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A battlefield game anticipates strategic importance of Arctic region's resources

CAMBRIDGE, MA, Mar 22, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- "The gaming industry is a harsh environment in which to start and to grow a business. It's risky, hits-driven, and traditionally receives minimal support from governments, banks, incubators, and most modern institutions devoted to nurturing new companies. How then does one survive and, ultimately, thrive? Thursday, April 5, 2012, the 4th Annual MIT Sloan Business and Gaming (BiG) Conference will gather industry insiders, independent developers, gaming enthusiasts, venture capitalists, attorneys, academics, and students from across MIT and other top-tier colleges for a day-long exploration into the business side of the gaming industry." MIT BiG is being held on the MIT Sloan campus in Cambridge, MA the day before PAX East -- one of the country's largest events celebrating gaming culture -- which takes place in Boston, making it convenient for participants to attend both conferences.

Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games: Analyzing Words, Design and Play Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture, 2012 Publisher Description: In this timely new book, Christopher Paul analyzes how the words we use to talk about video games and the structures that are produced within games shape a particular way of gaming by focusing on how games create meaning, lead to identification and division, persuade, and circulate ideas.

"The app world is becoming cluttered. The best launch initiatives are those that involve choosing strategic partners, creating clever story angles that dovetail with newsworthy occasions, and running a cause marketing campaign and contest. This case study will cover some of these tactics and offer some of the lessons we learned along the way."

Editorial by Timothy Loew, executive director of Mass DiGi, encouraging Massachusetts to tap the state's game workforce potential and avoid mistakes of Rhode Island in financing 38 Studios

"Kellian Adams worked at SCVNGR Inc. for three years in the museum department before striking out on her own in January 2012 to found Green Door Labs Inc. in Cambridge to create location-based educational games. So it's no wonder that her first collaboration was with one of the country's foremost museums - the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York."

Student game showcasing project "first jointly planned effort between USC's School of Cinematic Arts' interactive media division and its Viterbi School of Engineering's department of computer science. The two schools have offered an advanced games class together since 2007."

Tuniisan startup plans to develop several video games in the near future relying on the work of graduates from the country's only design program

Three interactive video games designed by University of Houston students chosen for competition

Web based game Phylo designed by McGill comp sci professor enables players to manipulate sequences involved in genetic diseases

"Doctors in a domed laboratory in Montreal are designing a virtual world where they hope to one day treat traumatized children with colourful avatars using toylike medical gadgets. Sensory stimulation could be used to make a burn victim feel she is encased in a block of ice."

Electronic Arts Inc. and NCAA Football announced that Richard Mancuso and Clint Oldenburg will join the EA Sports NCAA Football development team as a part of the inaugural EA Sports NCAA Football fellowship, a sixteen-week full-time, paid opportunity for former football student-athletes to apply their skills and knowledge of the sport to the development of the NCAA Football videogame.

Nominations accepted until Feb 1, public voting open March 1, awards April 3, 2012

Otis report study from 2007-2010 does note " Digital media, including software publishing and video game design and production, had robust earnings gains, with payrolls in the two counties up by a third, to $1.33 billion," although number employed actually declined

questioning dominant paradigms in video game narrative and design and studies

White House OSTP looks at games that improve health and other serious applications

" Female consumers represent 40 percent of the market," but are underrepresented in industry

Discusses companies hiring artists for game design and development, lengths which artists go to achieve realism, and traditional art colleges and programs adding video game courses and majors.

Mass DiGi summer program including eighteen students from nine colleges