Village Gamer

Mob4Hire has announced the appointment of Laura Sullivan as VP, Operations. Laura holds an MBA in Venture Development from Haskayne School of Business (University of Calgary), in addition to a BGS from Athabasca University and a Diploma in Technology from BC Institute of Technology.

“It’s vital that we grow our management capabilities to help drive Mob4Hire’s accelerating international growth,” states Stephen King, CEO of Mob4Hire. “Laura is a world-class management consultant; we’re very lucky to have her deep experience, knowledge of the local tech economy / government relations, and startup expertise. She’s a great compliment to the rest of the management team.”

Laura brings broad experience in operations, finance, project and risk management, in a number of industries including Manufacturing, ICT, Retail and Health. As a Management Consultant, Laura’s clients included TransCanada Pipelines Ltd., Calgary Health Region, Bethany Care Foundation, C-mach Technologies, FoundPages and ITSportsNet. Laura’s experience in governance and advisory includes being a Director, and Chair of the Audit Committee of a $1B retail organization, Calgary Co-operative Association Ltd., as well as sitting on a number of advisory boards including the Operations Management Advisory Council for BC Institute of Technology, and International Business Advisory Council for University of Calgary. Laura currently provides governance training as part of the Alberta Board Development Program.

Since 2008, as a Program Manager at Calgary Technologies Inc., Laura has provided coaching and mentoring services to almost 100 early stage technology companies, helping them access $ Ms in funding and development.

“Mob4Hire is an exciting global company with limitless potential,” says Sullivan. “As a micro-multinational, establishing cloud-based operations is essential to scaling as we serve customers from 84 different countries. I’m looking forward to turning my focus solely to Mob4Hire’s success.”

Amidst daily news of Canada’s modest economic growth, there is a remarkable group of far-sighted employers that are offering lessons to other Canadian employers in creating exceptional places to work. Our congratulations to these Canadian Game, Mobile, and Software Developers for making the 2011 Canada’s Top Employers List:

Bioware
Digital Extremes
Research In Motion
Sophos Inc.
SAS Canada
ISM Canada
Ericsson Canada

These forward-thinking employers are treating the current economic slowdown as a rare opportunity to strengthen their organizations and pull ahead of others in their industries — and nowhere is this better illustrated than in today’s release of the 2011 winners of the Canada’s Top 100 Employers competition by Mediacorp Canada Inc.

“This is one of those moments when experience makes a difference,” says Richard Yerema, Managing Editor of the Canada’s Top 100 Employers project. “The decisions that employers make during times like these will affect their organizations for years to come, because challenging economic times also present many subtle opportunities for progress.” After a decade of writing about the nation’s top employers, Yerema adds, “today we see a calmness and desire to stay-the-course towards building better workplaces by the nation’s best employers.”

For far-sighted employers, the benefits of being considered one of the nation’s best places to work are considerable. “The elephant in the room is Canada’s changing demographic composition,” says Mediacorp Publisher Tony Meehan. “Even with modest economic growth, it will soon be nearly impossible to replace Canada’s current workforce, given current rates of immigration and labour force entry. Forward-thinking employers are seizing this opportunity to prepare for the day when not all organizations will be able attract the key people they need.”

Now entering its 12th year, the Canada’s Top 100 Employers competition is an editorial project organized by Mediacorp Canada Inc., a specialty publisher of employment guides and periodicals. To develop this year’s list, Mediacorp editors examined the recruitment histories of over 75,000 employers across Canada that it tracks for its popular job search site, Eluta.ca. From this initial group, Mediacorp invited 10,000 of the fastest-growing employers to apply, plus another 2,500 companies and organizations in industries its editors wanted to examine more closely. Employers completed an extensive application process that included a detailed review of their operations and HR practices. Over 2,750 employers started this year’s application process. Read the rest of this entry »

Montreal game publisher Meridian4 and European publisher Headup Games are pleased to announce that the unique parody/strategy/RPG – Grotesque Tactics – Evil Heroes is now available digitally for $19.99 on most digital portals and is currently on sale on Steam with a 20% discount for the first week.

Grotesque Tactics combines the features and clichés of Western and Asian console RPGs like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics and provides a highly addicting and entertaining change to the current, more serious role playing games. The game is focused on providing the fascination of the Strategy RPG genre, but also weaves a humorous storyline and plenty of amusing dialogue, poking fun at some of the most successful RPGs, such as Oblivion, Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings. In chess, a Grotesque is a problem or endgame study which features a particularly unlikely initial position, especially one in which White fights with a very small force against a much larger black army. Grotesques are generally intended to be humorous.

To protect the kingdom from the merciless cult “The Dark Church” which has murdered all of the kingdom’s heroes and knights, you will have to hire dubious soldiers and rescue jealous maidens who will follow you into combat as your groupies. Up to 10 heroes are deployed in tactical battles to take on the Dark Church with their mysterious special abilities.

Features

· Turn based tactical battles with humorous animations not seen in any RPG
· Distinctive party members such as the arrogant Holy Avatar, the blood thirsty Vampire Solitaire, the sweet but hot-tempered Angel Angelina and many more
· Gorgeous village landscapes and dark, sinister dungeons
· Scantily dressed maidens to be freed from the grasp of merciless monsters
· Enormous, highly detailed and very angry end bosses
· Classical RPG elements: quests, treasures, trade, leveling up and out­fitting a party of unique heroes
· Enjoyable multiple choice dialogues and conversation puzzles in the style of classic adventures, such as Monkey Island or Maniac Mansion

As competitive FPS fans eagerly await the arrival of Clan Mode to Mission Against Terror next week, Wicked Interactive pulled out yet another surprise today when it announced a new 1v1 ladder for its popular free-to-play shooter M.A.T. that is chock-full of prizes and fun for gamers of every skill level, particularly those who enjoy their fragging with a healthy side order of competitive play. Read the rest of this entry »