about Voice-O-Matic is that it can be set up easily, the lip sync of several characters can be done at the same time and we barely need to modify the animation curves. If you make a good setup and integrate it properly you can have very good results. Thanks to Voice-O-Matic, we could do all the lip sync we needed in the series with just 10 mouth shapes and only one control for the most extreme poses.”

No matter which type of character setup you wish to use: from blend shapes to complex bone-based rigs, and no matter the language for which you wish to create lip synchronization, Voice-O-Matic v1.61 for Maya delivers, and can save up to 80% of the time it takes to manually animate lip synchronization. 3D animation artists can benefit by using both the automatic phoneme matching features and the manual tools to fine-tune the animated character to achieve highly customized results.

Interactive entertainment company Ludia today announced its ‘The Bachelor: The Videogame’ App is available on the App Store for iPhone, iPod touch for $2.99 USD and iPad for $4.99 USD. Based on the hit franchise created by Mike Fleiss, hosted by Chris Harrison and airing Mondays 8:00–10:00 ET/PT on ABC, the app features characters inspired by the actual Bachelors and Bachelorettes from the top rated series’ “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” including current Bachelor Brad Womack and the most recent Bachelorette, Ali Fedotowsky.

Fans of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” can now live their own show experience anywhere, anytime, as they compete in a collection of exciting mini-games and challenges to win the attention and, ultimately, the heart of the Bachelor or Bachelorette. Players vie for the final rose, playing as either a female or male contestant.

“The Bachelor is one of the most successful dating competitions in the reality genre, and we are pleased to bring the romance and heated competition that are the hallmarks of the TV show to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users,” said Alex Thabet, Founder and CEO of Ludia Inc. “This release reinforces Ludia’s strategy of delivering highly entertaining games, based on the most popular television brands.”

Features of The Bachelor: The Videogame App include:

* Play to earn the love of the Bachelor or the Bachelorette, guided by Chris Harrison.
* Characters based on favorite Bachelors and Bachelorettes, including Brad Womack, Jake Pavelka, Jason Mesnick and more!
* 23 mini-game challenges to play in one-on-one or group date scenarios.
* 3 levels of difficulty to chose from.
* Humorous “Fantasy Suite” videos where your performance in the game determines the outcome; will you share an embrace in the hot tub or be hung out to dry?

For those looking for employment, Ludia currently has several positions that need to be filled.

The S-3D Gaming Alliance has just released the 2011 edition of the U-Decide Initiative. U-Decide is credited as the only S-3D gaming report shaped by consumer opinion, industry analysis, and hands-on experience. The initiative gives readers a candid outlook of what needs to happen to make stereoscopic 3D gaming successful in the long term.

“DDD is a leading provider of 3D game conversion software for the PC market, and our success is dependent on delivering what gamers want. The U-Decide report provides this helpful insight and more, and we recommend it to anyone that also markets to the growing S-3D gaming community,” said Chris Yewdall, CEO of Dynamic Digital Depth. Read the rest of this entry »

Reminder: Confoo 2011 is March 9th – 11th in Montreal.

Digital Extremes, developers of the PC version for the upcoming HomeFront game is participating in a session on Video Games and the Next Generation of Literacy in partnership with the Child & Youth Network, London Public Library and the United Way of London and Middlesex. The session will take place at the Museum London, 421 Ridout Street North in London, Ontario on Thursday, February 10th from 4:30pm until 8:00pm.

There will be a Keynote presentation by Dr. James Paul Gee, Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University and author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. The event will also feature a panel discussion, networking and refreshments. Donations to support literacy initiatives are welcome.

Digital Extremes has also launched a new iOS title. Available now for 99 cents US, Retro Pinball includes three handpicked tables (Crash and Burn, Super Android, Pangea) from original creator James Schmalz, all with updated graphics and sound to enhance your gaming experience on your favorite Apple iOS device.

Eidos Montreal has released a new trailer for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Take an up-close and personal look at player character and game hero Adam Jensen.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o39lpePeOp8]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is rated M for Mature by the ESRB and according to GameStop Canada, will be in-store on April 1st.

Puzzle Pond from Little Guy Games is a featured FreeAppADay game today, so hurry over to the iTunes App Store and grab this cute match-up game. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, you play Puzzle Pond by matching two creatures with a swipe of your finger to make them kiss and explode with joy. There are three game modes, Speed, Puzzle and Zen, with the ability to conduct combos and streaks for huge points and power-ups. There are currently sixty brain teasing puzzles in this Game Centre and OpenFeint-enabled game has twenty different achievements and a leaderboard.

Mike Farah, President of Production at comedy website Funny Or Die, and key members of his creative team will deliver a Feature Panel on the future of online comedy at BANFF 2011. Farah and his team will offer an in-depth look at the production strategy behind the phenomenal success of the site, which averages 8 million unique users and over 30 million video views per month.

“In only three years, Funny Or Die has become the destination for comedy fans online, with some of the best content out there,” said Ferne Cohen, Executive Director of the Festival. “We are all looking forward to what I’m sure will be a compelling and entertaining panel.”

As President of Production, Mike Farah oversees the creative day-to-day operations of the premier comedy site, along with Funny or Die’s television and feature projects. With Funny Or Die for over two years, Farah has produced the award-winning video “Prop 8: The Musical,” the Ron Howard-directed “Presidential Reunion,” and Marion Cotillard’s “Forehead Tittaes,” among many others. Under Farah’s leadership, Funny Or Die’s creative team produces over 25 original videos each month. In November 2010, The Hollywood Reporter named Farah one of the top 35 Hollywood executives under 35.

Montreal’s gogo6 inc., a leading provider of IPv6 products, community and services has released gogoCPE version 1.0 – a small v6 adaptor for the home that can be installed and providing IPv6 within a minute. Designed to work with, rather than replace home networking equipment, the gogoCPE can be used to deploy IPv6 using IPv4 or to deploy IPv4 using IPv6 – both resulting in a dual-stack home network. Early customers of the gogoCPE include SingTel, Comcast and Globe Telecom.

The gogoCPE is plug ‘n’ play simple and designed to be installed by the end user without any support. The gogoCPE uses the same code as the gogoCLIENT which has reliably provided IPv6 to over 150,000 users of the Freenet6 service.

The gogoCPE supports the most popular transition technologies including TSP, DS-Lite, 6RD, DSTM and L2TP. It is compatible with the gogoSERVER and other manufacturer systems. Its wide technology support allows it to work in any IPv4/v6 network scenario, including:

* Providing IPv6 to existing and new customers with IPv4 home routers in an IPv4 network.
* Providing IPv4 to new customers with IPv4 home routers in an IPv6 network.
* Providing IPv6 to new customers without IPv4 home routers in an IPv4 network.

“Hands down the most difficult part of introducing IPv6 into a broadband network is the home. This is where a majority of the IPv6 costs lie and where service providers have the least control. In a vast majority of the cases the home networking equipment is either not upgradable or owned by the end user making IPv6 synonymous with installing new equipment,” said Bruce Sinclair, gogo6 CEO. “The recent depletion of IPv4 addresses from the IANA pool increases the pressure on service providers to find a simple yet effective solution to offer v6 and v4 by way of v6. Service providers can quickly introduce IPv6 into their networks with a single 1U gogoSERVER and one gogoCPE per home.”

The gogoCPE is available today after being tested by service providers around the world. In addition to being sold in volume individual gogoCPEs are available on the gogo6 website. These units are preconfigured to work with Freenet6 making them plug ‘n’ play ready out of the box. Individual units cost $99 plus shipping and handling. Volume pricing is lower.

If I owned a Mac, I would be downloading the trial version of Office for Mac from Microsoft Canada right now, because they are holding a contest in partnership with LiveNation. Entrants could win a chance to see any band in the Canadian city—and seats—of his or her choice. Please see the contest rules for complete prize and entry details.

Roaring Penguin Software has updated its CanIt Reputation List, which collects IP reputation data on e-mail servers from a worldwide network of sensors. Roaring Penguin currently aggregates this data into four DNS-based block lists:

Spam Source: A list of IP addresses that have sent mostly spam and very little non-spam.
Dictionary Attackers: A list of IP addresses that have sent to many nonexistent recipients and very few valid recipients.
Greylist Stumblers: A list of IP addresses that have been thwarted by greylisting. Such machines are typically compromised personal computers.
Good: A list of IP addresses that have passed greylisting, have sent to very few nonexistent recipients, and have sent mostly non-spam. These machines are very likely legitimate mail servers.

