We have three areas available – the header space where Orby resides, which could become a 468 x 60 banner. The right sidebar, which could translate into a vertical 150 x 400 banner. We also have one spot on our newsletter, also for a  468 x 60 banner.  These ads will be available for a flat-rate, monthly fee. Our average monthly impressions are:

• Newsletter: 24,600 impressions per month average
• Web site: 415,740 impressions per month average

The web site banners are visible on every page, no matter which article or page visitors land on to read.

Please note – these ad spaces are only available to Canadian companies or international companies with an established physical presence in Canada.

We also offer very reasonably priced web hosting services, with several different packages for web sites as well as IRC.

If you are interested in renting some ad space, please contact either myself, @VillageGamer on Twitter, or Scott, who is @NightStormDraco on Twitter – or use the Got News contact form here on the web site, with the subject Advertising. Thank you for your support as we (hopefully) move through this stage and into the future.

As it is defined today, PIPA has a stated goal of providing the US Government and copyright holders an additional arsenal of tools to aide in taking down ‘rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods.’ The Senate bill details that an “information location tool shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order.” In addition, it must delete all hyperlinks to the offending “Internet site.
Credit http://blog.softlayer.com/2012/keep-fighting-sopa-on-the-ropes-pipa-lurking/

They also have a great write-up on SOPA, but in laymen’s terms, if a site, no matter where it is hosted or what content it actually has on it, gets reported for sharing a link to a filesharing site, or posting pictures that belong to someone else, or someone is posting the entire Harry Potter books as PDF for download to your ebook reader, then your ISP would be required to do everything it can to keep you from going to that site.  Doesn’t sound too bad, really… until you consider that there is no actual investigation taking place first to make sure that copyright infringement is really going on.  Maybe you are an Indie game developer and you are using torrents to release your new game to the global market.  Maybe you are starting a news blog, and using a picture from the Apple website while talking about their newest release, the iPhone12G (no, this is not a press release, move on now search bots).  Or, maybe you are J.K. Rowling deciding you have enough money now and want the entire Planet to experience the joys of Harry Potter books (no, I have not read them, so I have to go based off a review posted on Amazon, which I would not be allowed to do in a SOPA world)… yeah, okay, long shot on that last one.  Maybe you are self-published and hosting your latest works yourself.

Basically, any site owner could be found guilty under the SOPA/PIPA act and lose their sites, all because one person reported them for illegal sharing, without even checking to see if it was allowed, or even true.  The Government doesn’t have time in their schedules to investigate each report, so it’s easier to “pull the plug” and let things sort themselves out.  No investigation of ownership, or validity of the claims.

Sites like Wikipedia would vanish.  As would reddit.  icanhazcheezeburger, also known as LOLCats would be gone (I just know Tami’s mother is in panic stage on hearing that). Even Facebook would face the risk of filtering and/or blocking due to SOPA/PIPA (really, how many pictures on Facebook Pages do you think are public domain?).  And a site does not have to actually be American to be impacted by this.

We at Village Gamer are also opposed to SOPA and PIPA.  While we may not be actively participating in the blackout (due to the fact that it is a news day, and the press releases keep coming), you can be sure that we (or I, as the IT guy here) will be watching things very closely as they develop.

SOPA and PIPA are American Bills… but they deal Worldwide damage.  Think of how the Internet works in China.  The American Government telling the whole World what it can and cannot see on the Internet.  To say that they would break the Internet is an understatement.  It would completely destroy the Internet, and create a new Network where the Government controls what you can and cannot see.  Stop SOPA.  Stop PIPA.  Stop closed Internet.  Start Open Thinking.

The new calendar offers three different views – Month, Week or Agenda. Agenda is the default view, which allows visitors to view the entire year’s worth of events in one screen, similar to the old Upcoming Events page. While in Agenda view, visitors can opt to have all events expand with more information (as explained below), and events for “Today Only” can also be selected in any view option.

To see events for any given province or the territories – or a selection of areas, visitors can click on the Categories drop-down menu to the upper right of the calendar. Simply click on any of the desired regions to view those events – the calendar view will update as regions are selected or unselected. To disable the filter, click on the X that will appear beside Filter when regions are selected.

