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Award Deadlines, EA NFS Beta Test and Student Presentations

Canadian Video Game Awards [1]Vancouver – A reminder that nominations are open for the Canadian Videogame and Digital Arts Awards [1], which will be held May 5th, 2010 here in Vancouver, BC. This event will honour and celebrate the best and brightest in Canadian games, computer animation and visual effects. It will be a great, fun, fast paced night featuring Canadian hosts and presenters, as well as internationally renowned musical talent VideoGames Live [2]! You only have until midnight, Wednesday, March 17th to get your submissions in – all nominations must be made on-line at the Canadian Videogame and Digital Arts Awards website [1].

All awards are for work completed in Canada by December 31st 2009. This includes products that were certified gold during the 2009 calendar year. Please note: videogame upgrades, expansions and mission packs are not eligible.

Technology Impact Awards [3]Vancouver – We’d also like to remind  you that the Technology Impact Awards [4] also has a nomination deadline of March 17th. The BCTIA [5] Technology Impact Awards celebrate the successes of our industry and the companies, people and innovation that continue to put British Columbia on the map and who serve as role models for others in our province. The Technology Impact Awards will be presented at the BCTIA dinner [6] on June 8th. The dinner will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre beginning at 530pm.

Masters of Digital Media [7]Vancouver – Last evening we stopped in at the Masters of Digital Media [7] portfolio presentations, as always we were very impressed with all of the projects going on. The instructors, mentors and administrators at the campus have much to be proud of, and we foresee a very bright future for all of the innovative students in the current class. We invite you to check out the industry projects [8] which we got a look at last night. We were particularly impressed with the innovative eLearning application Wound Care as well as with the Rainforest Project and the Bateman Centre Visualization Project.

 

[9]Vancouver – Following the portfolio presentation we went over to the Pacific Space Centre to attend the VANarts [9] graduation ceremony. VANarts also has many students to be proud of, as witnessed in the many student reels which were presented for 2D and 3D animation, Visual Effects, Game Art and Design and Digital Photography. We wish the graduating class all the best as they venture out into the wonderful world of digital media.

 

New Ventures BC Competition [10]British Columbia – Are you a BC innovator and/or entrepreneur? Don’t forget to register for New Ventures BC [11]. If you wish to take part in the competition [12] and vie for some pretty hefty prizing [13], the first deadline is April 19th. There is also a 10-week seminar & networking series [14] which starts on April 6th. These business education seminars are open to anyone, with a registration fee of $20.00 per seminar.

EA Games [15]BurnabyEA [15] has announced that there will be an English-language beta event [16] this weekend for Need For Speed World [17]. The dev team will be playing with their first group of play testers, looking for feedback on player experience as well as important information regarding stability and NFS World [18]scalability. According to Senior Producer John Doyle, this beta weekend is the first of many planned events which will involve more teams of (invited) play testers as the dev team looks at more aspects, options and areas of NFS World.

In his community announcement [19], Doyle also stated that the NFS community is invited “to model a car for launch. We’ve seen some of the amazing work you’ve done with our PC games once they’ve shipped and we’d like to showcase some of that work in World. Our good friends at Porsche [20] have agreed to give players the chance to model the 959 for inclusion in the game and get credit for their creation.” EA will be announcing further details about this model activity at a later date.

Ph03nix New Media [21]CalgaryPh03nix New Media [21] today announced the availability of a new developer video for their recent addition to the App Store, Hottie Hookups. This humorous, behind the scenes video features Big Stack Studio’s [22] Daniel Kratt and Craig Rushforth, along with the rest of the team, giving insight on their latest project as well as exposing a few their own geeky tendencies.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Along with the developer interview comes gameplay footage of this comical and irreverent title. Viewer beware, there is no shortage of geezers, nerds, and cougars.

Xbox 360 [23]Xbox Live has made a change to its Terms of Use and Code of Conduct [24] which effects GamerTag names. According to Marc Whitten, General Manager at Xbox LIVE, these changes “will allow our members to more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles. Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs. However we have since heard feedback from our customers that while the spirit of this approach was genuine, it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox LIVE community. This update also comes hand-in-hand with increased stringency and enforcement to prevent the misuse of these terms.” While I personally feel that the gaming community is maturing somewhat in terms of behaviour, there will sadly be those who still feel the need to behave badly in mixed company, and while I feel that these changes are a positive move forward for the XBL community, I hope that those small-minded gamers find it within themselves to overcome their nastiness and evolve into a positive force in the Xbox community.

Meridian4 [25]QuebecMeridian4 [25] has announce that they have signed a digital publishing agreement with Headup Games [26] to publish their future titles for three years, starting with the turn-based strategy title Future Wars.

“Expanding our well-working and established partnership with Meridian4 to a full portfolio scenario is the next strategic and logical step towards our aim to reach gamers on a worldwide level throughout all retail and media channels. We started strong with the first two titles and are very much looking forward to bringing and creating new franchises together with their very experienced team” said Dieter Schoeller, Managing Director of Headup Games.

“Our initial agreement with them for Greed and Gear Grinder was very successful and we are delighted that we are able to continue to work with Headup Games. Their original and unique titles, such as Future Wars are a great match with our audience. We know that this title will do well and will have a wide appeal to all types of gamers.” said Andy Sher, CEO at Meridian4.

Similar to classic titles such as Advance Wars and Battle Isle, the game takes turn-based strategy gaming away from the micro-management overkill that it has become and using simple, proven rock-paper-scissors principles, reopens the genre to a wider audience.

With a modern 3D engine providing the graphics, a proven, easy to learn, but difficult to master set of rules surrounded by an engaging plot and challenging gameplay, the game will appeal to newcomers and hard-core gamers alike.

Also available is unlimited access and infinite possibilities to mod the game through open data structure, open scripts and an easy-to-use editor.

• Modern 3D graphics & proven gameplay embedded in an engaging and sometimes, humorous plot
• Infinite modding possibilities through open data structure, open scripts and editor
• Novel and unique game modes such as AI vs. AI or play-by-email
• Rock-paper-scissors principle makes Future Wars easy to learn but difficult to master
• In-game achievements encourages replay to acquire top honors