To these block lists Roaring Penguin has added a new list called “Mixed” for hosts that send a mixture of spam and non-spam. Roaring Penguin found that the old “SpamSource” list would often list outbound mail servers for large e-mail providers. These servers tend to send a lot of spam, but they also send a lot of non-spam e-mail. The change to Roaring Penguin’s Reputation Lists means that about 5600 machines formerly listed on the “SpamSource” list are now listed on “Mixed”. This still leaves almost 1.9 million machines listed on the “SpamSource” e-mail reputation list.

CanIt 8.0 is available as:

* CanIt-PRO, an anti-spam / anti-virus appliance or a soft appliance.
* CanIt-Domain-PRO, spam filtering software that allows service providers such as MSPs to host anti-spam for their customers.
* Hosted CanIt, a fully outsourced anti-spam solution.

The Founder of the Online Party of Canada, Michael Nicula, will be holding a press conference on Saturday February 5, 2011 in the Art Room of the Gladstone Hotel to discuss CRTC policies in the context of decision 2011-44 to impose User Based Billing (UBB) on the whole Canadian market. Nicula will be joined by Iain Calder of TorFree.Net as well as affected consumers and small ISP providers.

In a move aimed to calm angry consumers, already dissatisfied with the internet service market in Canada, the CRTC president as well as many senior MPs vowed to review or strike down decision 2011-44. Internet service quality in Canada is not a new issue; it just happened that the latest CRTC decision has touched a nerve, as consumers are now enjoying data-rich social networking, livestream and television programs more than ever before.

Online Party of Canada wants to take the opportunity to broaden this discussion. Why has Canada slipped in the world ranking of country infrastructures in terms of speed and service quality? Countries like Romania and Bulgaria clock more than twice the average speed, and the leaders Korea and Japan boast speeds as much as three times faster. Is government intervention into the CRTC the right thing to do?

Online Party of Canada (OPC) is an Internet-based Political Party, pending registration. OPC is a non-traditional political party; it focuses on issues instead of platforms or individuals. OPC operates exclusively online and promotes an innovative voting system inspired from today’s popular technologies such as like/dislike, share, tweet, comment.

Kobo Wireless eReader is now available at Best Buy Canada, both in-store and online. You can pick up the Onyx, Pearlized Lilac or Metallic Silver eReaders for $149.00 each from Best Buy, Chapters-Indigo or Walmart stores across Canada.

The 2011 Canada 3.0 conference has opened registration for this year’s event, which will take place in Stratford on May 2nd through 5th. The Early Bird rate of $495.00 + taxes and service charge will be available until midnight on March 3th, when ticket prices will go up to $695.00 + taxes and processing charge. There is a StartUp/Small Business/Non-Profit price available for $225.00 + taxes and service charge as well as ticketing options for students. If you register before February 18th you will automatically be entered for a draw to win a copy of MacroWikinomics, personally addressed and signed by author Anthony D. Williams. Please see the Canada 3.0 web site for this year’s confirmed speakers.

Monde Media and Bug Tracker have made two personnel announcements this morning – Jean-Robert Michel, Monde Media’s former General Manager has moved into the dual role of Production Director for both Bug-Tracker and Monde Media, while Monde Media’s former COO has become the new Client Relationship Director for both entities.

In other comings and goings, the BC Technology Industry Association announced today that its President, Pascal Spothelfer will leave the organization June 30^th to return to the corporate sector. Spothelfer was appointed President & CEO of the BC Technology Industry Association in November of 2007, and since that time has successfully raised the level of recognition of the organization and BC’s technology industry through his leadership, commitment to collaboration, and tireless advocacy efforts.

“My past three years at the BCTIA have allowed me to get to know our technology community on a very different level. It has been most rewarding both personally and professionally,” said Spothelfer. “I have met and worked with incredibly smart, engaged and inspiring people – experiences that will fuel my passion to assist in the further growth of BC’s technology industry not just until my departure from the BCTIA, but in whatever role I pursue in the future. “

Paul Gorton, Chair of the BCTIA commented, “We will greatly miss having Pascal’s passion and vision. On behalf of the Board, I thank Pascal for his commitment to the BCTIA, and we wish him the utmost success in the future.”

Pascal will continue to lead the BCTIA and work with the board on the leadership transition until his departure at the end of June. A formal search has been initiated by the BCTIA and will be facilitated by Odgers Berndtson. Please contact Caroline Jellinck at 604 602 2556 for more information.

Canadian developers seem to have a thing for hippos – here is some info from three Canadian enterprises which contain “hippo” in their names.

Rock Hippo Productions Ltd has launched the second closed beta for its cartoon-style third person action shooter, MicroVolts. This second phase of testing will continue for approximately two weeks in preparation for the official release day. In addition, the company has released all-new screen shots of the game and is holding a special “Free-for-All” tournament which will kick off Saturday, February 5th. Winning players will be awarded their choice of any weapon they want to use with the launch of the Open Beta. Players who visit the game’s website will be able to learn more about the game and the events as well as register for a beta key.

MicroVolts features fast paced, third person shooter action and pits players against each other in a secret battle that has been waged and going unnoticed right in our own backyard for years. No one knows for sure when or where the first toy declared war but rumor has it that the uprising began with four original limited edition figures, code named MicroVolts. Battle lines were drawn when Naomi, Knox, Pandora, and C.H.I.P.-the prototypes a-were soon joined by an endless number of modified versions. Now, toy figures around the world are engaged in an all-out war for valuable battery resources and supremacy of the Micro World. All we can do now is stay out of their way and wait for a champion to be declared!

With a ton of weapons, inventive character designs, and a huge list of customization features, MicroVolts is destined to invigorate and re-energize the Free2play space. Intuitive controls and a third person view make the game easy to play and fun for both newcomers and veterans of shooter games. Game modes include Free for All, Team Deathmatch, Item Match, Capture the Battery, and many more featuring various maps designed by toy concept.

Tiny Hippos, a start-up based in Waterloo, has a product which will be of interest to all of you mobile developers out there. According to its site, this product, which is named Ripple Emulator, is a multi-platform mobile environment emulator that runs in a web browser and is custom-tailored to HTML5 mobile application testing. Ripple aims to reduce the challenges being faced by mobile developers caused by today’s platform fragmentation in the marketplace.

Ripple is built as a Chrome extension, running as part of the Chrome browser and takes advantage of our back-end services to perform some of the more complex operations. It offers the ability to look under the hood of your mobile applications, gaining full visibility into what your it is doing. It also allows for the use of existing tools to perform JavaScript debugging, HTML DOM inspection, automated testing, as well as multiple device and screen resolution emulation in real-time without having to redeploy the mobile application or restart the emulator.

Meanwhile, just down the highway a bit from Tiny Hippos is Mercury Grove, an Ottawa-based developer who has an enterprise called Network Hippo, which according to Mercury Grove’s site connects to users’ email, address books, and social networks to consolidate all of their professional contacts, remind them to stay in touch with important people, and makes it easy to connect online or through email. Mercury Grove also offers a service called Web Collaboration, which is an online workspaces for internal teams, partners, and clients. Unlike other team sharing services, Web Collaboration can be setup in minutes and requires no download, installation or administration.

Another collaboration-style service I stumbled across is Vancouver-developed Jostle. I found this site because the person behind Jostle’s Twitter account retweeted one of my Game Design Expo live tweets. According to the Jostle web site, a People Engagement Platform™ that glues enterprises together. This platform enables innovative companies to clarify their organization, reveal hidden expertise and engage their employees. Jostle is enterprise software that is accessible from any web-enabled device and works like a website, without the need to install software.

Toronto’s Blue74 Labs has released a statement announcing that IIA, the studio’s critically acclaimed real-life massively multiplayer “outdoor” role-playing game sold tens of thousands of memberships in the first 48 hours of its release, making it the fastest-selling ARG game of all time. The IIA Spy Game is being compared to blockbuster hits “The Game”, “Spy Game”, and “Halting State”, a book by Charles Stross.