On the old calendar, when visitors clicked the linked event names, they were taken to the event’s page to get further information, but now with our shiny new calendar, when visitors click the link they get a drop down information window that offers an event description, and if the Read More button is clicked, visitors can get ticket cost, organizer name (when available), venue location with Google maps, dates and times.

The events calendar can also be synced with Outlook by clicking the Subscribe button (or Add To Calendar button, depending on if you’re viewing the front page or event info page), or with Google Calendar by clicking the Google Calendar button. An even better feature is the ability to sync the events for chosen calendars, such as just BC events, or BC and Alberta events, for example. As a bonus, whenever the calendar is updated, the new updates are automatically added through the sync download feature.

As always, our readers are welcome to have their interactive digital media events, film festivals, business education, tech-related events or other happenings across Canada that would be of interest to those who work in the technology industry sectors added to the calendar, just drop us a note with a link to the event and if it fits within our mandate, we’ll add it to the calendar.

About the Toshiba P755-0CP 3D Laptop – Lift the lid and raise the bar on what you can do at a desk—or on the go—with the Satellite® P755 laptop. Infused with famous Toshiba quality, value and style, this PC offers plenty of power, plus room to multitask, study and play. Its generous 15.6” diagonal TruBrite® HD display is great for doing more things at once.

The Toshiba P755-0CP 3D Laptop is equipped with Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium and the latest 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM processor (2.2 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Intel® Turbo Boost technology, Enhanced Intel® SpeedStep® technology and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology. Add lots of memory – 4GB DDR3 + 2GB DDR3 (1333 MHz)- expandable to 8GB and a 750GB (5400 RPM) Serial-ATA hard disk drive to make this PC a strong all-around performer for students, small-business owners, families and light gamers.

Stay well connected with room to expand and share, thanks to a webcam with Wireless-N, and wide range of ports. And take advantage of Toshiba “Smart” Features to enjoy greater versatility and eco-awareness, too, courtesy of a touch pad with multi-touch control and our power-saving eco Utility™.

Other Key Features Include:

• Toshiba Eco Utility
• Hard Drive Impact Sensor
• USB Sleep n Charge
• Toshiba Sleep and Music
• Toshiba Media Controller
• harman/kardon Speakers
• 3D Display
• 3D Vision Display Glasses (One Pair)

For Full Specs Click Here

We are looking for sizzle pieces and trailers that we can show in the booth, along with products and swag to put in gift baskets that we’ll be offering as prizes in business card draws. If you have postcards promoting your “Made In Canada” game, software, product, studio, association or services we are offering our booth as a point of distribution. If you would like to provide bags, pens or other swag to hand out, that is welcome too.

Ideally we would like to put together promo packs to give out encouraging businesses to Outsource to Canada. Please contact me with this special event address if you would like to help us help you. Your trailers must be available for us to download in the highest playable quality possible, preferably in 1080p – our screen is a 42″ HDTV, and we want to show your trailers in their best possible light.

For Vancouver area companies – if any of you have trade show equipment such as collapsible chairs,  TV stand, portable tables (like those tall, round, bar style), etc. that we could borrow for SIGGRAPH, we would be most grateful and of course acknowledge your contribution with promotional considerations. All equipment must be easily movable, as we have to move everything in by hand without the benefit of type of dolly cart unless we hire convention centre staff to move everything in from the loading dock, which we don’t have a budget for.

In keeping with our community theme, we’re trying for a “fireside chat” type of feel to the booth, so that our “on the spot at SIGGRAPH” interviewees can site comfortably while being interviewed on camera. If you are feeling generous and would like to help us purchase our own trade show equipment, we would also be eternally grateful – at the least we  will place your logo on our site as a supporter.

As mentioned above, we will be conducting in-booth interviews with Canadian attendees, so if you would like to represent, stop by and take a seat in front of the camera. Of course, we will also be covering as much of SIGGRAPH as we possibly can, and will have a roving video camera or two so don’t be surprised if you get recognized and hi-jacked while wandering the convention hall.

