BEEP BEEP BEEP … that’s either the sound of a Tenacious D concert playing on Family Channel, or the sound of the OMDC MONEY TRUCK backing up to your door sometime soon.

The Ontario Media Development Corporation announced last week its Screen-Based Content Initiative, aimed at putting cash in the pockets of Ontario corporations to develop content for film, television, the Internatz, cell phones, handheld gaming devices - anything with a screen. Note that the money is for developing something. You don’t have to actually arrive at a finished product. This is great news for those of us in the (ambiguously-named) media industry, because most often, paid work takes a back seat to developing new products, as new products are often researched and developed at a loss.

Given the choice between taking a work-for-hire contract to build someone else’s games for someone else’s property, and running on fumes while we create an original product that might become economically viable and could possibly break even … or turn a profit … or not … the survival instinct kicks in, and we sign the work-for-hire contract. We’re very optimistic that we’ll end up in the running for this funding. It’s amazing to think that we’ll have something to call our own.

Everyone and His Dog

The OMDC itself admits that this initiative will stir fierce competition. i’m even wondering how far certain people will try to stretch the “screen-based” requirement. Maybe silk-screen artists will try to make a grab at the funding? Or screen door manufacturers? Or people who screen their phone calls?

The screen-based development activities that the OMDC lists as elligible include:

The top prize is $100 000, up to 75% of the project budget, until the OMDC burns through up to 2 million dollars. The rest of the details are on the OMDC site.

The Toronto Indie game dev scene steps out next Friday June 6th for the TOJam Arcade. The event wil host the 37 games that were created a few weeks back at the third annual TOJam.

i don’t want to spoil all the suprises, but here’s a sampling of the unbridled joys in store for you on that fateful day:

• smack pirates around with a dead fish using the Rock Band drum peripheral
• pit two mice with rocket launchers against a column of cheese nuggets
• flail around the office as a grotesquely disjointed desk jobber who’s abandoned all hope
• murder slices of Swiss by throwing them against the wall, and lay them in their final crackery resting places
• abuse the limits of one game’s physics to achieve a “goatality”
• survive twenty seconds in a room full of zombies before finally finding an uzi
• mash the keyboard to survive an insect uprising
• randomly click the mouse buttons and shriek with delight

Aha!!

Pursuant to my recent shocking exposé of the Canadian New Media “Awards”, i received this scathing indictment detailing how the awards are used solely for personal gain right from the self-congratulatory horse’s mouth, the CNMA newsletter:

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Make a CNMA Submission:

* Get recognition and gain national exposure in front of the industry leaders and decision-markers.
* Expand your professional connections & network.
* Extensive national & international promotion.

Take advantage of our Early Bird prices and receive a discount on all nominations received before April 20th at 5pm EST.

Read carefully: that’s not a list of perks for award nominees. That’s a list of perks for award nominators.

i’m glad the CNMA organizers composed this list. It wouldn’t have naturally sprung to mind that i could pay $150 to nominate someone for an award to make myself look good.

Why don’t we just skip the middle man, and i’ll just cut you a cheque for one of your statues? Don’t worry about whose name and project are engraved on it - i’ll think of something.

And here’s a reminder to my readers to send me your hand-crafted, doodled, or macaroni-noodled award for Best Whatever for Untold Entertainment Inc., so that we can join the ranks of other Canadian companies who don’t necessarily deserve the recognition.

Various online sources have reported that Toronto-based console game studio Pseudo Interactive has crumbled after their latest project was cancelled by their publisher, Eidos. Strangely, all sources point to 1Up as the root of the rumour, but i can’t seem to find the item over there.

If it’s true, it would be somewhat of a shame. The Ontario government has been trying to kickstart its very small, lowkey games industry lately. With so few Ontario companies in the business, it hurts to see one go.

i also find the nature of the business very interesting. Pseudo was one of these studios that would spend a few years on a single project for a single publisher, for delivery on home consoles. It smacks to me of a business model where you put all your eggs in one basket. If that basket decides to cancel egg collection altogether, you wind up having to close the whole thing down.

i much prefer working for a company with smaller projects. i like the fluidity. If one of our contracts was cancelled, Flash developers are in high enough demand that we could easily scare up some new business up the street. Rich media games and applications cover a wide spectrum of fields, including entertainment, education, training, and marketing. Everybody needs Flash development right now.