The IIA (International Intelligence Agency) is a real life multi-player game that gives players a real life, real feel, “off computer” role-playing game. Players don’t know about the actual game play until they are engaged in the game, which was made globally available on January 24th via a small posting on the popular “Ycombinator: Hacker News”, a web site for Internet start-ups. Expectations were less than 100 memberships to be sold the first day, Mike Curry noticed a very heavy load on his web server – realizing the game had gone viral. Registration for the game is $5.00, which interested players send via PayPal.

The company does have an official site for the game, however they are not releasing the information until its members exercise a critical classified mission. It’s believed that the mission entails a Remote Controlled UAV helicopter taking aerial photographs of the building that houses their website. It’s believed they are doing this to ensure the security of the building.

In an article released yesterday on Gamasutra, Nexon America VP of Business Development Won Il Sue spoke with reporter Chris Nutt about the million dollar Nexon iNitiative, during which the publisher asked for game dev submissions from studios around the world. Coming out at the top of heap with signed deals: One2Tribe from Poland, and Ontario studio Antic Entertainment. Nexon did not reveal exactly what type of game the London, ON Antic team is working on, other than to say one of the studios is working on a Facebook game and that both games, while somewhat of an unusual nature for Nexon, will be of the social media genre. In the meantime, check out Antic’s free to play Junk Battles, a browser-based free-to-play fast-paced vehicle combat game.

All’s fair in love and war in cartoon-land as TeleToon Retro couples pursue the love of fans and a spot in TeleToon Retro’s Hall of Fame as the Top 5 Sweethearts in honour of Valentine’s Day. Starting today and running until Sunday, February 6, viewers can vote online for their top 5 favourite cartoon love matches, for a place in TeleToon Retro history.

TeleToon Retro has narrowed the field to 18 classic animated admirers and is inviting fans to select which couples are the Top 5 Sweethearts of all-time. The list of nominees for the Top 5 Sweethearts is made up of the following cartoon couples:

Following the voting period, the Top 5 Sweethearts will be announced on Friday, February 11 and a special programming marathon featuring all five couples will air as part of the “Retro Rewind” programming block on Sunday, February 13 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET. These winners will be inducted into the TeleToon Retro Hall of Fame, joining the Top 5 favourite cartoon characters of all-time as chosen by the fans in December 2010.

There is a ton of news coming out of the Canadian Creatisphere today. Grab a coffee and let’s take a look at what’s going on so far. Congratulations to the team over at Capcom Studios Vancouver whose Dead Rising 2: Case Zero game was the top selling title last year on XBLA with 689 000 units downloaded to Xboxes around the world. Congratulations also to the Assassin’s Creed team over at Ubisoft Montreal for being named as the Guinness world record holder with Assassin’s Creed II being featured on 127 international publications between April 2009 and April 2010.

A free version of The Balls! Extreme Sports Ball Busting has been released by Savant Inc. The Balls game is compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad; the paid version is listed at 99 cents USD. The free version offers OpenFeint and the same great graphics, audio, and frantic gameplay as the paid version, with a teaser for another mode coming in the future.

Riese: The Battle for Eleysia by Genius Factor Games has had an update to its features, along with a bug fix. Add features include the addition of Head-to-Head Multiplayer (via local wifi), stability improvements and aforementioned bug fixes, along with updates to the battle screens, How To Play help and screen-flow for editing decks. Riese: The Battle for Eleysia sells in the iTunes App Store for $2.99 USD.

Drift Mania Championship is now available worldwide on the Mac AppStore for $2.99. This new high-resolution version includes all the in-app purchase items that are available as options in the iOS version. As with all previous platform versions, the Mac AppStore version is loaded with new features like real drifting, as well as the ability to compete with users who are on other iOS or Android devices. Experience longer burnouts, taking 11 different vehicles through 3 levels of difficulty on 8 tracks as you compete to take over the global leaderboards.

ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver has just announced its latest event, which will be held on February 8th in the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema at the SFU Woodward’s campus on West Hastings. Tron – Cult Favourite to Franchise will feature two presentations that will take a look at this convergence of  Vancouver film and game development teams. The first presentation will cover the visual effects used in the making of TRON and TRON: Legacy. This session will be presented by TRON animator and programmer Frank Vitz and Darren Poe, Digital Supervisor at Digital Domain Vancouver.  In the second presentation, former Propaganda Games Technical Art Director Gary Snyder and Art Director David Patch will share their experiences working with the TRON: Legacy film team to recreate the TRON assets and storyline in the video game TRON: Evolution. Tickets for this event are $25.00 for non-SIGGRAPH members or $15.00 for members and include a pre-event social mixer.

Hothead Games has released part two of the Ask Dr. Mike video series with Dr. Mike Hayward. Watch this intense and dramatic documentary which studies the habits of Swarmites as they weave their way through diabolical and unrelenting gauntlets of death and destruction, attempting to be the last pudgy blue moron still standing. It is highly recommended that those who are planning to take over their own Swarm colonies study the video series closely, so that you will be prepared for any situation into which your Swarmites will undoubtedly  place themselves. If you have the opportunity to practice herding cats, I suggest you take advantage of the experience.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ySRKr8omkY]

As part of the PlayStation®Network “11 for 11” sale, players can grab Big Sandwich’s thrilling dragon-themed game HOARD™ for half-price until January 31st. With game play for 1 to 4 players, HOARD™ combines action and strategy elements to create an innovative gameplay mix unlike anything else on the store. The game features over 35 levels, 4 game modes, 100+ badges to earn, trophy support, leaderboards, and any combination of couch and online players. Best of all, HOARD™ puts the dragon in the hero’s role, where he must strive against cruel knights, fierce wizards, conniving burglars, and even rampaging giants.

Critics and consumers alike have appreciated HOARD’s unique design. IGN recently honored HOARD™ with the “Best Quick Fix” Best of 2010 award, and the game was also nominated in the “Best Competitive Multiplayer” category. Joystiq says “HOARD’s gameplay shines,” and 1UP reports “the game hides a surprising layer of complexity and strategy.”

“If you’ve been keeping an eye on HOARD™ but have been waiting for the right time to try it, now’s officially that time,” says Glenn Barnes, Big Sandwich’s Creative Director. “For less than 8 bucks you get a proven, acclaimed game with over 20 hours of gameplay. It’s a no-brainer.”

Don’t forget to get your nominations in for The Technology Impact Awards. The BCTIA will be accepting submissions for BC’s top technology innovations, companies and individuals from all sectors until March 11th. The TIAs will be held on the evening of June 9th at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The Award categories are as follows:

Technology Awards: Most Promising Pre-Commercial Technology, Excellence in Product Innovation and Best Application of Technology

Company Awards: Most Promising Start-up, Emerging Company of the Year and Company of the Year

Personal Recognition Awards: Team of the Year, Community Engagement and Person of the Year

The Canadian Marketing Association invites you to attend the 2nd Annual CMA Awards Case Study event, where attendees will join Master of Ceremonies Aldo Cundari in a close-up look at some of today’s top creative works and better understand how they came to be CMA Award winners. The Case Study event will be held in the Victoria Room at  Toronto’s Metropolitan Hotel on February 2nd from 3:30 – 5:30pm, with a networking social immediately following the session. All-inclusive tickets are $75.00 each for CMA members or $95.00 earch for non-members. Tickets for the cocktail party only are $25.00 each for CMA members or $30.00 each for non-members.

Merging+Media has announced that there will be a Spring session featuring Anita Ondine-Smith, who will present an exclusive Transmedia Seminar + Lab on April 28th and 29th at the VanCity Theatre in Vancouver. The focus of this session will be a 1/2 day Seminar with a 1 ½ day hands-on in-depth lab on the full cycle of Transmedia development, writing, production and distribution from Conception to Consumption. Event participants will obtain a framework for production as well as Creative Toolkit and Business Strategies for Transmedia production. This Transmedia theory, Case studies and architectural workshop is designed to provide tools to create successful transmedia productions. The seminar portion of the event will be open to 100-150 people, while 20-24 producers, writers, broadcasters, commissioning editors will be selected to take part in the workshop.

Merging+Media has also confirmed that the next full conference and master class will be returning in October. Like the first conference held last fall, this event will feature world class speakers and experts who will present “Best in Class” case studies and high calibre discussions on the business of cross-media production. The two day programme will include a Masterclass + Conference, International B2B Matchmaking, Networking receptions, M+M Socializer + Digital Gallery to showcase our latest local technology. The Merging+Media 2011 Masterclass will include the Merging+Media Pitch and Development Prize. Keep an eye on the Merging+Media site for confirmed dates and speakers.

