Saskatchewan’s new media body launches its own conference

Saskatchewan’s new media community will have its own home-grown conference starting this spring with the launch of Saskatchewan Interactive. Saskatchewan New Media Developers Association president Deborah Black says she has targeted the game development industry as a likely area where the province could attract investment, a conclusion she says the government has also come to – albeit with a different perspective. "We know that our government people have been trying to attract larger gaming companies to set up a branch office in Saskatchewan, and they’re spending a lot of money wining and dining them, and of course this is never going to happen," she says. Instead of wooing the big names such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft or Nintendo, Black believes the Saskatchewan government and the province’s new media producers might be well-served by considering an initiative promoting so-called serious gaming, or those games with some sort of educational or instructional component. While Black pointed out that "using gaming technologies for educational purposes, for training, for social change, for any number of things" is not a new concept, it is an approach that can have a relatively low cost of entry for new players. While most conventional video games rely on cutting-edge graphics and other labour-intensive programming features, serious games are often more about the content than the presentation. Potential clients of serious gaming applications, such as training organizations, educational institutions and government, will also be invited to the symposium. The symposium will feature Warren Currell, president and CEO of Markham ON’s Sherpa Games, as its keynote speaker. With his background as an intermediary between game producers, publishers and other players in the value chain, Black hopes he will offer some practical advice for virtually everyone interested in developing, marketing or licensing games. Currell has worked on such deals as securing a multi-year licensing deal for Breakthrough Animation Inc.’s Atomic Betty properties, and a serious gaming application for the US Navy. The province’s new media community has certainly faced its share of adversity over the last year. The SaskTel New Media Fund was wound down last year, while a similar multimedia fund sponsored by the provincial education ministry, SaskLearning, is on hiatus, Black says. "Essentially it’s a fee-for-service industry right now," she says. The symposium, she hopes, will get those in government excited about new media again. "We know that they’re making noises in the government about learning and training initiatives generally, so we certainly want to get them pumped about this, and get them to reinstate the multimedia fund in SaskLearning as well." Unlike many of its other provincial analogues, SNMDA itself doesn’t receive any provincial funding either; Saskatchewan Interactive’s main funding partner is the Saskatchewan Advanced Technology Alliance. New media producers in Saskatchewan are also fighting with those in other artistic disciplines for a share of the broader arts and culture money being handed out by the government and other agencies. "SaskCulture funds the newsletter for SMPIA ," Black says. "They are supposed to be serving new media needs and they’re not. We have an organization called SaskFilm, and they make noises about serving the new media industry, and they don’t either." She adds that the province’s two major cities have very different new media clusters: Regina’s tends to be focused on artistic endeavors, especially in film and video, while Saskatoon’s features more commercial applications. As such, the need for a provincial conference is acute. Despite the proximity of events in BC and Alberta, "not many people from Saskatchewan are going to Vidfest" in Vancouver, Black says. While the Banff Centre’s annual Nextmedia event does draw a few producers from the province, they tend to be the ones doing a lot of work with video and film, and attending as representatives of those more traditional media than for new media. Finally, added to the loss of funding from government sources is the loss of business from the government itself. While Black’s firm d.black Communications designed the Government of Sask-atchewan’s main Web presence, the province has since moved to hire Web designers and other multimedia professionals for staff positions. "They have basically sucked our entire Regina industry into government, so there is no government work anymore," Black says. "That was probably one of the last few projects that was ever awarded by government, because they now all have in-house new media experts as part of the communication departments." Saskatchewan Interactive will take place March 9 in Saskatoon. More information can be found at the SNMDA’s website, www.snmda.sk.ca.

Saskatchewan’s new media body launches its own conference

Broadcast | January 20, 2006

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