That’s why when i advise colleges on their game design programs, i strongly encourage them to beef up their Flash course offerings. It’s not because i’m after teaching jobs - it’s because i find that online rich media development is a far more forgiving, multi-disciplinary and potentially more lucrative venture than the console gaming juggernaut.

The trouble is that casual online games aren’t “real” games. i’ve had many people ask me what i do, and i when i say i make games, they say “ooh! Like Grand Theft Auto? i like Grand Theft Auto.” i say “No - i make online games, not console games.” Their faces fall. “Oh. So not real games.”

If the perception persists that the only valid type of game creation is console development, then colleges will forever be stuck offering courses in Unreal Engine 3 to attract people to the program. What we’ll end up with is a province full of unemployed level designers … if we’re not there already.

i received an exciting email blast yesterday from the Canadian New Media “Awards”. It was exciting! And blasting!

The email invited me to “nominate your colleagues, friends, and even yourself for any of the 15 categories!” Wow! 15 categories! And i can nominate my colleagues, friends, or even myself. Even myself! Well, that sounds a bit tacky, doesn’t it? If my work is ever nominated, i’d like some third party to genuinely feel that my stuff actually deserves an award.

Then i visited the Canadian New Media “Awards’” submissions page:

Category Fee

Product $175

Individual $100

Company $150

Wha??

Say It Ain’t So, Joe!

Now i’m not so naive to think that we live in a happy chocolate rainbow-coated world where everyone throws their guns and bombs in the ocean, and where the Canadian New Media “Awards” are staffed by cuddly bunnies with an infinite amount of time to review piles and piles of submissions for free. But come ON - spend a year in this industry and you’ll see that it’s not that big. There is a finite number of eilligible companies producing a finite number of projects, and of those projects, i suspect that only a handful are worth a look, let alone an award.

i’m not sure why the e-blast invited me to nominate my colleagues, my friends, or even myself. Even myself, as though there were a slim possibility of that happening. At a hundred and fifty bucks per submission, who else am i going to nominate?

Do companies spend a hundred and fifty bucks nominating each other as a sort of compliment? i’m sure they do … it’s similar to sending a bouquet of flowers, i suppose. The trouble i see is that no one is then turning around and saying “this is the best bouquet of flowers recipient Canada has to offer! Let’s give them an award!”

It’s not a far cry from the likes of J.D. Power and Associates, where (allegedly) car companies can buy a high Customer Satisfaction rating. If companies are either nominating themselves, or nominating each other as a sort of quid pro quo business manoeuvre, do the Canadian New Media “Awards” really reflect the best new media our noble Dominion?

Perhaps not. But i’m sure the thought does not cross anyone’s mind when this or that company boasts the number of Canadian New Media “Awards” they’ve bought - *erp!* - i mean won. i’ve seen many companies who pull the even slimier tactic of billing themselves as “award-winning”, not even bothering to state which award(s) the’ve won.

That’s what i’m planning to do, anyway. But i need your help.

If you avidly read this blog and would like to doodle an interesting award on a napkin or fashion one from tinfoil, and then honour Untold Entertainment Inc. with that award, send me a scan or a picture and i’ll post it here. Please be sure to choose a creative pet name for your award, like “Murph” or “The Hickey”. It would also be fun to attribute your award to some crazy imaginary benefactor, like J.D. Power or Captain O.G. Readmore.

Come on, friends! Untold Entertainment deserves an ill-gotten award as much as any other Canadian new media company. Break out those napkins and get doodling!

Details have been announced for the third annual TOJam, wherein a gaggle (a peck? a herd? a murder?) of sweaty developers descends upon a predetermined location and hole themselves up in a room to create games. What sorts of games? Complete and fully wild and woolly indie games, of the sort that could only have resulted from a weekend of zero sunshine or regular human contact.