The Canadian Telecom Summit has early bird pricing available until February 28th, which means you can save $200.00 off the regular registration price. The 10th annual Canadian Telecom Summit will be taking place in Toronto on May 31st through June 2nd and offers three days of discussion regarding the key issues and trends surrounding the Canadian Telecom industry.

Group buying site SwarmJam, which launched across all Postmedia Network properties in December has expanded to the Winnipeg area through a partnership with the Winnipeg Free Press. The promotion-based system uses a platform through which consumers are connected with local businesses. SwarmJam’s group buying service offers savings of 50% or better, which for some deals can actually grow progressively better as more people sign onl For “progressive deals”, when the offer closes, the number of cumulative purchases determines the actual discount. So, these deals become better as subscribers share the promotion with friends, family and people in their social network. Users of the service simply sign up for a free subscription to get the SwarmJam Winnipeg Daily Deal emailed directly to their inbox. They can then click on deals they like, pay online, print the certificate and visit the business to redeem it. There are currently thirteen major urban and suburban areas which offer SwarmJam deals.

Wicked Interactive, publisher of Mission Against Terror, has launched Occupation Mode with a twist. Alongside the hotly anticipated new game mode which brings hardcore, capture-the-flag-style gameplay comes the chance to win the most unique and priceless weapon so far seen in the popular, free-to-play shooter – the Golden AK-47.

“We have been saving this announcement for just the right moment,” said Sam Ho, Director, Wicked Interactive. “With the frenzy of excitement over Occupation Mode, it seemed like the perfect time to blow everyone’s minds with this news. The Golden AK-47 is the ultimate showpiece for the M.A.T. community.”

The Lottery System enables players to take a break from a raw competition of Occupation Mode. Just like any other lottery, players step up, lay down their ticket and spin an actual wheel that appears right in the middle of the screen. The Golden AK-47 is merely the ultimate prize; there are plenty more for those who are feeling lucky.

“There are a whole assortment of weapons that the Lottery System offers,” added Ho. “Many, like the Golden AK-47, are one-of-a-kind items that cannot be purchased. We hope the M.A.T. Community enjoys the new System. It’s our way of helping them forget the winter doldrums.

Interactive Ontario (IO) in partnership with The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Ryerson University, is pleased to announce the launch of EDGE: Education for Digital and Games Entrepreneurs. This part-time academic program will deliver targeted business-skills training to video game and digital media entrepreneurs. It will pilot in the spring with a full launch in the fall of 2011.

The goal of EDGE is to help grow the interactive digital media industry by providing in-depth business knowledge to video game entrepreneurs. EDGE will provide the training needed to make key business decisions and will teach entrepreneurs skills in training, leadership and administration.

“The EDGE program will be of huge value to digital entrepreneurs because the key to being a successful creator or innovator lies in your ability to navigate an ever-changing business environment,” says Ian Kelso, President and CEO, Interactive Ontario. “Ryerson is uniquely positioned to combine world class business training, a solid digital media focus, and an embedded entrepreneurial spirit which will ensure this program will add tremendous advantage to anyone trying to grow an interactive digital media business.”

Worldwide, the gaming industry is expected to grow 9.1 percent annually. Canada will benefit from this boom with profits estimated to be in excess of $346 million in 2012. The funding for the EDGE project was underwritten by Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

“Ontario is rapidly becoming viewed as a leader in digital media and gaming,” says Dr Gervan Fearon, Dean of The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University. “Recognizing this growing market, The Chang School is pleased to be a partner with Interactive Ontario to offer programming to help prepare the next generation of leaders in this innovative industry.”

EDGE will specialize in areas relevant to the business aspect of the digital media sector, including courses on Business Strategy and Tactics, HR/Labour Relations, Project Management, Finance and Marketing. The program will feature industry experts from Canada and around the world. It will also provide opportunities to network and forge select business relationships.

WaveFront, DFAIT and Nokia are taking the Introduction to Nokia Platforms and OVI Services breakfast seminar across the country, and would like to invite Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal developers to these free sessions. (Pour la version française, s’il vous plaît clic ici). As we told you earlier this week, the seminar will also be held in Vancouver on February 8th.

Montreal – February 1st in the Mt-Royal I Room at the Centre Mont-Royal, 2200 Mansfield Street
Ottawa – February 2nd at the Brookstreet Hotel, 525 Legget Drive
Toronto – February 4th at the MaRS Centre, 101 College St (Breakfast: Cafe | Seminar: CR-3)
Vancouver – February 8th at 1055 W Hastings St, Conference Room, Lower Level

This introduction to Nokia platforms and OVI Services is an opportunity to bring your Canadian apps to the world’s largest application distribution network – the Nokia OVI Store. Attend this seminar to receive an end-to-end overview of Nokia platforms and OVI services which reaches hundreds of millions of consumers in over 190 countries downloading over 3 million applications per day. Developers and publishers will learn about the latest Nokia OVI business opportunities and receive practical advice on how to develop and port your mobile application/content on Nokia platform and publish it to the OVI Store, an easy way to distribute and monetize your applications and content to Nokia users all over the world.

OVI store makes it easy to distribute and pay for your Canadian apps:

• Consumers can browse and purchase content from Ovi Store in more than 190 countries through credit card billing
• 91 operators in 27 countries support integrated mobile billing
• Publishers from more than 90 countries are distributing their content through Ovi Store

This is a must attend for Canadian mobile app developers and mobile content publishers to network with business and technical specialists from Nokia and local developer peers. All attendees will receive copy of “Foundations of Qt Development” and can enter draw for several Nokia N8 smartphones that are being given away.

Attendance at this seminar will also give you an opportunity to set up a one-on-one engagement meeting with Nokia during and after each seminar, so please also let us know if you would like to set-up a meeting when you register. Mr. Johan Nyman, DFAIT Trade Commissioner from Helsinki, Finland will also be available for one-on-one meetings (between 9:30-11:00am) to discuss Finnish market opportunities.

Toronto’s PadWorx Digital Media Inc. and The Juno Company, a leading children’s digital media publisher based in San Francisco, have begun working together on The Juno Company’s 2011 series of music education gaming apps and eBooks. This collaborative partnership will see The Juno Company and PadWorx Digital Media develop and publish eight music education apps, games and eBooks based on the Juno franchise of DVDs and books, all of which will be released in 2011. The first app in the series is scheduled to launch in March; more details will be released in the coming weeks. The Juno eBooks will be narrated by actress and dedicated mom Brooke Shields.

“PadWorx’s technical expertise and design aesthetic is rocket fuel for our creative content as we roll out our line of children’s apps,” said Barrett Cohn, CEO of The Juno Company. “We are raising the bar in 2011 in terms of fun, engagement and learning for children with our eBooks, apps and games; we’re looking to make a significant impact in the children’s new media world!”

The Juno Company was founded by mom and composer Belinda Takahashi, Ph.D., and is dedicated to inspiring a lifelong love and appreciation for music in children. The company is best known for its Emmy Award-winning Juno Baby line and its newly released Juno Jr. line of products, which include DVDs, CDs, books, digital apps, toys and apparel. The Juno Company team is a blend of senior technologists, top children’s creatives and leading children’s educators.

“The creativity and design aesthetic we used to develop our award-winning eBooks creates an immersive, user-driven experience, and that’s exactly what fans of the Juno franchise are going to see with this new series of apps,” said Jeffrey Alan Schechter, CEO of PadWorx Digital Media, Inc. “Through the combination of text, animation, gameplay elements, touch screen interaction, original music, and sound effects, children will gain the ability to interact with the Juno characters they love in an entirely new way.”

Regina’s NetSecure Technologies is growing, and to support that growth the company has announced a new website to better reflect the company’s strengths and expanding product line – developing breakthrough security solutions for online transaction security.

With hackers becoming more sophisticated, antivirus software is no longer enough to protect consumers. NetSecure’s product suite, powered by its patented Dynamic SSL technology, provides complete protection from endpoint security threats by ensuring that sensitive information is never present in the data stream until the point of encryption.

The company’s award-winning SmartSwipe, an online purchase security system, enables consumers to swipe their credit cards at home for secure transactions while shopping online. According to a recent survey of 1,000 consumers and small businesses, there is a clear demand for such devices with nearly 70 percent of respondents indicating they would use one if their financial institution or credit card company offered it.

