In a bid to promote its 2DS - the no-frills version of its 3DS hand-held gaming system, Nintendo will kick off a multi-city tour allowing gamers in select areas try out the device and the newest games for it. Games scheduled for the tour include Kirby: Triple Deluxe, Yoshi’s New Island,  Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds,  Super Mario 3D Land, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, and Mario Kart 7.

Three major game publishers are showing their support for the LGBTQ gaming community by taking part in this year's GaymerX convection, taking place July 11 - 13 in San Francisco. Ubisoft, NIS America, and console maker OUYA will take part in the second annual event that celebrates LGBTQ geek and gaming culture. All three companies will be present at this year's event and will take part in panels, workshops, events, and goodies for attendees.

Kill Screen has announced some additional speakers for its upcoming one-day conference, Two5Six. The conference, taking place on May 16th at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, New York, has been described as the "TED Talks of Video Gaming." Kill Screen certainly likes that comparison, though they think it's is more like a "one-day celebration of play as culture," that engages "game designers in conversation with other digital creatives."

Blizzard Entertainment announced that its two-day fan event, BlizzCon, will take place Nov 7 - 8 in Anaheim, Calif. Tickets for the two-day event dedicated to fans of World of Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and Warcraft will will go on sale May 7 for $199 at 7 p.m. PT and again on Saturday, May 10 at 10 a.m. PT.

Nominees for the 2014 Nordic Game Awards have been announced today highlighting the best games from the region's developers over the last 12 months. Six prizes will be awarded at the Nordic Game show in Malmö, (which takes place from may 21-23, 2014), decided by a jury of judges selected from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

"Twenty Years after Doom: John Carmack on the Future of Engineering Virtual Worlds," a talk featuring former id Software co-founder and Oculus CTO John Carmack, will take place at Southern Methodist University's Lyle School of Engineering on April 25, 2014 at 4:00 PM (Caruth Hall Ground Auditorium) in Dallas Texas.

Here's more about the talk from organizers:

If you can't make it to PAX East this weekend in Boston due to financial or geographical limitations, then gaming-focused streaming service Twitch has you covered. During the three-day event Twitch will be teaming up the organizers of PAX East, ReedPOP, and Newegg to bring you the complete PAX East 2014 experience.

GaymerX has issued a "call for submissions" for those interested in speaking at the second annual GaymerX convention in San Francisco this summer. Speaker submissions will be accepted via the event's website through the end of April. The GaymerX2 event will be held once again at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown San Francisco from July 11 - 13, 2014.

In case you didn't know, GaymerX2 is an event that provides a friendly atmosphere to the LGBT-gaming and geek community. Friends of the community who don't happen to be LGBT are also welcomed.

EVE Online maker CCP Games announced that it is offering live streaming options for its annual fan celebration EVE Fanfest (May 1-3). Each year, thousands of EVE Online, DUST 514, and now EVE: Valkyrie players from around the world travel to CCP's headquarters in Reykjavik, Iceland for three days of celebration of the EVE universe.

Game Art Connect Ltd. announced that Game Music Connect, a one day event dedicated to all things related to music in video games, will return to Southbank Centre in London, England on September 24.

Game Music Connect is aimed at aspiring and professional composers of all backgrounds and those interested in learning about the process of creating video game soundtracks. The event features interviews, practical demonstrations and roundtable discussions with leading composers and audio directors working in the space.

Organizers of GaymerX2 have released a new video featuring Ellen McLain (the voice of GLaDOS in Portal) and John Patrick Lowrie (the man who brings The Sniper to life in Team Fortress 2) urging the gaming community to attend the second annual LGBTQ friendly gaming convention taking place July 11 - 13 at the InterContinental Hotel in San Francisco - and to contribute to the ongoing Kickstarter to fund the event. You can check out the video to your left.

The Neurotechnology Industry Organization announced that the NeuroGaming Conference & Expo will return to San Francisco May 7-8 with a line-up of high profile speakers, new exhibitors, and even a gamejam to make this year's event memorable. In its second year, the NeuroGaming Conference focuses on the convergence of mind and body with game play using all kinds of cutting-edge technology including virtual reality, neurosensing, motion and gesture control, augmented reality, haptics, eye tracking, facial recognition and more.

The second annual Different Games Conference will take place Friday, April 11th - Saturday, April 12th, 2014 at NYU’s newly opened MAGNET (Media and Games Network) Center in downtown Brooklyn, organizers announced today. Organizers of the event describe it as "NYC’s first conference dedicated to addressing issues of diversity and inclusivity in games through the lenses of design and criticism." The event is a volunteer-run collaboration between New York University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Organizers of last year's first gay gaming and geek culture convention have launched a Kickstarter crowd-funding for this year's event, GaymerX2. This year's event is scheduled to take place at the San Francisco InterContinental hotel from July 11 - 13 in San Francisco. According to organizers, they need to raise $10,000 to put a deposit down on the venue.

Despite the weather and hundreds-if-not-thousands of canceled flights due to a terrible snow storm battering the eastern coast of the United States, IndieCade is still happening this weekend in New York City. The three-day festival being held at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York started today with an opening keynote from Rami Ismail, co-founder of Ridiculous Fishing and Nuclear Throne developer Vlambeer.