A Semi-Cultural Institution

i’m a big supporter of TOJam, having put in my own compacted 40 hours last year to produce Two by Two, a simple Noah’s Ark-themed matching game mapped to a cube. Other titles that resulted from last year’s jam included an anime-style giant robot fighting game, a few music rhythm games, an abstract geometric shooter, a Robotron-style actioner starring televangelist Benny Hinn, and far more besides.

i can’t list them all, because unfortunately the climax of the event is its weakest element; rather than showcasing each game in a spotlight session with a captive audience, attendees wander the room, tripping over empty Cheetos bags and passed-out developers, trying any games they happen upon. i missed about half of the games last year because some computers weren’t properly labelled, some machines were facing the wall, and some workstations smelled a little too strongly of three-day-old pepperoni sticks for me to approach.

TOJam2’s follow-up event last year was very well attended but very poorly organized. The good news is that this year’s event looks to be well-loved by its organizers, who are trying to arrange an arcade day where the public can try out all the titles. The TOJam site has been turned up to 11 this year, with an excellent section on what to do with your game when you’re finished. My kudos and thanks go to the organizers for a great list of links and resources.

Make a Game, Fatty

If you’ve got a game idea you’ve been back-burning and have any game-making skillz whatsoever, sign up now! Space is limited, especially if you’re morbidly obese, which you most likely are. TOJam organizers can provide you with two chairs if that’s the case.

So grab your cane, and slowly hoist yourself off your enormous rump. Go forth and game!

i’ve been asked to speak at ICE 08 as a last-minute replacement. ICE, or Interactive Content Exchange, is Interactive Ontario’s major annual event. The conference draws broadcast, mobile, online and console delegates from as far away as Sudbury.

ICE is also an acronym for the International Congress of Entomology, and a trade show for the gambling industry. So if you lose your house in a business deal or you feel something unpleasant crawling up your leg, you may still be at the right conference. *drum fill*

If you came to the site from the conference and clicked on the Blog Monster, you most likely want to see what we’re all about. Our Games gallery is slim pickins these days, because all the interesting development is going on behind the scenes:

We’re creating five games for a Canadian kids’ teevee production company. The site will launch this summer.

We’re building two games that will be accessible to both deaf and blind players (that is to say, players with one disability or the other … Helen Keller would have a bit of trouble).

Additionally, we have been invited by two different companies to create two massively multiplayer online game demos. One of these companies wrote the book on the genre. We are extremely excited to be working with them!

If you’re here in the midst of a boring panel (hopefully not the one i’m on), here are a few Untold Entertainment articles for your interest:

The Democratization of Game Development

This year’s trend at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco was the sit back, relax, and let your players build the game for you. i approve.

Prince of Persia, Prince of Peace

A mercifully brief jog through the history of Christian video games, and why i’m thankful that Jesus forgives.

Ryan Creighton on The Agenda with Steve Paikin

Steve grills me on gaming for the elderly, mass market video games and how EA’s Rock Band will save the music industry.

Kids Eagerly Await Nickelodeon’s Next Shipment of Ass

How a supposedly legitimate children’s broadcaster shovels schlock to its young audience, right under parents’ noses.

Canadian Game Journalism: Not Worth It

A serious number-crunching leads to the conclusion that Canadian game journalism rivals a McJob.

Video Games Teach Kids to Gamble

Twenty hours into every Pokémon game, the (likely) pre-teen player walks into a full-fledged casino. At a time when bashing video games is en vogue, this topic is conspicuously missing its fair share of outrage.

i heard a wonderful rumour this past week that infamous scam school International Academy of Design and Technology, which gets a lot of play on sites like Ripoff Report, is closing its doors in March 2009. A quick look around my trusty Internets confirms it. i hope you will join me next March in dancing on whatever grave it winds up in.

This is like finding out that your cats can talk, or that vegetables are made of chocolate. i am so happy to see that this con is finally ending, but a little upset that it took so long, and that it ended without newsreel footage of white men in suits getting their heads pushed into the back of a squad car. It’s also a letdown that so many kids fell prey to the school’s technological wiles over the year. i was not one of them. i’ve never had that much money to squander foolishly, thank God.