NetSecure’s newest PINCheckout, a chip and PIN technology solution, enables card issuers and financial institutions to offer their customers a secure online shopping environment for their chip and PIN transactions. Research has indicated that more than half of consumers would feel more comfortable making online purchases if offered a secure shopping solution. With PINCheckout, e-commerce transactions are secured by encrypting sensitive information through an external device and remains protected throughout the entire transaction. NetSecure offers this viable solution via licensing options, with or without hardware.

“NetSecure Technologies is at the leading edge of e-Commerce solutions, protecting consumers where they need it most: the point of origin,” said Daniel McCann, president, NetSecure Technologies. “We are dedicated to providing consumers the very best in protection technology, but also believe technology should be user friendly and follow the mantra “simplicity, speed, security and compatibility.” Our solutions embrace those elements to provide better and solid Internet security, and are proven by the growth we’ve realized since our inception. As we enter 2011, we look forward to even more growth as well as contributing to a safer online environment.”

Included in the new website is NetSecure’s blog, highlighting company news as well as emerging security threats, providing solutions and security best practices to readers. In addition, the site features a tool called “Ask an Expert,” allowing site visitors to ask questions regarding data security. Each week, NetSecure features the question and provides an answer.

Once again the internet has made business easier. In this case it’s show business – the business of Shakespeare with William On Web. It’s now easy to get your own copy of either a Classic (Free) or Director’s Choice ($19.97) version of the most popular plays of all time -thanks to the innovation of a local Vancouver social profit enterprise. For professional companies, community theatres, academic or school productions, the editorial expertise contained in a Director’s Choice is a huge benefit. It streamlines the editing process by offering industry insider professional editorial suggestions coupled with a custom built online editor from Vancouver’s PointyHat dev team. The website offers versions of Shakespeare’s most popular plays including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Romeo & Juliet as well as Hamlet, King Lear, The Tempest, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, Love’s Labours Lost, Julius Caesar and more.

Most Shakespeare scripts, with 40-plus roles and running times over 3 hours, rarely get performed as-written in modern productions. But what to cut? Editing is a daunting process that may leave a director struggling with characters’ motives and plot flow, and requires time-consuming manual reformatting. To help solve these problems, WilliamOnWeb created their Director’s Choice scripts to suggest specific cuts which help you reduce cast size and running time while maintaining the integrity of the script.

This new production edition draws on every credible version of the plays, from the original Folio to today’s academic gold standard, the Arden. Unlike academic works, the scripts have been carefully crafted to work for directors and producers preparing from production. Accurate and faithful to the originals, these scripts also offer industry expertise on what and where to cut, delivering modern clarity to the characters and stories.

“We think of our project as bringing Shakespeare into the 21st Century”, stated COO James Pollard. “This new edition of his plays and Scriptivate — our custom-built online script editor — represent the first real change in the way to work with the Bard’s plays since he wrote them 400 years ago.”

Scriptivate, an online script editor free with both Classic and Director’s Choice versions, allows you to customize these scripts for your production. Scriptivate preserves all formatting of Shakespeare’s text — showing suggested cuts as strikethroughs — and lets you accept, reject or make your own cuts and additions. Once you’re satisfied, accepting your changes lets you e-mail or print your revised script in a rehearsal-ready format. Scriptivate works with modern web browsers on any computer connected to the Internet. Scripts are stored online “in the cloud”, bringing the process of editing Shakespeare into the digital age.

Game developers now have the opportunity to win over $50,000 in prizes, with the top finalists receiving significant recognition at major industry events such as the prestigious Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and Game Developers Conference (GDC). Select finalists are also eligible to have their games distributed on the GameTree TV Platform itself, bringing them to the forefront of the Smart TV revolution and into consumers’ homes. The competition will run until April 30th, with winners chosen by a celebrity judging panel and announced at E3 in June.

GameTree TV is the premiere on-demand Smart TV gaming platform, offering an unprecedented user experience on the next generation of set-top boxes and connected consumer electronic (CE) devices. Launching with major European cable operators in Q1 of 2011 with a projected global user base in the millions by year’s end, the GameTree TV Platform gives game developers instant access to an immense and burgeoning market.

“TransGaming has already licensed hundreds of games on GameTree TV from an impressive range of game developers and publishers that includes rising independent talent and trend-setting established studios”, commented Vikas Gupta, CEO & President of TransGaming. “The demand to be featured on GameTree TV is abundantly clear, and this competition will give the game development community the ability to usher in the Smart TV era by expanding their reach through our global gaming platform.”

Game developers can immediately create compelling content, join a vibrant community, and submit their games for distribution on the Platform through the GameTree TV Developer Program. The Program offers access to the GameTree TV SDK, technical documentation, and support services, providing developers with cost-effective tools for the development of original games or the adaptation of existing PC or OpenGL ES-based games for GameTree TV.

To join the competition today and compete for over $50,000 in prizes, simply enroll in the GameTree TV Developer Program. GameTree TV will also be showcased at the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, and will be featured at a GDC developer session on Wednesday, March 3rd, 3 – 4pm in room 302.

Corel has added Corel® WordPerfect® Viewer to its list of mobile apps. Developed to allow for viewing, sharing and storing WordPerfect documents on the iPhone® and iPad®, mobile users can mobile users can conveniently read WordPerfect email attachments and downloaded files on the fly, eliminating the need to go back to their desktops to retrieve important information.

iPhone and iPad users can now view, share and store their WordPerfect documents with Corel WordPerfect Viewer. The added ability to search and bookmark WordPerfect files enables users to quickly take care of simple tasks and access important information when needed. Corel WordPerfect Viewer is available in English in various markets worldwide and is priced at $4.99 for the iPhone version and $5.99 for the iPad version in the US and Canada from Apple’s App Store.

Corel WordPerfect Viewer Features

* View, scan and store WordPerfect documents conveniently on your iPhone or iPad
* Drag and drop files into WordPerfect Viewer from iTunes or send them directly to the viewer from other applications, for example, iPhone email client and DropBox
* Search, bookmark and email files that have automatically been converted to formats that your iPhone or iPad can display
* Export converted files to any other program registered to handle HTML files
* Easily retrieve WordPerfect attachments without the need to go back to your desktop

“Discovering new ways to help our users save time and be as productive as possible is always top of mind for us when we’re developing new tools. With people on the go more than ever before, we understood that it was important that our users have access to their files on their mobile devices so they can stay up-to-date and keep important projects moving.” said Jay Larock, Director of Office Productivity at Corel.”

Bell has announced construction of a new Tier 3 Certified data centre in the National Capital Region, significantly enhancing the availability of highly secure data hosting in the region with one of the most energy efficient facilities in North America.

Three customers have already signed long-term co-location contracts worth a total of nearly $100 million to use the new Bell data centre, which is scheduled to begin operation in late 2012.

The centre is designed to meet LEED Gold standards and to be in the top 2% of data centres for the most effective use of power in North America. The 82,000 square foot (7,600 square metre) building will use green hydro power on a grid separate from most National Capital users and deploy redundant utility components.

“The National Capital area market, with its unique mix of high tech giants and government departments, has been struggling to keep up with the demand for high-end, secure data centre space,” said Stéphane Boisvert, President, Bell Business Markets. “This facility will help meet the demand for top-tier data hosting with an exceptionally green, cost-effective facility that supports the development of world-class technology solutions and provides high-speed access to one of Canada’s leading Cloud providers.”

With 50,000 square feet (4,650 square metres) of space available for data centre equipment, Bell’s facility will provide unmatched availability through physically redundant, fully diverse connectivity to the Bell network and direct fibre connectivity to the National Capital Region. It will also comply with the strictest security standards, including the use of advanced biometric access controls.

Like five other data centres already operating in Bell’s national network, the Ottawa centre will provide Bell customers with co-location, managed hosting and next-generation cloud computing services, such as software as a service and hosted unified communications.

“As with Bell’s entire National Data Hosting Services portfolio, the new centre will be supported by the largest and most capable team of information and communications technology professionals in the country,” said Mr. Boisvert.

Endloop X has announced their game Please Stay Calm, and the studio claims that you have not played this type of game before. Not only will it amuse you and your online friends, it will also help prepare you for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Well, if not apocalypse, then at least a mild case of zombies.

If this sounds like your cup of tea and you have an iOS device for the initial roll-out, feel free to here sign up here as Endloop X is taking applications for early access.