Organizers of the 11th annual Games For Change Festival announced today an impressive line-up of keynote speakers scheduled to appear during the event scheduled to take place in New York City April 22 - 24 at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Last month organizers announced that this year's event will run in tandem with the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival. Headlining the Games For Change Festival will be academics, authors, researchers, and award-winning game designers.

Kill Screen Magazine has been tapped by IBM to curate two days' worth of video game related content during the company's dev@Pulse event. Kill Screen has put together a line-up of speakers including Jenova Chen, founder, thatgamecompany; Phoenix Perry, co-founder, Code Liberation; and IGF-nominated designers Jake Elliott (Kentucky Route Zero) and Robin Arnott (SoundSelf).

This year's Games For Change Festival (April 22-24 at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts) will be held in conjunction with the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. In case you didn't know, the games For Change Festival is an annual celebration of games that influence society in positive and unique ways.

Naughty Dog's survival action game for PS3's The Last of Us has received the most nominations for this year's DICE Awards, with an impressive 13 nods in various categories. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences confirmed its official list of nominees on Thursday, ahead the awards show that takes place in conjunction with the D.I.C.E Summit in Las Vegas, on February 6.

On hearing the news, Naughty Dog said via Twitter that it's "floored and deeply honored" by all of these nominations.

Sony Online Entertainment announced that its next annual fan gathering, SOE Live 2014, will be held at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas from Aug. 14 - Aug. 17, 2014. The 2014 event will celebrate 15 years of SOE's games, with activities and events that revolve around its line-up of games including DC Universe Online, Dragon's Prophet, EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide 2, Vanguard Saga of Heroes and the upcoming EverQuest Next Landmark and EverQuest Next.

Today is the last day to get early bird pricing on GaymerX2, the second annual 18+ gaming and cultural event that welcomes gay, lesbian, transgendered, and gamers of all stripes for several days of gaming and geek culture-related fun. The event, taking place from July 11 - 13, 2014 at the InterContinental San Francisco Hotel in San Francisco has already lined up a number of special guests including David Gaider, Mattie Brice, Alexis Ohanian, Gordon Bellamy, Jaime Woo, and John Scalzi, as well as returning faces like Ellen McLain, John Patrick Lowrie and Zach Weinersmith.

One of the many guests taking part in this year's GamesBeat 2013 two-day conference is Mark DeLoura, the former video game executive and technologist who went to Washington to work for the Obama Administration. DeLoura is senior advisor on digital media for the White House Office of Science and Technology. When he was in the games industry he worked in executive roles at such companies as Sony, Nintendo, Google, Ubisoft, and THQ.

The editors of GamesBeat (a division of VentureBeat that covers the interactive entertainment industry) have announced the final line-up of participants for GamesBeat 2013, which takes place from October 29 - 30 at Hotel Sofitel, Redwood City. The annual event (now in its fifth year) attracts industry experts, game developers, executives, and venture capitalists for two days of panels, fire-side chats, and networking.

At an exclusive event on October 20 (6:00pm) at the Nintendo World Store at 10 Rockefeller Plaza the folks from The Legend of Zelda Symphony of the Goddesses concert series will be making a stop to promote its show (called "Second Quest") at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden on November 1st.

If you can't make it to the New York Comic Con, you can at least watch all the goings-on via Twitch. Twitch announced today that it will begin live-streaming from the event on Oct 11, giving viewers a look inside all the most important things taking place during the show this year.

Double Fine will host a special event with the help of iam8bit called Day of the Devs on November 2. Free to the public, the special event will let the general public rub elbows with the wonderful folks at Double Fine (as well as other indie developers) and give them hands-on access to the Kickstarter-funded game Broken Age (Double Fine Adventures) and an unannounced title from the developer.

Over 250 digital media, entertainment, and learning experts and industry professionals are set to converge on San Francisco next week for the Digital Kids Summit and Digital Kids Education (Edu) Day taking place Wednesday, September 18th, and Thursday, September 19th, at the San Francisco Children’s Creativity Museum. The summits are spin-offs of Engage Digital's New York-based Digital Kids Conference.

GaymerX co-founders Kayce Brown, Matt Conn, and Toni Rocca will be speaking at the Salon LGBTQ: The Inclusive Social Media Conference October 17 - 19, 2013 in Atlanta. The Salon LGBTQ is the first-of-its-kind national LGBTQ social media conference for leading voices in the pro-LGBTQ social media world. The event will pick the brains of media producers, writers, editors, bloggers, videographers, photographers, designers, curators and marketers on subjects that are important to the LGBTQ community.

Gamescom, the annual gaming event that took place in Cologne, Germany last week was a big hit according to organizers. Organizers of the event announced details on attendance, exhibits, and more. According to the data it released, 340,000 people attended the event last week. It is an astounding number compared to last year's attendance numbers: 275,000 showed up in Cologne last year to take in all the latest games and gadgets. All told, attendance was up 32 percent this year...

If you are heading to Gamescom next week (August 21 - 25) in Cologne, Germany, then you might want to check out MCV's eight-page guide to the event. It offers maps of all the halls and all of the exhibitors that will be there next week, as well as times for all of the events occurring during the shows, and general hints and tips on how to make the most of the show while you are there.