Organizers of the 10th annual Games for Change Festival sent along a reminder that next week the annual event dedicated to games will officially launch. This year the Games For Change Festival will take place at New World Stages in NYC from June 17-19.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences today revealed D.I.C.E. Europe, a two-day event set for September in the UK. The event will join the AIAS' flagship D.I.C.E. Summit held annually in Las Vegas. The first D.I.C.E. Europe Summit will be held at the Royal Garden Hotel in London.

Former Junction Point founder Warren Spector will deliver a keynote address at the Captivate Conference and Expo in October. Spector's keynote will be "Leadership in the Arts," and focuses on leadership in a creative medium. Spector has been developing games for over 30 years. His list of credits include the Epic Mickey series (Junction Point), Deus Ex series (Ion Storm Austin, Eidos), several Ultima games (Origin) and System Shock (Looking Glass).

On Thursday June 13th (as part of this year’s E3 expo) video gaming site Venus Patrol will team up with MOCAtv (the video channel of Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art) to present an alternative press conference called HORIZON. Organizers say that this press event will show off a "lineup of beautiful games as an alternative to what we’ve come to expect from standard E3 fare."

Organizers of The Boston Festival of Indie Games announced that game designer and producer Robin Hunicke will deliver the keynote address at this year's event to take place Saturday, September 14, 2013 at the Stratton Student Center and the Johnson Athletic Center on the MIT campus.

Organizers of the Games for Change event announced the dates and confirmed speakers for the 10th Annual Games for Change Festival. The special 10th anniversary event will take place over three days from June 17-19th at New World Stages in New York City. The Games for Change Festival is dedicated to giving "serious games" creators a venue to discuss using game technology to make the world a better place.

Organizers of the Boston Festival of Indie Games announced the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to fund the annual event dedicated to independently developed games by game developers in the Greater Boston Area. The event takes place September 14 at MIT's Stratton Student Center and Johnson Athletic Center.

Blizzard Entertainment passed along a reminder that tickets go on sale for BlizzCon later this week in three different allotments. The tickets for the annual fan gathering put on by Blizzard Entertainment (November 8 and 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Southern California) sell out very fast, so being prepared is essential to getting your hands on them.

EVE Online maker CCP Games today announced the final schedule of events for its sold-out annual fan celebration, EVE Fanfest (April 25-27). Playing up this year's "Second Decade" theme (which commemorates the 10th anniversary of EVE Online) CCP has managed to bring some pretty interesting speakers to the event this year including Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams, and Paola Antonell from MOMA.

The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) announced this week that it will add a series of discussions on digital video game distribution and retailing to its upcoming 2013 Digital Media Pipeline conference, to be held Sept. 24 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The one-day event will bring together experts in the digital entertainment industry, including retailers, distributors, content aggregators, service providers and more.

Mark those calendars and get ready to camp out at the official BlizzCon site at the end of April! Blizzard Entertainment announced the dates when you'll be able to pick up tickets for its upcoming fan gathering, BlizzCon 2013. Tickets for BlizzCon 2013 will officially go on sale in two batches on Wednesday, April 24 at 7 p.m. PDT (10 PM EST) and Saturday, April 27 at 10 a.m. PDT (1 PM EST) through the official BlizzCon website.

IndieCade announced today that it is now accepting game submissions from independent game artists, creators, and designers. Those interested in getting in on this indie game competition can submit interactive media of all types for the 2013 International Festival of Independent Games through the IndieCade website. Works-in-progress submissions are also encouraged.

Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth, but too many world-renowned DJs jamming together makes everything cooler. DJs Gramatik, Cherub and HeRobust will perform at Epic Games’ ECGC 2013 Opening Night Party, kicking off the East Coast Games Conference (ECGC) on Wednesday, April 24 at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, N.C. Epic Games is a platinum sponsor of ECGC this year. Epic will also have a presence in the ECGC exhibition space, and senior staff from Epic will lead numerous conference sessions as well.

Twitch TV passed along word that it will be streaming a variety of activities and events live from PAX EAST, which kicks off this Friday. They will also have a booth on the PAX East floor where they will broadcast content with the help of partners such as WIRED, Destructoid, TheGreatGQ and AriaBlarg. If you can't make it to the show this is likely the next best thing to physically being there.

Entertainment Consumer Association (ECA) President Hal Halpin will take part in a panel this evening at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts called "From PAX East to Curry College: What's Next for Video Gaming?." He'll be joined by Jen MacLean, former Chief Executive Officer of 38 Studios; Dr.

Organizers of QuakeCon, the annual fan gathering dedicated to all things Quake and id Software related is set to take place this year August 1 - 4 at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in the beautiful city of Dallas, Texas. Thanks to id Software and Bethesda Softworks (both owned by Zenimax, for the record) the event is free to all, though if you want a place to stay you'd better book a room early.

