Village Gamer

Vancouver – Game publisher Paradox Interactive today announced that in anticipation of the upcoming expansion pack Sword of the Stars: Argos Naval Yard from Vancouver’s Kerberos Productions, Sword of the Stars: Ultimate Collection is temporarily available for $7.99 on GamersGate, Steam, Direct2Drive, and Impulse. This special price promotion lasts through this Sunday, June 13, 2009. Sword of the Stars: Ultimate Collection contains the original Sword of the Stars game and the two expansion packs Born of Blood and A Murder of Crows.

Paradox Interactive took over as publishers for the Sword of the Stars franchise in April of this year.  The original Sword of the Stars title was hailed as a major milestone in 4X Space Strategy games upon release, praised for its unique combination of turn based strategy and real-time space combat.

“We’re thrilled to be a part of Sword of the Stars series,” says Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive. “We look forward to continue bringing this game to market and further developing the IP with Kerberos for many years to come.”
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Stratford – The Canada 3.0 forum concluded Tuesday with the declaration that all Canadians should have the opportunity to participate in a fully digital world and reap the economic benefits of commercializing innovation.

“We have the opportunity to lead the world in digital media and create a national advantage by investing in innovation and turning that into commercially viable content and technology,” said Tom Jenkins, newly named Chairman of the Canadian Digital Media Network’s Advisory Board, and Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of Open Text.

To be a leader in digital media all Canadians should be connected to content and able to access that content on an equal level, organizers agreed. Content needs to be respected and copyright and ownership protected, says Ian Wilson, Strategic Advisor for the University of Waterloo Stratford Institute. “We need to connect Canadians to content on a fair and transparent basis,” said Wilson. “And every citizen in Canadian society regardless of geography – whether in an urban area or not – should be able to connect to Canadian content in an increasingly mobile world.”
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Toronto – Ancestry.ca, in partnership with Library and Archives Canada (LAC), today completed the world-first online launch of the Historical Canadian Censuses, 1851-1916. Never before have all of the nine available national censuses⁽¹⁾ been published online, fully indexed and including original document images.

Together, these censuses contain more than 32 million names – all searchable for the first time – of those living in Canada from the mid 19th century through to the early 20th century – a period of nationhood, new arrivals, great change and significant growth.

It is estimated that half of all living Canadians (16 million people)⁽²⁾ will be able to trace their ancestors in the censuses – Ancestry.ca has found those of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff, jailed businessman Conrad Black, singer Alanis Morissette and actress Pamela Anderson (original images available).

So what is a Canadian? Canadians have been asking themselves this very question for as long as we have existed as a country.
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Vancouver – New Media BC and Kenton Lowe have just issued a statement in which Kenton has officially stepped down as the President of New Media BC. He will be taking on a position with Bardel Entertainment, and in his stead, board member Rochelle Grayson will be taking over as temporary President until a replacement is found and hired.

Rochelle Grayson

In his statement, Kenton thanked the members for working with him during his time as President of the association, and he, along with NMBC Chairman of the Board, Warren Franklin were pleased to make the announcement regarding Rochelle. As many in this city know, Rochelle has been very active in the new media industry, most recently with Work [at] Play. Kenton will be working closely with Rochelle to aid in the transition, and he looks forward to staying in touch with friends and colleagues as he moves on to a new stage in his career.

We here at Village Gamer wish Kenton all the best over at Bardel and enthusiastically welcome Rochelle as the (albeit) temporary leader of our provincial organization.

Toronto – Interactive Ontario today announced a new project, ONKidz, that is aimed at promoting Ontario’s Kids sector on a global scale. The ONKidz project will culminate with a business event focused on the interactive kids space in the spring of 2010 in Toronto, Canada. ONkidz supports the creation and commercialization of Ontario-made interactive media content and services for kids ages 4 to 15.

“It goes without saying that kids prioritize their interactions with and through digital media very differently than their parents,” said Ian Kelso, President and CEO of Interactive Ontario. “ Interactive Ontario is thrilled to present a unique event pulling together the leading creators of interactive experiences and the producers, broadcasters, and publishers who are leading the charge on building integrated cross-platform markets.”
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Banff – The Canadian Television Fund today announced the Board of Directors of the new Canada Media Fund. The seven independent directors include five nominated by the Canadian Coalition for Cultural Expression (CCCE), which includes cable and direct-to-home satellite companies, and two nominated by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Fostering the growth of television production in Canada through financial investment and industry research, the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) supports the development of Canadian talent, programs and audiences. The Canada Media Fund, an amalgamation of the Canadian Television Fund and the Canada New Media Fund, will launch on April 1, 2010 to support the development of content designed for television and new media platforms.

The 2009-2010 Directors of the Board of the Canada Media Fund are as follows:
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Vancouver – It’s been a somewhat busy week as I’ve tried to keep up with all of the news from our Canadian developers and industry representatives down at E3 – and I have decided that next year I am going to the expo. Once everyone has returned from their E3 adventures, I hope to be able to sit down with them and get their views in a look back at this year’s event.

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

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

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

Canada – Our inbox has received a number of notifications from a wide variety of Canadian studios alerting us to their presence at next week’s E3 Expo, and we are reminded of how strong our interactive media industry truly is – and equally envious that we are not able to attend this year’s convention. I’ve scoured the ‘net trying to find and confirm all of the Canadian products which will be shown at E3, and I think I’ve found everyone – however, I’m sure that I’ve overlooked a studio or two, especially for those studios who are working on projects for other houses. Some studio and game appearances may fall under the “conjecture” category due to typical pre-show “rumours” and while I did make every effort to confirm E3 studio appearances, some requests went unanswered – so we will just add to the perpetual pre-show “will they or won’t they” speculation – after all, that’s part of the excitement and anticipation for the annual unveilings, is it not?

So, without further ado, here, I think, is a comprehensive list of who is going to E3 2009:
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Toronto – TLI Software, a leading Web Applications developer, announces the launch of MySchoolCouncil.com. MySchoolCouncil.com is an application designed for school councils, parent teacher associations and student councils to build community online.

MySchoolCouncil provides the aforementioned community’s the ability to build, maintain and update online community website with only basic computer skills. The sites are automated and have several features that are particularly well suited to the school community. “One of the favorite features with school principals has been the approval process that can be activated for each site. It allows for each page that is built or updated to be sent automatically sent to the principal for their approval at which time, the page goes live,” said Taye Newman, Product Manager of MySchoolCouncil.com.
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Toronto – A group of six Canadian-based companies have come together to form a new alliance called The Committed to Growing Small Business Coalition or Committed. The coalition is focused on developing and offering resources to assist Canadian entrepreneurs and small business owners in building, maintaining and growing their companies.

Committed includes organizations from various industries and includes STAPLES Canada, Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co., Intuit Canada, Rogers Cable Communications, Citi Cards Canada and Silver Lining Ltd., a business development company for small businesses. Silver Lining is the catalyst behind this new coalition, which was assembled with the belief that the six companies are stronger together than apart.

“History has shown that small businesses are the engine that can drive economies out of a recession,” said Carissa Reiniger, founder and president of Silver Lining. “We realized that now is the ideal time to bring this group of established companies together with the objective of giving small businesses all the resources and training they need to flourish in these tough times.”
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