Here’s a sneak peak of some of the unique features we are building for Please Stay Calm:

* Innovative co-operative gameplay
* Unique location based exploration that lets you play on-site as well as remotely
* Immersive alternate reality

The team will be rolling out the title city by city, as well as platform by platform. On a side note, Endloop X is looking for a PHP developer to fill a contract position. Know anybody?

Hoping to show that not all robots are purely cold and mechanical, Thandros Media presents “Fun With Thandros,” a playful new iPhone app featuring a fun-loving robot who is sure to thrill little ones and big kids alike. This delightful app features four classic games: Play, Maze Quest, Stories, and Twins.

Jeffrey Pierson, the creator of the characters featured in the app, worked with the programmers at Thandros Media and author Mike Jackson. The team understood that children love digital gaming and grasp it at a faster rate than anyone else, but for their first app wanted to incorporate a classic style and varied gameplay mode that many apps seemed to be lacking – and thus, “Fun With Thandros” was born.

“I first drew Thandros for my nephew,” says Pierson, “and he really liked him, so I started to think about what he would act like, and who some of his friends could be. It was a lot of fun to come up with this world, and I’m looking forward to adding to it in the future.”

The new app introduces kids and their parents to Thandros, a happy, friendly robot who loves to go on adventures and isn’t afraid to undertake a quest or a challenge. Toddlers can enjoy meeting Thandros in the “Play” mode, where they can tap on the robot and see how he reacts. The preschool set and older can choose “Stories,” with their choices throughout the course of the tale affecting its ultimate outcome, or “Twins,” a matching game that reinforces memory skills. Finally, big kids are sure to love “Maze Quest,” which takes Thandros on a journey through simple to complex mazes in his efforts to halt the evil Professor Stouch’s dastardly plans.

With its colorful, hand-drawn graphics, cheerful music, and exciting sound effects, “Fun With Thandros” is sure to provide hours of entertainment for children of all ages, while teaching them important lessons about sharing, hard-work, and determination. Fun With Thandros 1.0 is $0.99 USD and available worldwide exclusively through the iTunes App Store in the Games – Kid’s section.

Ubisoft announced today that the Animus Project Update 2.0 downloadable content (DLC) for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system is now available on XBOX LIVE® and PlayStation® Network for download for free.

The Animus Project Update 2.0 includes a brand-new game mode and brand new map for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer. The Pienza Map provides the perfect free-running playground where predators and targets can blend and disappear.

In the new Chest Capture Multiplayer Mode, two teams, comprised of three players each, partner with fellow Templars to either defend or capture Chests. The “Capturers” must use their HUDs to locate and capture the chests, while “Defenders” must use their skills and quick reflexes to track down their foes and protect the chests.

Also included in Animus Project Update 2.0 is the new “Templar Score” feature. To achieve order and maintain competition, Abstergo created the Templar Grade. Updated weekly and based on the users scores of the previous four weeks, the Templar Grade splits recruits in 10 specific slices – each representing part of the hierarchy of the community. The goal is to reward diligent work by Abstergo recruits. Assassins’ Creed Brotherhood is rated M for Mature by the ESRB.

BioWare™ and Electronic Arts Inc. announced today that Mass Effect™ 2 is now available on the PlayStation 3 for $59.99 in North America at retail and on PlayStation® Network*. The PlayStation 3 version of Mass Effect 2, which received a perfect 10 out of 10 score from PlayStation: The Official Magazine, will include six hours of bonus content, including ” Kasumi – Stolen Memories”, “Overlord” and the award-winning “Lair of the Shadow Broker”.

“The PlayStation 3 version of Mass Effect 2 offers gamers a great entry point to the Mass Effect experience,” said Casey Hudson, Executive Producer of the Mass Effect franchise. “We’re extremely excited and proud to now bring PlayStation 3 owners the opportunity to explore the rich and tumultuous universe of Mass Effect and shape the story and events within it by the individual choices they make.”

Mass Effect Genesis, an interactive comic from Dark Horse Comics and BioWare, will also be available today exclusively on the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system, giving players a high-level overview of the events of the original Mass Effect. The interactive comic offers players the chance to make critical choices that will affect their storyline in Mass Effect 2 and beyond. Mass Effect Genesis is included in the Cerberus Pack, a downloadable content pack included for first time purchasers of Mass Effect 2 on PlayStation 3. Players who do not have original access to the Cerberus Pack can purchase it for $14.99 on the PlayStation Network. Mass Effect 2 on the PlayStation 3 has a MSRP of $59.99 in North America and is rated M for Mature by the ESRB.

International publisher 505 Games and Ontario developer Reverie World Studios have penned a publishing deal for the studio’s upcoming massively multiplayer online real time strategy (MMORTS) title Dawn of Fantasy. Set in the massively multiplayer fantasy world of

Mythador which supports its own living economic, trading, development and diplomacy systems, players will be given the opportunity to leave their mark on the land’s already war torn history when Dawn of Fantasy for PC is launched on June 3rd, 2011.

Offering a fresh perspective on the fantasy RTS genre, Dawn of Fantasy will deliver a persistent world war experience like none before.Thousands of Players living, building, exploring and fighting together to crush with AI controlled strongholds and empires, in a rich tapestry of story-driven encounters that help to build upon the already weighty single player campaign experience. In a world that continues to trade and evolve even after logging off, Players will also be able to test their armies’ constitution in matched head-to-head, multiplayer encounters on their road to becoming the biggest city-state in Mythador.

Each of the three different races available to players – elves, men and orcs – offer a radically different playing style based on a carefully balanced system of strengths and weaknesses. With an in-game narrative driven by a dramatic historical background, Dawn of Fantasy will combine rich storytelling with compelling gameplay to provide a strategy experience to appeal to MMO and RTS fans alike.

“Dawn of Fantasy is nothing short of the next step in the genre, highlighting the best elements that MMORTS games have to offer with just the right level of considered innovation,” commented Ralph Pitt-Stanley, 505 Games. “In what we feel is an underrepresented genre, we’re confident that Dawn of Fantasy will have what it takes to stay in the hearts of MMO, RTS and fantasy fans for a long time to come.”

“As we catch a glimpse of the finish line after many years of development, we are thrilled to announce our partnership with 505 Games,” said Konstantin Fomenko, Reverie World CEO.“Their dedication, ambition, and extensive history in the strategy genre will prove indispensable as we work toward completing our upcoming MMORTS, Dawn of Fantasy.”

Designed with low system requirements in mind, the Dawn of Fantasy engine will nonetheless render armies of thousands of units and hundreds of terrain objects on screen for epic battle encounters. Once the dust settles on the in game campaigns, players can try exploring their creative side by using the powerful map editor to design the fantasy encounters of their dreams.

Reminder: The deadline for Papers submission for the Canadian Games Conference is January 25th. See the Conference web site for full details. The Canadian Games Conference takes place in Vancouver this May 19th and 20th.

A few minutes ago Interactive Ontario announced that there were only 11 tickets left for GameON: Finance. If you don’t have a ticket yet, chances are the conference will be sold out by the time you read this – but it’s still worth a try. If you don’t check, you’ll never know for sure, and you might end up missing some great learning and networking opportunities. GameON:Finance is happening this week on January 20th and 21st in Toronto.

Help Pixel to Product find out how many people are employed in Canada’s digital media industry by completing their new survey. As stated on the Pixel to Product site, “By collecting this data, we’ll have a better understanding of the size and scope of the Canadian digital media labour force. For example, we’ll understand the salary ranges as it relates to the job titles found in our industry, which areas of the country have the highest concentration of visual designers, and the relationship between education levels and job satisfaction.”

Pixel to Product is aiming for 10,000 complete responses, and asks that you help spread the word amongst your co-workers, partners, friends and associates. The survey only takes a few minutes to complete, and will provide valuable insight into our digital media workforce.

This beta announcement from THQ and Relic has The Cavechild all excited today, because got his pre-order in last week. A multiplayer beta for upcoming real time strategy game, Warhammer® 40,000®: Dawn of War® II – Retribution™, is scheduled to launch in late January.

Featuring all six multiplayer races including the new Imperial Guard faction, this beta is expected to run from the end of January through the end of February to test the new Steamworks networking and matchmaking features and to help balance the multiplayer mode. All new units for each race will be available in the beta along with the new multiplayer maps which ship with Retribution.

