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Advice from the Game Developer's Conference

"In this episode of the Ars Technicast, we talk about where we think the industry is headed and which new players might have real impact. Senior Apple Editor Jacqui Cheng, Social Editor Cesar Torres, and Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson join Kyle in a discussion about hardware, software, and indie development issues."

DICE Summit talk from Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney on exponentially increasing computing power and its impact on games

"Kim Swift has built a name fohttp://groups.diigo.com/group/becker-video-game-designr herself as a creative indie game developer. She was the lead designer of Valve's highly original Portal game. While a student at Digipen, she co-created a project dubbed Narbacular Drop, which served as the inspiration for Portal."

Jane McGonical of Princeton's Institute for the Future makes the case for video game playing and real world applications of the technology. An example she uses is the knowledge base created by World of Warcraft users, the size of which rivals Wikipedia. She contradicts popular images of gamers as solitary and isolated, showing instead community-building and the self-valuation and validation gamers experience from collaborating with others of like interest. She goes on to describe real-world applications of video games, current and potential

"At the April 22 Edtech MeetUp, educators, business friends, and community members will be invited to experience the excitement and engagement of game based learning. Through interactive play, attendees will explore the digital worlds that are shaping curricula across the world. Specifically, the Minecraft digital sandbox will be on full display so attendees can dive into this fascinating digital realm. After a short series of talks by Professor Seann Dikkers and EdTech Link Fellows Molly Adams and Justin Eames on utilizing games in their classrooms, attendees will circulate through the Federal Hill Rec 2 Tech center and play several educational games, including Minecraft, Portal II, and World of Warcraft."

"This course will walk you through the major components of building GRITS, an HTML5 game. We'll talk about how to take standard game development techniques, and use them to create high performance HTML5 applications."

"In any sufficiently sized government, it's going to be pretty easy to cherry-pick examples of programs that seem wasteful or unnecessary. So it's not too surprising that Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is able to do just that each year with his headline-grabbing "Waste Book," listing 100 examples of extraneous spending in the US government. ... But when the Waste Book deals with federal grants for a number of video game-related projects, it seems to write them off without considering the important scientific and artistic goals the projects achieve. While Coburn appears to believe it's self-evident that anything related to games couldn't possibly be worthy of federal funding, talking to the people behind these projects shows taxpayer dollars are going to much more than mindless entertainment."

"If you saw some odd costumes wandering the streets of Boston this past weekend, chances are they were en route to a games-related event (I'm talking about you, Anime aficionados). The one I attended, MIT's Business in Gaming conference, contained more suit-clad attendees than outlandish hairdos and capes (thank goodness)."

"Jane McGonigal's Super Better: A game for your health (video) The renowned game designer sits down with SmartPlanet's Sumi Das to talk about her new online social game, which debuts today and promises to help people build their personal resilience against health ailments."

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.

"Editor's note: Ann DeMarle is director of the Emergent Media Center and associate professor of communication and creative media at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. "(CNN) Talking about Champlain's game development degree programs.

"Beacon Hill Chat is a program with interesting people talking about the interesting things going on in Central Massachusetts. Senator Chandler's guest is Timothy Loew, the Executive Director of Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (Mass DiGi)on the Becker College campus."

Trying to build on the success of the Wii, Nintendo game designer Shgeru Miyamoto talks about new directions for his company's games, the next console, 3D and competition from smartphones and mobile games