Village Gamer

First Annual Game Developers Conference® Canada Announced: May 12-13, 2009, Vancouver, BC

Vancouver – Registration is now open for the Game Developers Conference® Canada (GDC Canada). Building off of the success of the Vancouver International Games Summit (VIGS), GDC Canada will be a forum for Canadian developers to share best practices for fostering ingenuity and quality games. Presented by Think Services Games Group and Reboot Communications, GDC Canada will take place May 12-13, 2009 at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre (VCEC) in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Conference is offering a special registration period for those who have attended past VIGS events. Paid conference delegates to either the 2007 or 2008 VIGS are entitled to special alumni savings of up to 25% on conference passes. Those who qualify for Alumni Rates will receive an email directly from GDC Canada which will give further registration details.

GDC Canada Conference Tracks

The Game Developers Conference® Canada emphasizes studying the challenges and opportunities of creating games with long production cycles, large development teams, and multi-platform releases. Unique to GDC Canada’s content lineup, is its focus on the production cycle of game development with tracks focused on:

• Concept/Preproduction
• Production
• Finalling
• Post Launch/Analysis

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Video Game Play and Addiction – A Guide For Parents
Author: Kourosh Dini, MD
April 2008
151 pages

Update: Video Game Play & Addiction has received a 2009 Silver Award from Mom’s Choice Awards in the Resources category.

This book impressed me from the moment I cracked the cover and began reading. Kourosh Dini has written the most comprehensive, wide-view truth about game play and addiction book that I have read to-date.

In no way is this book stuffy or full of statistics and scientific mumbo-jumbo; instead, Dini uses a common-sense approach to the topic, but he does not limit his discussion solely to children who are addicted to video games. He begins by talking about the positive aspects of gaming, and why humans like to game – to learn and to enjoy the aspects of play in our lives. Play and Addiction gets extra points from me because the author discusses the fact that our school systems are very outdated and no longer meet the needs of our tech-savvy children.

Parents are also encouraged to be an active part of their child’s game play – observe, participate – learn and play together. I think that this is a very important section of the book, because as parents in a high-achievement oriented business world, time to play and connect with our children can often become a lower priority. One of the biggest benefits of following Dini’s suggestions is that we remain able to converse with our children, to know who they are, what they are doing, and why they like to play the games they do.
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Vancouver – Canadian technology companies will bid for share of venture capital dollars at the 12th Annual Canadian Financing Forum on January 29, 2009 in Vancouver. The Forum is a highly recognized event, attracting top tier Canadian and international venture capitalists to meet with the best and most promising growth companies in Canada.

“Given the current economic environment, the Forum is vital to turn innovative ideas of early-stage companies into economic successes,” said Greg Aasen, Chair of the BC Innovation Council, a full sponsor of the Forum. “These companies can reshape industries across many sectors and provide benefit to communities beyond BC’s borders.”

Running from 8 am to 6 pm at the Hyatt Regency in Vancouver, this one-day event is attended by a wide range of Canadian and US venture capital firms who look forward to connecting with entrepreneurs offering leading-edge ideas in some of the most progressive areas.

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Montreal – Spread 3D art across the internet: having become the destination site for 3D artists looking to show off their artwork in 3D, Presto3D.com extends these frontiers by allowing 3D previews to be embedded anywhere on the web. Presto 3D is a marketplace for digital 3D models. Models can be submitted for sale by anyone, and are sold royalty free, with the artist earning a commission on each sale.

Like on YouTube or many other websites, anyone can embed a preview of a 3D model on any website or blog. The preview will appear just as it does on Presto3D.com, and contain links back to other work by that artist.
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Mississauga – NEEZO Animation has completed the show introduction to Positive Living in time for the show’s launch January 2009.

Executive Producer Aida Memisevic has created Positive Living to inspire and educate viewers to achieve fulfillment and happiness in their lives.  It is essentially about the science behind success, and each half hour episode will feature internationally acclaimed authorities who will discuss these principles.

NEEZO has created the complete broadcast design for Positive Living, as well as an animated character that will be used within the show for various purposes.

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Montreal – HMS Software, a leading provider of project management and enterprise timesheet systems is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The Montreal-based company continues to specialize in project-oriented products and services and has expanded operations this year.

“It’s a remarkable milestone in the history of the company,” said Chris Vandersluis, President and founder of HMS. “When we got started in 1984, we’d never have imagined a company that would have had such a worldwide impact and that we’d still be here, thriving, 25 years later.”