The beta is scheduled to go live on Monday, January 31st when global press and key Dawn of War(R) community members will be given access. It will then broaden to include everyone who has pre-ordered Dawn of War® II – Retribution™ on STEAM to date on February 1st. Finally, anyone who has bought a Dawn of War game through STEAM or has registered a Dawn of War II product on their STEAM account will automatically receive an invite on February 8th. There will be no open registration phase to this beta.

The Dawn of War II – Retribution multiplayer beta is currently planned to run until midnight on February 24th, at which point the developers will take all feedback into account to create a day-zero balancing patch.

Vancouver developer Inspirado Games formed a partnership with World Wildlife Fund Canada to enable players of the online brain training game, GardenMind, to support real-world conservation initiatives by completing in-game brain game challenges.

“We chose WWF-Canada as our partner because of their incredible dedication to protecting threatened habitats and endangered species as well as the logical fit with the concept of our game,” said Inspirado Games CEO, Rick Davidson. “If a player wants a virtual Tiger for their garden they have to actively protect Tigers in the real world through WWF’s Save The Tiger program.”

The GardenMind game itself is based upon the metaphor that your brain is like a garden and needs to be nourished each day through mental exercise. The argument for brain training is that just like the other muscles in our bodies, our brain needs regular exercise to remain strong and healthy. In GardenMind, players plant garden items in their virtual garden and then play a variety of brain training games to grow those items.

Given that video games have historically come under fire by skeptics for being “a waste of time”, meaningful gaming products such as GardenMind are a clear sign that the video game industry is evolving to meet the needs of new market segments – in this case not just the needs of entertainment and social connectivity, but also personal-development and contribution. GardenMind has been nominated in the Best Social/Casual Game category for this year’s Canadian Video Game Awards.

New projects are afoot for Big Blue Bubble, who is currently developing two titles for the Nintendo 3DS. The studio’s very successful iOS and Android game Burn The Rope will soon come to life in 3D game play, along with another as-yet-unannounced title currently in development. The studio is also working on a new iPhone game as well as a new PC game, both of which remain untitled. Big Blue Bubble’s large catalogue of previously-released mobile, casual and console titles include the Home Sweet Home series, Thumpies and iCarly: iJoin the Click, which is a companion title to the TV show iCarly.

The Canadian Media Production Assocation (CMPA) has released Profile 2010, its annual economic report on the Screen-Based Production Industry in Canada, which showed limited growth from 2008/09 to 2009/10, with an overall increase in production volume from $4.8 billion to $4.9 billion.

Profile is an annual economic report published by the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) in collaboration with the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec (APFTQ), and the Department of Canadian Heritage. The report provides a statistical overview of the three main screen-based production sectors in Canada: Canadian production (includes television and theatrical), foreign location & service production, and broadcaster in-house production. These sectors helped sustain 117,000 full-time jobs in 2009-2010.

Total numbers for independent television production were down by 3.4%, despite an overall one per cent rise in activity in the industry. The 7.8% decrease in English-language production levels largely contributed to the lower television values. The report also reveals that while Canadian theatrical production and foreign location & service production regained some momentum in 2009-2010, both production segments are below peak levels reached in the last 10 years.

Social media is the current trend taking the business world by storm, and Calgary businesses are no exception. The problem is, corporate communicators and business owners aren’t sure how to fold social media marketing and public relations into their overall media mix. That’s where Quickinars™ comes in, providing quick seminars for business, mainly on social media and Internet marketing topics.

This new seminar series is a joint production of Calgary internet marketing firm Anduro Marketing and social media agency communicatto. Anduro President Jeff Nelson and communicatto President Doug Lacombe, both Internet veterans and long-time educators, will lead the seminars.

“There’s a strong drive for business people to develop or enhance their social media skills,” says Nelson. “Until now there’s been a gap in this market as to acquiring those skills, and busy communicators have no time or appetite for trial and error.”

An array of topics, from developing your social media strategy to proper use of Facebook fan pages, Twitter, YouTube, and best blogging practices are scheduled between now and March 2011. Sessions are half or full day, are generally limited to twenty or fewer people, and, with early bird discounts, start as low as $249 plus fees for a half day session.

“We wanted to make Quickinars informative, interactive and practical,” says Lacombe. “Professionals should expect to have their social media questions answered and to walk away with quite a bit of information and follow up resources.”

Quickinars was born out of the intense market demand Calgary is currently experiencing for social media information.

“So many people were asking so many social media questions, we just couldn’t satisfy them one at a time,” says Lacombe. “Exactly,” concurs Nelson “it just made sense to help people climb this learning curve in small, personal groups. We ran a trial course in November that was a huge success. In the feedback forms one attendee said they brought back several ideas to their supervisor who was ‘psyched’ and they would be incorporating lessons learned to strengthen their communications. To see this information put to good use is very satisfying to us as educators.”

There’s only one way to escape the dead of winter. Let your mind wander and get your creative juices flowing this February at the WordsWorth Weekend. Young writers are invited to join Judith Graves, one of the hottest YA authors around, on a horrific journey on how to write to die for fiction including the terrifying realms of character development and revision.

Judith Graves is the smart and sassy author behind the hit paranormal trilogy Under My Skin. Librarian, singer, songwriter, author, and book club haunter, Graves has her own opinions about words and she’s not afraid to voice them. Much like Eryn, the snarky protagonist in her books, Graves doesn’t pull punches when it comes to calling ‘em as she sees ‘em. Now she’s putting her bold opinions to good use at WordsWorth by teaching young and emerging writers how to better craft their own tantalizing tales.

“I’m a firm believer that Canadian teen fiction can be sexy, action packed, and snarky as hell,” says Graves. So what better author could there be for encouraging youth to develop their own feisty stories?

The Young Alberta Book Society’s WordsWorth event is a weekend-long sleepover for young writers being held February 4-6, 2011 and is open to all writers aged 13-19. The weekend will take place at Kamp Kiwanis in Bragg Creek. Over the course of the weekend, writers will be completely submerged in their fictitious worlds. Carefully guided by Graves and poet Owen Percy, writers will be able to attack their projects with newfound creativity. They will learn how to tweak, manipulate, push, pull, and revamp their stories and characters to create truly unique tales.

Reminder: The CMPA’s Prime Time in Ottawa conference is February 16th – 18th, tickets are available online.
Reminder: Desire2Learn RoadShow presentation will be in Toronto on January 26th &  Ottawa on January 27th.
Reminder: CFC Features application deadline is January 28th & the Cineplex Entertainment Film Programme deadline is January 21st.
Reminder: The deadline for nominations for the 2011 Worldwide Short Film Fest are open until February 4th.

Shot in the Dark Mysteries has launched its inaugural podcast. Hosted by company president and head writer Leigh Clements, this first podcast in the series will introduce you to the concept of mystery parties. Additional podcasts will  offer listeners many excellent tips on planning that special, and memorable, party or corporate event.

The Youth Media Awards, presented by the Youth Media Alliance, are now open for nomination submissions. The Awards are open to all Canadian-made, youth-oriented productions originally broadcast or released online in English between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2010. Programs and interactive content must be submitted by no later than Monday, February 21, 2011, at 5 p.m. The Award winners will be announced at a gala event in Toronto on June 2nd.

Wired Woman Vancouver presents a session with Tod Maffin, podcasting pioneer, technology trend blogger and Digital Marketing Strategist on Monday, February 7th. Tod will discuss the 7 successful action steps for launching an impactful and measurable viral campaign using his ASSURED ROI™ methodology. Tod’s energetic, highly entertaining presentation style has audiences captivated, engaged, entertained and inspired. This session will be hosted at the ING Direct Cafe on Howe Street. Advance registration for this event is required, tickets are $35.00 for members and $40.00 for non-members. Note: membership is free, sign up and save.

Congratulations to the two Canadian nominees in this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards:

Mass Effect 2, nominated for Best Game Design, Best Technology, Best Audio, Best Writing as well as Game of the Year, and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, nominated for Best Visual Arts and Game of the Year.

Bioware has announced a new pre-order incentive for the fast approaching release of Dragon Age 2. Those who pre-order the game before March 8th (the scheduled release date) will receive access to the following additional in-game content at no extra cost.