Also to be officially unveiled at SIGGRAPH will be our new project. We don’t want to reveal too many details just yet, but we can tell you that it will involve community, marketing and the creative Canadian spirit that has made this industry great. We will also be introducing our new collaborative partner, Code-name Alex  – and devs, Alex has an iPad – so, if you would like people to be able to play your game or try your app while visiting our booth and have a download code to spare, please send it via the contact link above, along with the game title, studio name and info page link, with the subject line SIGGRAPH iPad. Please note – this is only for games and iPad apps  made in Canada. Each of the games or apps loaded for SIGGRAPH will be included in our table-top info catalogue for attendees to browse through.
[paypal-donation]
We also have need of two or three more volunteers to work alongside Alex and our lovely booth hostess Megan and the infamous CaveChild and assist in promoting the Canadian interactive industry. Ideally, we are looking for students, recent graduates or those already working in the creative development sector – this would include game designers, entertainment business managers, project management, marketing, or film students (a stationary video cam with an external mic for the in-booth interviews would be most awesome too).  You would need to be available for expo floor hours, which are as follows:

If you are interested in this volunteer position, which will include a SIGGRAPH expo pass, please contact me with your information and reason for wanting to help out with the show, with SIGGRAPH volunteer as the subject line.

So you all enjoy the speedy loading site, while I try to avoid saying “oops… don’t worry Tami, I can fix this”.

And, speaking of which… don’t worry, I can fix this.

I certainly wasn’t prepared for the welcome and success Village Gamer has enjoyed over the past year, and while this is all very good,  I’ve found that my time and project management skills are due for a major upgrade.  These are areas which I will be seriously working on as Village Gamer continues to grow and move forward into the next decade – but I can’t talk about that yet, Orby has me under an NDA and I wouldn’t want to end up like the fireworks he’s found – I’m not really sure just what his joystick controller is attached to, so I’ll have to wait on the sharing of news about Village Gamer’s future.

In the meantime, as we look back on the turbulence of 2009, all of us saw many local studios fade to black as they closed their doors forever. While the resulting talent pool is a boon to the other remaining and opening-soon studios, it was still sad to see the game development landscape go through such a major shift. I can only hope that 2010 will bring a brighter outlook for BC’s development industry, especially as we welcome new studios and production houses – let’s all hope that the closing of studios has ended with the passing of this first decade of the 21st century.

This past year also saw the merging of New Media BC and winBC to become DigiBC. This is an event which I am still not convinced was the best move for a provincial industry association, but I will save that opinion for a later post. The digital media industry has grown in both strength and exposure in recent years – not just in Canada but globally, and as provincial governments now vie to have the biggest studios in their respective provinces, we see even more shifting of the digital landscape. This is one of those times when I wish that our country was more united and willing to work together for the betterment of all Canadians instead of just looking out for their own provincial interests. I am in agreement with those involved with the Canada 3.0 forum – we need a viable national strategy, because the times are-a-changing and Canada, while it’s a big country, isn’t really big enough to successfully maintain a hostile and competitive atmosphere among regions as the digital technology industry matures.

High points for my year included attending the first GDC Canada conference and being included as a speaker at the Women In Games Leadership Forum held during July’s Casual Connect Seattle. They were both fantastic experiences for me, and now I just need all of you to stop buying Lotto 6/49 tickets so that I can win and thus afford to go to all of the other great industry conferences and events which are held nationally and internationally.

I think that I will have to give my “Most Memorable Keynote of 2009″ award to Ubisoft Montreal’s Clint Hocking. His presentation during Vancouver Film School’s Game Design Expo was truly entertaining – and I believe I even learned a few things from it. This of course leads into my continuing appreciation of, and respect for, the quality of talent coming from our local post-secondary schools – the graduates from VanArts, AI, Emily Carr, VFS and MDM have much to be proud of and build on as they make their way into the digital media development industry, and I wish them all the best of luck on their journeys.

My top game picks for the year have to be Prototype, Academy of Champions Soccer, Dragon Age: Origins and Assassin’s Creed 2. Now, you may wonder how a family-friendly sports title made it into my top picks for the year, particularly when I am known for preferring games which involve death, destruction and total mayhem.  I think it’s just because Academy of Champions is simply fun to play, and I appreciate the quality which the Ubisoft Vancouver team presented in their debut title. I think it says much for our Canadian titles when I’ve had Modern Warfare 2 since its release date, and I still haven’t played it. At least Scott and Mike are getting my money’s worth for its purchase.