So what are we left with? As for Toronto, we have a growing number of colleges and now Universities who are trying to ensnare high school grads with their “Game Design” courses. i’m actually on the advisory board for a few of these. In at least one program, the students’ final project is a walk-through of a first-person shooter level using Unreal Engine 3. That’s game design? Really? i’d thought that a game design program might end in something that has the feel of more of a um … like a game, really. You know? Something interactive, like games tend to be?

If you are unlucky enough to have been lured by this latest “Game Design Program” bait by the for-profit college sector, let me recount to you a conversation i had with one of the program heads of a Southern Ontario college that shall remain nameless:

Me: Unreal Engine is sexy and everything, but if you want these kids to be able to feed themselves after they graduate, why don’t you teach them some more Flash courses? This city (and the planet Earth, as i later found out at GDC last week) is desperate for people who can use Flash. It’s easier to break into, it’s easier to make a quick buck doing freelance, it’s easier to find full time employment at a reputable firm …

Program Head: Oh, no. No no no. No - we’re not here to help these kids find jobs.

Me: You’re uh … you’re not?

Program Head: No! Hahahha. No. They’re here to explore themselves and really … really feel a sense of their own creativity and artistic awakening.

Ahem. i ask you, College Students of Today: are you paying thousands of dollars in tuition and living on beans and toast so that you can “feel a sense of your own creativity and artistic awakening” ? Or do you want to learn some marketable skillz and get PAID, yo? Get your “bling” and your “rims” and your “bitches n ho’s”, and all that other stuff you young people are into.

Thought so. The next time you think your college is in the business of advancing your career or teaching you what you need to know, give yourself a reality check: it’s a business like any other. Take your education into your own hands and make sure you learn something that will pay the bills.

Freebie: “Bitches n’ Ho’s” would make an excellent snack food name. Take it - it’s all yours.

Sorry for the misleading title. There’s absolutely no way you can attend the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on a dollar a day unless you engage in a list of unsavoury activities, including but not limited to trespassing, mugging, and impersonating a Valve employee (which is apparently a capital offense in California due to a strange legal precedent set in 2001).

There are, as i’ve discovered, ways to get here by hemorrhaging less money than usual, which i will presently document for your reading pleasure:

1. Alumnus/Early Bird pass pricing.

This is an obvious one, and it requires a little advance planning and foresight. If you’ve ever attended GDC and are on the conference’s mailing list, a few months prior to the event you’ll be offered a special discount price. For the rest of us plebes, there’s the early bird price, which cuts off a month and a half before the event. The difference in an all-access pass at the regular price and the early bird price is around five hundred bucks, so it’s worth your while to plan a trip to GDC in advance.

2. Volunteer program.

A great option for students and hobos, the volunteer program requires you to write an essay or two on why you’re a worthy charity case. If you’re accepted into the program, you’re required to pull twenty hours of “stand around in a pink shirt duty” before you’re given a free all-access pass, though i’m not sure how much of the conference is left to be seen once you’ve sunk your twenty hours. The program also heavily subsidizes your accommodations by reducing, for example, a $275/night room at the San Francisco Hilton down to $50/night. The hitch is that you might have to share a queen-sized bed with another volunteer whom you’ve never met. This, in my opinion, is an excellent way to make new contacts and form fast friendships. Call it up close and personal networking.

“Where’s your other hand?”

“Between two pillows.”

“THOSE AREN’T PILLOWS!!!!”

Cue hilarity.

3. Off-peak airline deals.

i ran into one delegate who had purchased an unlimited air travel package from Air Canada for the sum of - i think - $1600? This enabled him to fly anywhere in North America, weekends and Tuesdays only, for two months. Unlimited. That’s what i call “a steal”. Almost literally. It’s like he’d put an airplane in his pocket and tried to smuggle it out of the airport.