* The Lion of Orlais Shield, whose legend begins at the height of the Summer War, when all of Orlais was embroiled in fierce battles, with dozens of contenders for the Imperial Throne emerging. Most are long forgotten except as footnotes in scholarly tomes, but everyone remembers the gallant young lord Emile Deveraux, “The Golden Prince”. Thought outnumbered at every turn, he racked victory upon victory culminating in the Seventh Battle of Roses. While wearing this shield he broke through his uncle’s vanguard to win the day. Never knowing the taste of defeat on the battlefield, this gallant hero is said to have met his end at the hands of a jealous lover in the dead of night. Now you can carry this magnificent shield into battle, adding to your health and XP gained, you can also increase its power with magical runes which will fit nicely into two special slots.

* The Fadeshear Sword, whose core is very old – as old as the first smiths who sought a way to battle the nightmares from the land beyond. This sword has fought the demonic hosts in countless battles, sometimes being held high in triumphant victory. Other times, it has lain broken beside its dying owner. But after every defeat it has always been reclaimed, reforged, and made stronger. Fadeshear has passed through many hands before yours. Now it is your turn to make the demons of the Fade pay for crossing the Veil into the waking world. Make use of the FadeShear Sword against demons and the undead, its power growing as your character levels up.

Original purchasers of Dragon Age 2 will receive:

* A fighting Mabari War Hound who can be summoned by a whistle to fight at your side in battle.
* The Mirror of Transformation which will allow you to change your very appearance. Hair, eyes, tattoos, and more can be changed with the click of a button.
* Access to The Black Emporium exclusive Magic and Crafting Stores that have some of the best equipment and powerful, unique recipes you’ll find in the game. It’s restocked with better items as you progress through the story.

This is a double bonus for those of us who also took advantage of the Signature Edition pre-order incentive, which ended on January 11th, because we also get access to all of this newly announced bonus content. Here is the latest Dev Diary trailer, which talks about story development.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AWS31hO4M4]

Montreal’s Gamerizon has announced that over 8 Million of its Chop Chop™ games had been downloaded on the App Store in a span of less than 10 months. Each of the six existing Chop Chop™ games – Chop Chop Ninja™, Chop Chop Runner™, Chop Chop Tennis™, Chop Chop Soccer™, Chop Chop Hockey™ and Chop Chop Caveman™ – have received critical acclaim and have reached top ranking positions in their respective categories in most countries around the world, with specially strong performances in the US, the UK, China, Australia, Canada, Germany, and France.

“We reached the milestone with an incredibly strong performance of 1.4 Million downloads in the last 6 days alone and are well on our way to make the Chop Chop™ franchise one of the world’s best known mobile gaming franchises” said Alex Sakiz, CEO of Gamerizon.

The success of the Chop Chop™ franchise is primarily a function of the unique one-finger gameplay mechanics developed in all games and the innovative hybrid Paid/Free Business Model adopted. Three new games – Chop Chop Rocket™, Chop Chop Kicker™ and Chop Chop Alien™ are scheduled for release in February and March.

Emmy® Award-winning Toon Boom Animation Inc. has entered into a partnership with Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore’s leading institution of higher learning, to set up a paperless digital animation production hub on their campus, fully equipped with a Toon Boom pipeline.

This first animation hub will serve as a great launch pad for the students in the interactive digital media courses to learn animation and create projects in a true digital production environment. In addition, Toon Boom will collaborate with Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of InfoComm Technology to assist in faculty development, student development, academic and professional networking, as well as in granting prizes of excellence in the form of special awards and scholarships.

“Toon Boom is fully dedicated to the development of the animation industry in Singapore. As a result, our partnership with Ngee Ann Polytechnic represents a great accomplishment in combining Toon Boom’s field proven expertise with Singapore’s impressive creative talent,” shared Joan Vogelesang, President and Chief Executive Officer at Toon Boom.

EA Sports has released a new trailer for Fight Night Champion. Setting the stage for a new standard in sports games, Fight Night Champion will deliver the most dynamic simulation fighting experience to date, pushing visual boundaries and redefining the single player journey for the category. Check out this video about fighter stamina:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPPeCMOX13Y]

In just a few weeks, Fight Night Champion will break the mold of what is expected in a single-player sports game. Players will be introduced to an entirely new way to step between the ropes and experience the drama, emotion, excitement and tragedy of world championship boxing.

Burnaby’s Teradici Corporation, developer of the innovative PC-over-IP® (PCoIP®) protocol that enables a true PC experience for desktop virtualization, has announced a strategic investment and development agreement from In-Q-Tel (IQT), the strategic investment firm that identifies innovative technology solutions to support the missions of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Teradici PCoIP protocol is an innovative remote display technology that allows the user’s desktop operating system, applications, and data to reside in the datacenter, eliminating the need for traditional desktop workstations, PCs and thin clients, and delivers an uncompromised user experience to each person, anywhere, without incurring the security risks associated with having data reside in remote PCs. PCoIP technology provides high resolution, full frame rate 3D graphics and high-definition media, with full USB peripheral interoperability, locally over a LAN or remotely over a high-latency WAN. It compresses, encrypts and encodes the entire computing experience at the datacenter and transmits it ‘pixels only’ across a standard IP network to secure, stateless PCoIP zero clients, thin clients, and mobile devices.

The protocol is implemented in silicon for hardware accelerated performance and enhanced security, as well as in several software configurations, including VMware View™, the industry leading desktop virtualization platform. A growing ecosystem of over 25 third-party vendors provide a wide variety of PCoIP products including server plug-in cards, rack and tower workstations, blade PCs, zero clients, integrated monitors, and IP phones with added PCoIP capability.

The Canadian Media Production Association has filed an intervention (PDF) with the CRTC, confirming that it does not support BCE Inc.’s application as filed, to acquire sole control of CTVglobemedia Inc. The CMPA disagrees with BCE’s contention that tangible benefits are not payable as a result of this transaction. The CMPA similarly disagrees with BCE’s proposal that the valuation of benefits payable amounts to only $221 million and that a mere $40 million of that amount will go towards supporting the creation of Canadian programming. The CMPA expects to make its arguments before the CRTC when it commences hearings into the proposed acquisition on February 1, 2011.

“The benefits package proposed by BCE represents a very significant departure from the CRTC’s long-standing tangible benefits policy. It is also extremely self-serving and very largely focused on activities that are normal capital expenditures for such a company,” says Norm Bolen, the CMPA’s President and CEO.

In its intervention, the CMPA argues that the tangible benefits policy must be respected. This means that:

* the payment of tangible benefits are indeed fully required in this transaction;
* the quantum of these TV benefits must represent 10% of the total value of all CTV television assets;
* BCE must not be allowed to exclude or discount any of its television-related assets in this calculation;
* a minimum of 85% of the total tangible benefits must be allocated to the creation of Canadian programming;
* a minimum of 75% of the amount allocated to the creation of Canadian programming must be earmarked to third-parties from the independent production community; and,
* the resources allocated to the creation of independent Canadian programming must be administered by a third-party, and must not be limited to projects that are ultimately broadcast only on CTV or its many television properties.

“If BCE’s proposal is accepted by the Commission without considerable modifications it would fall extremely short of what is in the best interest of our broadcasting system and the Canadian public,” says Bolen.

Wicked Interactive and Mission Against Terror (M.A.T.) have announced that the long-awaited Occupation Mode will be coming soon to everyone’s favorite free-to-play shooter.. With Occupation Mode, M.A.T. gains one of the most essential elements of a competitive title – territory capture and control.

“We are thrilled to offer this intense level of action to our community,” said Sam Ho, Director, Wicked Interactive. “We invite gaming clans of all skill levels to see for themselves just how crazy things can get. We know that gamers will put Occupation Mode right up there with Old School, hardcore multiplayer classics like Counter-Strike 1.6 and the Battlefield series.”

Occupation Mode brings with it new maps and new opportunities to put that weapon you just bought to work. The real challenge, of course, is to protect yourself and your team as you keep moving forward as a unit, attacking new positions and then defending them before time runs out. When your team holds all points on a map, you win the game. When both teams fail to complete the mission, beware…you can end up spawning infinitely for a lengthy and engaging firefight over a single capture point.

“At the request of the community, we have left it up to the game creators to set just how severe the time-keeping will be,” added Ho. “For those who love a good challenge, this is the mode for you. The two teams are in constant struggle for territory control until the best team finally emerges as the winner, involving not only brute force advancement but also endurance and holding key locations.”