I will be forever grateful to the Ubisoft Montreal team for making it possible for Ezio to swim in Assassin’s Creed 2 – this has greatly reduced the incidences of death usually experienced by my characters. Unfortunately, I reverted to Assassin’s Creed 1 after completing AC2, and belatedly remembered that Altair did not possess the same skill as his Italian descendant. It may be better for him if I just avoid rivers and canals whenever possible, except in times of extreme importance, such as the gathering of flags. As I said in my earlier review of Assassin’s Creed 2 – the artwork, design and research which went into this sequel is astounding, and I’m ready for the next chapter. Is it done yet?

Dragon Age: Origins has indeed become my favourite RPG title. Granted, other titles such as Guild Wars have that whole open world thing going on, but I am quite happy playing my way through Dragon Age as the various characters and testing out how the choices I make alter the game experience, something which isn’t really available in the linear world of Guild Wars. This isn’t to say I’m not looking forward to Guild Wars 2, but I think there will be much more to come from Bioware as they expand the Dragon Age franchise, and I am currently waiting somewhat impatiently for January 5 to roll around so that I can return to Ostagar. I also hope that there will be more Dragon Age novels to look forward to, because I certainly enjoyed the first two.

As for my other choice in top Canadian games, Prototype from Radical Entertainment opened up a whole new world of total destruction for me. I have enjoyed countless hours of just using Alex Mercer’s superhuman talents to cause a whole lot of mayhem among the NPCs of his New York City. I like the fact that I can choose to either work through missions (all of which I’ve completed) or make use of the free play feature to see how much damage I can cause to the corrupt military force and the infected citizens of the city. Too bad about the collateral casualties though. They truly were accidental. For the most part. This is another title which I am hoping has an expansion or sequel to look forward to, but trying to get any info out of Kelly and Dave is like trying to climb the Empire State Building to get the orb someone thoughtfully placed at very the top.

Now that I’ve told you what my top game picks are for the year, I hope you’ll head over to our Readers’ Choice Canadian Video Game Awards page and take 2 or 3 minutes to vote on your top choices from 2009. All of the nominations came from readers, friends, relatives and anyone else we could torture needlessly for suggestions.

In closing, we hope to see you at the next Vancouver Interactive Night Out (VINO) which will be happening at Yagger’s on West Pender this January 15th – and hopefully the traffic situation will not be as demonic as it was in December, so we’ll actually be there on time instead of an hour late. Remember too that Global Game Jam is happening this month at several locations across Canada and promises to be lots of fun.

The rules are few and simple:

* Nominated titles must have been released between January 1 and December 31 2009.
* Nominated titles must have been developed by a Canadian studio.
* Components for a Foreign Title means levels, features, audio or world object designs made in Canada for a title by a non-Canadian developer – please name Game, Studio and Components developed.
* Nominations close at midnight on December 31 2009.
* Round One Public Voting for the Top Ten begins on January 1 2010 and closes on January 15 2010.
* Final Public Voting begins on January 16 2010 and closes January 31 2010.
* Winners will be announced on February 1 2010.

Good luck, everyone!

Readers’ Choice Canadian Video Game Awards

Orby

Vancouver – Yes, I have succumbed to the pressure and opened an account for Village Gamer on Twitter. Our account name on Twitter is VillageGamer – you’ll recognize Orby as our avatar if you search us out over there. It might have had something to do with Noelle Hunt Bennett (Big Fish Games) threatening to force feed Twitter lessons to me at the Casual Connect Conference next month in July. If any of you know Noelle, you know she’ll follow through with that threat, so I figured that I would beat her to the punch. Sort of. If I figure out how to use it to full advantage before the conference.

Which brings me to another small update. The Women In Games Vancouver group is partnering with Women in Games International and the IGDA to present a Leadership Development Forum on Monday July 20th at Casual Connect Seattle. The Leadership Forum, which is still being finalized, will be held at The Triple Door. I have been invited to participate on one of the panels, and if the powers that be in the Passport Office so deem, I will have new and valid “government-issued travel documents” before the conference.

