Village Gamer

The love affair between Canadians and their smartphones intensified in 2012. According to the latest Rogers Innovation Report, commissioned by Vision Critical and released today by Rogers Communications, Nomophobia – the state of stress caused by being away from your smartphone – has gripped Canadian smartphone users. Sixty five per cent say they feel naked without their smartphone and Internet access. A little over half sleep with their device next to them, and 82 per cent use their smartphone in the bathroom. Over half say they check their mobile device before brushing their teeth in the morning. Read the rest of this entry »

Adrian Crook & Associates Inc. is hiring a full-time biz dev person to help the company drive a 2-3x gross revenue increase over the next 18 months. This is an awesome opportunity for someone good at what they do to step into a senior position with a five year old consulting agency that consistently turns over very solid revenues and has as clients many of the biggest firms in the industry. AC+A is a harmoniously gelled team of creative and technical pros who’ve worked together for ages, talk constantly and aren’t insufferably pretentious.  Read the rest of this entry »

Communique from the Unity team: We wanted to notify you about a new Unity 4 contest that has launched at Unity3d.com. Unity 4 brings you the fast rendering power and visual brilliance of DirectX 11. Our collaborative project with Passion Pictures,  The Butterfly Effect, shows the incredible level of visual fidelity possible with Unity and DirectX 11. Now we want to see what you can come up with. Create a DirectX 11 enabled project with Unity 4. Make it so beautiful that we won’t want to take our eyes off it, and then send it to us for a chance to win $10,000 and a trip to Unite 2013. Get your ideas going, gather your team and start creating with Unity 4 and DirectX 11.

AJB Software Design, Inc., a leader in integrated payment solutions, today announced that its FIPay suite of payment products have achieved PCI’s PA-DSS 2.0 validation, and its RTS products are projected to be PA-DSS 2.0 validated by Q1 2013, well in advance of the October 28^th, 2013 deadline, which requires merchants to upgrade from the existing PA-DSS version 1.2.1. The newer PA-DSS 2.0 standard is in effect for new payment applications until October 28^th, 2016. Read the rest of this entry »

Bluedrop Performance Learning has announced that registered charities and not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) in Canada and the U.S. will be receiving a different kind of gift for their staff this holiday season.  Bluedrop is donating 5,000 seats from their most popular online professional training courses to help NPOs upgrade their staff skills. Read the rest of this entry »

Hot on the heels of a wave of new apps released last week, HootSuite has brought together another great batch of tools into the App Directory for users to enjoy. Users on all plans will have access to these new apps, which include Nimble, StockTwits, and YUPIQ—all very useful plugins with a social business focus. The HootSuite App Directory has now grown to include 44 apps in just over a year. HootSuite users can add the various apps to their dashboard and use many of their favorites without ever leaving HootSuite. If you haven’t already, check them out and install some apps today! Once you start, you’ll get even more value out of the web’s favorite social media management system. Read the rest of this entry »

The Writers’ Trust of Canada has announced the appointment of Mary Osborne as the organization’s new Executive Director. She will replace Don Oravec, who announced his retirement earlier this year after nine years with the Writers’ Trust. Osborne assumes the role in January 2013. Read the rest of this entry »

Turn on your Rudolph mp3, pour yourself a low-fat cocoa and curl up beside the faux fireplace with your cellphone: the winter holidays have entered the 21st century and are playing out before our eyes on social media. HootSuite has gotten into the holiday spirit with a dedicated Holiday social media command center, gathering together all the treats Twitter and Facebook have to offer this December. Anyone in the retail industry knows what a valuable time of year this is, but also how hectic and even frustrating it can be for customers. Understanding the real-time sentiment of seasonal shoppers will give businesses insight on how their clients are feeling about stores, products and the shopping experience in general. Read the rest of this entry »

Online combat strategy game developer Kixeye announced yesterday that it is expanding to Canada, and will be opening a new game development studio based in Victoria. This marks the third office for Kixeye, and second international studio opened this year, previously announcing its expansion to Brisbane, Australia. Kixeye Canada is actively staffing up to begin work on new special projects. Read the rest of this entry »

Can a triple-A franchise adapt in an evolving industry? What does the future really hold for game design? Is there room in social games for the ‘core’ gamer? These are just a few of the tough questions industry leaders will tackle at Game Design Expo 2013 this January. Ticketholders at Industry Speaker Day (Saturday, January 19) will join in on an exclusive day of presentations and panels. Read the rest of this entry »