Organizers of the East Coast Games Conference (ECGC) announced this afternoon that former Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski and Ubisoft Montreal Creative Director Jason Vandenberghe will keynote this year’s event taking place April 24-25, 2013 at the Raleigh Convention Center in Raleigh, N.C.

Tonight is the night that Sony will make some sort of announcement about the future of the PlayStation brand. Some speculate that it will be more details on their next system, commonly referred to as the "PS4." Hopefully there will be some other surprises like game announcements, new features for the technology they already have on the market now and - with any luck - a price cut to the North American and European versions of the PS Vita hand-held - which currently cost as much as a brand new PS3.

Blizzard Entertainment today announced plans for its seventh BlizzCon gaming convention, to take place Friday, November 8 and Saturday, November 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. You may recall that Blizzard canceled last year's event, much to the chagrin of fans.

Electronic Arts announced that it will host the first-ever EA Hackathon at the EA headquarters in Redwood City, California on March 16. Teams will compete against each other for a chance to win a (what we assume will be) tasty and informative lunch with EA CTO Rajat Taneja, a selection of unnamed EA products, and $1,000 in cash for each participating team member of the winning team (of course).

EA describes the challenge as follows:

Alloy Digital, the new owners of the popular gaming site The Escapist has confirmed today that The Escapist Expo will be making a triumphant return to Durham, North Carolina from October 4-6.

Last year nearly 6,000 gamers attended the inaugural three-day video gaming lifestyle and culture event. Like last year's event The Escapist Expo will once again team up with Global Spectrum (the management company for the Durham Convention Center) to bring a variety of fun activities, exhibitions, discussions, and events related to gaming.

This year's East Coast Games Conference is set for April 24-25, 2013 at the Raleigh Convention Center in Raleigh, N.C. The event dedicated to game developers on the Eastern Coast of the U.S. is being co-produced by the IGDA and the Triangle Game Initiative. This year’s conference will include a new Writing for Games track, an expanded Serious Games track and a Game Careers track for people that want to get into the industry, the return of the Unreal University, as well as an Expo and Career Lounge.

CCP Games has informed us that the EVE Fanfest 2013 event to celebrate all things related to its popular space MMO EVE Online sold out last week. The event held once a year in Reykjavik, Iceland will see about 1,400 attendees - about 50 percent more than last year's event. The Fanfest offers attendees three days of EVE Online and CCP-related activities that include panels, local Icelandic excursions, presentations from the game's developers, PvP tournaments, a developer-lead pub crawl, game reveals, and the general joys of camaraderie.

The National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) today revealed the nominees for the 12th Annual 2012 NAVGTR Award nominations. Since 2001, a panel of over 600 trade voters have chosen the best games in over 50 categories, recognizing interactive entertainment industry achievements in the fields of art, technology, and production.

The organizers of the Boston Festival of Indie Games have announced that September 14 will be the magical date for this year's event to be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Ma. The event, which is free and open to the general public, is a celebration of the very best indie games. The second annual event is presented and facilitated by MIT Game Lab and Boston Indies.

Update: An earlier version of this story erroneously named Chris Vizzini (who own Gaymer.org) as a party in a licensing negotiation related to GaymerCon. The rights holder in question, who Gamer X organizers do not wish to name, was not Vizzini. We apologize for the confusion and have rewritten the story below to reflect the facts.

Gallery Nucleus announced that its very first event for 2013 will be an awesome showcase of Blizzard's art from various games. On January 12 and running until February 3, Gallery Nexus will host "The Art of Blizzard Entertainment Book Launch and Art Exhibition." The opening reception will be held on Saturday, January 12, 2013 from 7:00pm – 11:00pm. The Nucleus exhibition will feature over 50 pieces of artwork from various Blizzard game universes such as Diablo, StarCraft, and Warcraft.

While Blizzard decided not to run a BlizzCon fan gathering event this year, the popular event that celebrates StarCraft, Warcraft, Diablo, and World of Warcraft will return in 2013 and will be the place to see to Blizzard Global Finals 2013. Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime confirmed this news during a press conference at the Blizzard World Championships held in Shanghai, China.

Morhaime also said that he wants to see some fixes to the current challenges that face specators and participants of e-sports.

The two-day conference, The Law of Digital Games kicks off today at the Seaport Boston Hotel in Boston, MA. The event explores the intersection of video gaming and the law and how each can have an impact on the other in both positive and negative ways. Topics include everything from free-to-play games and hiring and agent to user privacy and protections.

The Australian government this morning officially announced what we already knew - that the Penny Arcade Expo would be taking place in Melbourne, Australia from July 19-21 at the Melbourne Showgrounds. The announcement was made by Victorian Minister for Innovation, Services and Small Business Louise Asher and Penny Arcade president Robert Khoo.