In other news, I can’t believe how much our readership has grown. In just the first six months of 2009 we have doubled what we did for all of last year. As of June 17th, we’ve logged just over 2 million hits on the site and our Alexa rank has gone from over 7 million at launch to a current ranking of 468 008. So, thank you to all of you who come and read the news on Village Gamer – we appreciate your time and your support.

Thank you for sending us your news and for helping to make our first seven months online a success. We look forward to continuing our growth in 2009, along with all of the new and cool games, programmes and innovations developed by Canada’s very talented digital media industry.

All the best to you and yours in 2009 and beyond.

The revamped Mommy & Me website, will join Kaboose’s community of premium mom-focused properties and will feature daily mom-targeted content and activities, a new and improved Playgroup Finder and other valuable tools, local resources and communities led by Kaboose’s network of expert moms.

“We are very excited about partnering with Kaboose, one of the most successful family-focused online media companies in the world,” said Ken Locker, Cookie Jar Entertainment Senior Vice President, Digital Media. “As online mom experts, Kaboose will be able to offer Mommy & Me moms information and guidance on how to make the most of their time with their children on a daily basis.”

“We know that the 30 year equity in the Mommy & Me name will help to make this new venture a success,” said Alexandra Aleskovsky, GM and Senior Vice President of Online Media Properties for Kaboose. “Together Kaboose and Mommy & Me look forward to being the premier website that moms with children ages 6 months to 4 years turn to for playgroups, local information, advice and their overall mom-to-mom connection online.”

The US Attorney’s office for California, Eastern District today announced the official sentencing of Gregory C. King, who had pleaded guilty earlier this year to two counts of transmitting code to cause damage to a protected computer. The charges were laid against Mr. King after four years of investigation in regards to his repeated attacks against KillaNet Technology Ltd.’s web servers as well as for a shorter attack period against the web site known as Castle Cops. KillaNet Technology Ltd. is the parent company of Village Gamer and Digital Storm LAN. Along with Mr. King’s two year Federal prison sentence is a restitution order of over $69 000.00 USD for damages. Mr. King does have a 60 day period in which to address the restitution order with the Court, after which time it will become an official order. The Assistant US Attorney in charge of the case, Matthew Segal, thanked KillaNet’s staff for the amount of work which was done in providing evidence and documentation to support the case.

Everyone here at KillaNet Technology is very grateful to those who worked so hard to see this case through – the FBI agents in Sacramento, and of course Matthew Segal and his team in the US Attorney’s office, also in Sacramento.

Official Press Release (PDF)

This case arose from Greg King’s continual botnet attacks and hacking attempts against Village Gamer’s parent company, KillaNet Technology Ltd., dating back to early in 2004. The non-profit volunteer-run digital media resource community often withstood DDoS attacks of thousands of megabytes per second, which often resulted in damage to web files and databases or total web server downtime, not to mention lost time in regards to community development and the loss of many hours of family time.

Thanks to their commitment to the case and the hard work of FBI Special Agent Brian Scott and US Attorney Matt Segal, the KillaNet Technology community is very happy to see an end in sight to this ordeal, and will be looking forward to the date of Greg King’s sentencing to US Federal prison.

A copy of the official US State Attorney’s office press release is available here in pdf format.

If anyone is wondering where all of our servers disappeared to, there was an electrical fire and explosion in the Houston data centre Saturday afternoon which effectively knocked the whole building offline as there was no power, and the fire department ordered the generators disconnected. I know we should be very grateful – and we are – that the explosion and resulting fire weren’t much worse. At least we still have our servers and didn’t suffer any data loss. Of course, it’s also a great thing that no one working at the data centre was injured.

As you can tell, the centre now has power and we are once again online with all servers and sites functioning, including the IRC. So – welcome back.

There may be some intermittent outages over the next two weeks as rebuilding takes place in the data centre, and when they take Phase 1 off of generator power and integrate it back in with full building power. This will most likely be done on a Saturday night, which is when our servers are at their quietest. In the meantime, we will hopefully remain online without problems and continue moving ahead with the development of this site.