4. Media credentials.

Like most other big conferences, if you’re able to prove your media credentials, you can get a conference pass for free. i’ve never tried for one, though i’m sure i could qualify. If it’s anything like E3 used to be, you have only to kick up a fan blog a few months prior to the event to lay claim to a pass. Indeed, i hope it’s a little more difficult than that, otherwise GDC may turn into what E3 had become at its most bloated: a fan convention for tourists.

5. The OMDC Export Fund.

Of interest only to Ontario game and new media companies, the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Export Fund subsidizes a good part of your trip in exchange for … your mortal soul? i’m not sure. i haven’t looked into it. But it’s possible that if you live in Iowa or Behrain or some place without a booming game-based economy, your local government is looking to create a booming game-based economy, so ask around. Free money never hurt anyone. Unless that money was rolled into wads and packed into your rectum in a heavily-lubricated condom so that you could mule it over the Turkish border. Sources say that hurts quite a bit, thank you very much.

6. Contests and events.

Some folks i know received a little help with their trip last year by entering their game into a competition that was featured during the conference. i don’t know the details, but i do know that many of these contests and awards have some of the longest lead times in advance of the conference, so if you hope to cut costs for next year, start designing your indie game masterpiece now.

This year, Untold Entertainment will NOT be covering the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco. We will NOT bring you all the highlights and up-to-the-minute news, and we are NOT your best source for the latest in video game interviews and announcements.

i’ve pulled double-duty at every conference i’ve attended, being both a delegate and a member of the press for an online kids’ gaming magazine. This commitment has seen me hauling a one-man arsenal of recording equipment across gaping conference halls, eating bag lunches on the floor near electrical outlets to recharge my batteries, and experiencing everything through the limiting lens of a video camera.

i’m a nervous traveller - one of these types who has trouble juggling his passport, plane tickets and doffed shoes at airport security. i could do without having to futz with camera bags and headphone cables everywhere i go. i remember one year at E3, i was with a small group of reporters interviewing Peter Moore, then marketing manager for Microsoft’s XBox. i couldn’t take interview notes to save my life, so i’d brought along a mini-disc recorder. After playing cat’s cradle with the tangle of microphone cords, i finally wrangled the little omni-mic onto the table and started the interview. The recorder issued a “Battery Totally Dead” beep before i could slip it into my pocket and pretend that everything was okay.

One of the other journalists called my bluff. “i don’t think that thing’s recording,” he said. “Sure it is.” He looked doubtful. “How come the LED on the mic isn’t lit?” “i uh … i turned it off.”

“There’s an independant toggle switch for the power LED?” The chinks in my armour were starting to show.

The interviewee’s time was short, so we started into it. And all the while, i pretended stubbornly that the recorder was working, not fooling anyone.

Another time, i managed to get pro skater Tony Hawk to give a quick shout-out to my camera. i was ecstatic! When i reviewed the footage later, i saw one long shot of my shoes. The camera panned up to Hawk’s face. There was a cut. Then Tony Hawk disappeared into a crowd of handlers and hangers-on.

Later in the show, i was nearly murdered by a very large bodyguard who didn’t want me taking any footage of the back of Steven Spielberg’s head. i quickly calculated that my grainy footage of Spielberg’s yarmulke wasn’t worth a cracked spine, so i put the camera away. But i still used the half-second of footage i caught before chickening out in my final piece!

So this year, with my ties to the press voluntarily severed, i head off to San Francisco a free man. The Matt Cassamassinas of the world can lose their hair over live-blogging the minutiae of every keynote address. i, for one, am going to kick back and relax. i’ll meet a few people, learn a few things, and leisurely report back with my findings when it suits me.

i do, however, promise to report on which employees of your favourite Canadian media companies pick up underaged strippers and take them to night clubs that hand out free Ecstasy at the door. True. i had heard stories of the wily things men get up to when they’re away at conferences, but i thought these tales were artifacts from the 1970s.

No, friends. Male chauvinism and philandering is alive and well, and in full effect at shows like GDC. The carrying-on i witnessed at GDC 07 has helped to steer and shape my business decisions over the past year.