Village Gamer

London, Ontario – Big Blue Bubble is proud to present “Home Sweet Home: Christmas Edition”! Christmas spirit has faded away in the town of Good Tidings. It’s up to you and your expert team of builders to help them out!

Make your clients happy by solving their riddle based requests and designing their dream room! You can design rooms in an infinite number of ways because you pick the type of furniture, its color, style, and where it goes. It’s going to take all of your New Tools and New Furniture to bring Style and Christmas Cheer to the Living Rooms, Offices, Basements, Kitchens, and Bathrooms of the townspeople.

The remarkably easy and intuitive drag and drop system and helpful tutorials will allow you jump right into designing rooms and making your clients happy. Santa needs you – so get designing!

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Toronto – Ontario is strengthening its economy with a $3.3 million investment in its cultural media industries. Sixteen initiatives received support through the province’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund. The fund was designed to help Ontario’s entertainment and creative industries grow and increase their competitive advantage in the global marketplace. The industries include commercial theatre, film and television production, interactive digital media, music recording, magazine and book publishing.

“Ontario’s cultural industries are a vital contributor to economic growth and prosperity in this province. This investment will help our cultural industries seize the economic opportunities before them and increase their competitive advantage in the global marketplace,” says Ontario’s Culture Minister Aileen Carroll.

The Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund is a three-year $7.5 million fund that was launched in September 2006 to stimulate growth in Ontario’s entertainment and creative industries by promoting capacity building, marketing, innovation and skills development. OMDC Chair, Kevin Shea said that “Since its inception, the Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund has provided support to 43 projects involving 285 partners with combined budgets of $15.9 million dollars, and the OMDC is proud to co-administer a fund that encourages innovation and fosters new business partnerships that encourage growth across Ontario’s cultural media industries and academic institutions.” The Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) is an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture that facilitates economic development opportunities for Ontario’s cultural media industries including book publishing, film and television, interactive digital media, magazine publishing, and music industries.

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Women in Games International Launches Online Auction on eBay To Raise Funds for National Games Non-Profit Organization

Women in Games International (WIGI) presents their WIGI Celebrity Ebay Auction, a collection of over a hundred video games and game-related merchandise items — much of it signed by industry leaders — being auctioned to raise funds for Women in Games International.

If there’s one thing gamers love more than games themselves, it’s awesome game-related merchandise. That’s why Women in Games International is happy to announce their 2008 celebrity auction, a collection of over 100 items generously donated by leaders in the video game industry — including Bungie, Microsoft Game Studios, Electronic Arts, and many other game companies.
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Montreal – Kovasys Inc., an IT recruitment agency in Montreal, has recently been witnessing a spike in the number of American companies crossing the border into Canada – especially Montreal- to do their software development and high tech projects. Due to the unstable economy in the US, and massive layoffs, more and more companies are deciding to save money and hire developers by nearshoring their IT operations to a cheaper yet proximate location with a stable economy. Montreal meets this criteria as it is only few hours away from Chicago, New York, and Boston, yet operating costs are up to 55-70% lower due to exchange rate and subsidies for IT companies.

Morgan Stanley, a global financial services provider from New York City, has recently settled their offices in the old district of Montreal and is in the process of hiring 700 developers. Other major companies such as SAP, Ericsson, and PC Mall, have also made Montreal their second home.
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Mississauga – Christmas shoppers looking for something different this year could be forgiven for thinking that the only new board games available these days are yet more “-opoly” variations. But this year, a Canadian game inventor is out to change that. His unique new game, “Sodbusters”, allows players to relive the adventure of settling and farming the prairie, and is now available in Peavey Mart and selected True Value stores throughout Western Canada.

“Just about everyone has one or two ‘-opoly’ games already kicking around the house,” notes Randal Heide, designer of Sodbusters. “But how often are they played? Who isn’t tired of games where all you do is roll the dice and move around the board on a track?”

Enter Sodbusters, which was not only designed in Canada but produced by a Canadian artist and a Canadian manufacturer. “When I sat down to design a game based on farming,” says Heide, “I focused on the essence of the profession: acquiring land and deciding what to raise on it. So that’s what you do in Sodbusters – no moving around a board hoping to land on a lucky space.”

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Canwest announced today it will bring together its publishing and broadcast digital teams under a single strategy and leadership. Graham Moysey will expand his role as Senior Vice President and General Manager, Canwest Publishing Digital Media to include all Canwest Broadcast Digital Media assets.

“Graham Moysey will lead a team of extremely talented people under a common strategy that will best leverage the Canwest advantage,” said Dennis Skulsky, President and CEO Canwest Publishing. “This further reinforces our commitment to invest in growth media and will allow us to scale meaningful solutions for our agency base and continue to engage our growing digital audiences.”

The move builds on recent successful cross platform initiatives including a Holiday Guide which showcases content from both broadcast and publishing digital assets and is cross promoted through various properties.
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