HMS has established a reputation as a world class provider of enterprise project management and enterprise timesheet systems for mid-to-large-sized organizations. HMS has two main components to its business: the HMS services business that assists organizations in deploying enterprise project management systems and designing the organizational processes that such systems require and is also the publisher of TimeControl, an enterprise timesheet system that has sold over 100,000 licenses worldwide.
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Special edition HP Mini designed by renowned fashion designer Vivienne Tam

Toronto – Digital divas rejoice! Best Buy Canada and HP today announce the retail launch of the HP Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam Edition. Designed with the fashion-conscious consumer in mind, this digital clutch represents the first partnership between a computer company and a world-renowned fashion designer to personalize a product for the fashion-forward, trend-setting digital diva.

“The HP Mini Vivienne Tam Edition is the ultimate tech accessory for fashion-conscious consumers,” said Loveena Chera, director of marketing, Best Buy Canada. “Integrating the latest in fashion and technology, we are pleased to partner with HP on this initiative as they understand the increasing demand we see from our customers for electronics that reflect personal style and design, as well as functionality and portability.”
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Astral Media Inc. is proud to announce its support for the Institute of Communication Agencies and Virgin Unite during Canada’s 2009 Advertising Week. In the “A day in the life of an agency” contest targeting young aspiring marketing and advertising students Astral Media will contribute $100 000 in media space on the Company’s out-of-home and radio advertising platforms to the winning student campaign.

The 2009 Advertising Week takes place from January 26 to the 29, a week-long celebration of the business of ideas and communication. As part of “Youth Day,” one of AdWeek’s key events, Astral Media is actively sponsoring the A day in the life of an agency contest, which will involve 150 students working in teams with 15 agencies on a communications brief to promote a benefit concert for Virgin Mobile and Virgin Unite’s RE(*)Generation program. Students will be mentored by various ad agency teams in building a campaign during the course of an intense morning of brainstorming. The winners will have the benefit of seeing their advertising concept developed and publicized on Astral Media’s out-of-home and radio properties in Toronto and Vancouver during the course of the summer.

“This is an exciting opportunity for Astral Media to demonstrate its ongoing investment in developing tomorrow’s creative talent,” said Jacques Parisien, Group President, Astral Media Radio and Astral Media Outdoor. “We are always pleased to be able to showcase the country’s next generation of talent, and we look forward to seeing the creativity they apply to such an exciting project as Virgin Unite’s at-risk and homeless youth program, RE(*)Generation.”

Delivering Cutting Edge Services and Introducing Expert Staff, 6S Marketing Advances into the Social Media Scene

Vancouver – 6S Marketing, one of North America’s top internet marketing companies, announces today that it will officially expand service offerings to include social media marketing. This expansion news is further amplified by the addition of a top ranking social media expert to the 6S team. Services will allow greater impact and outreach in online presence and allow clients to market and communicate via densely populated online networks.

Jenn Lowther

“We have had our finger on the pulse of the social media scene and have offered limited services to clients over the past year. But in officially launching this new division of our business, we knew that we wanted to have a true expert and trend-setter to lead our team. Our main priority is to ensure that all of our services are absolutely cutting edge and valuable for clients.” explains Chris Breikss, Co-Founder and Director of 6S Marketing.

Spearheading the expansion for 6S is newly appointed Director of Social Media Marketing, Jenn Lowther, a highly regarded veteran of North American social media scene. Jenn joins the 6S team following a position as Social Media Strategist at Invoke and a lengthy history of similar work in the gaming and technology industries.
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Vancouver – PhotographyBB announced today the release of the twelfth edition of the PhotographyBB Magazine Online. The PhotographyBB Magazine Online is quickly becoming a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering our readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop™, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom™.

The January 2009 release features digital photography articles with tutorials to help digital photographers to learn new techniques for achieving both better photographs as well as leaning post processing skills in Adobe’s Photoshop® and Lightroom®.

“This release marks our twelfth issue for our magazine. We’ve come a long way over the past year, and the magazine has grown considerably in popularity and readership.” said Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram. “We are happy to say that we will be continuing our tradition of free monthly releases of the magazine for the coming year, with some pleasant surprises in store for our readers. Our January release features articles lending tips on taking better architecture photography, small set photography, a trip to Las Vegas, the Top Ten Lightroom Library Module tips, and much more. We’ve also got a fascinating look at how photographers are making use of social networking sites to promote themselves and their photography businesses.”

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