GaymerCon the first-ever all-inclusive fan gaming event that promises a friendly and fun atmosphere for gamers and geeks to get together for two days in San Francisco (August of 2013), has managed to surpass its funding goal of $25,000 in just a few days via a Kickstarter campaign. With 25 more days to go, the GaymerCon Kickstarter has managed to generate $28,471 (as of this writing) in funding from 560 backers.

The Academy of Interactive Entertainment (Lafayette, Louisiana) will be hosting its annual Independent Game Developers Festival (iFest) at the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise(LITE) Center on Saturday August 4th (10am - 5pm).

With a little under two days of activity the Kickstarter campaign for GaymerCon has managed to raise $14,192 of its $25,000 goal from 246 backers, with 28 more days to go. As we mentioned yesterday, GaymerCon is a two-day event set to take place in August of 2013 in San Francisco.

You may recall our interview with Matt Conn (Episode 5 of the Super Podcast Action Committee) of GaymerCon, the first-ever gaming event that caters to the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) community set to take place in San Francisco in 2013.

Rajan Zed, President of the Universal Society of Hinduism, has issued another statement against Hi-Rez Studios' upcoming massively online battle arena (MOBA) game, SMITE. This time the group is asking the organizers of QuakeCon (which starts this Thursday in the great state of Texas) to remove the game from its competition line-up. From the statement, as reported by Kotaku:

With QuakeCon kicking off on August 2, organizers decided that now is as good a time as any to detail some of the special things going on at the annual event dedicated to id Software's beloved first-person shooter franchise. With Zenimax now owning the studio responsible for Quake and Doom, you can expect to see some games in the works from Zenimax Online and Bethesda as well.

According to this GameSpot report, the organizers of the Penny Arcade Expo may have their sights set on a third location for the popular fan-based gaming event: the great state of Texas. Speaking during the Penny Arcade Panel at Comic-Con this weekend, Penny Arcade co-founder Mike Krahulik responded to a fan question about the possibility of a PAX event in the Austin Texas area by saying that organizers are "aggressively exploring a third PAX very near you."

Blizzard did not attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June and it announced that it wouldn't be hosting a BlizzCon event this year, but the company seems to be ramping up its attendance at events that allow actual fans (as opposed to just industry professionals and games journalists) to experience its games and culture first-hand. Recently it announced that it would be in full force at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany later this year, and today it revealed its plans for Comic-Con 2012 in San Diego at the end of this week (July 12 - 15).

Nintendo will be at Comic-Con 2012 showing off the freshly announced Nintendo 3DS XL, the company announced today. It will not be showing off the Wii U for some reason...

VentureBeat has revealed the full list of speakers and moderators for GamesBeat 2012. The event will feature a who's who of video games journalists including GamesBeat lead writer Dean Takahashi, Wired's Chris Kohler, GamesBeat culture editor Sebastian Haley, Inside Social Games editor A.J. Glasser, IGN Mobile editor Justin Davis, GamesIndustry International writer Steve Peterson, GamesBeat editor-in-chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu, TechCrunch writer Anthony Ha, and many others.

The organizing committee of the 5th annual China Game Developers Conference (CGDC) announced that Havok CEO and Executive Director David Coghlan will deliver a keynote speech at the event. China Game Developers Conference will take place in Shanghai, China on July 25-27. Havok is a software physics company owned by Intel. Coghlan's keynote speech will detail the trends of image, physics simulation and the Internet as related to 3D technology and games.

Blizzard Entertainment may not be hosting the BlizzCon fan event this year, and it may have opted out of E3 last month but the one event it does plan on attending this year is Gamescom. Gamescom will be held at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany from Wednesday, August 15 to Sunday, August 19. During the event European fans will be able to check out playable content from all three major of Blizzard's franchises including the next World of Warcraft expansion, the next Starcraft II expansion, and Diablo III.

Sony Online Entertainment has opened registration for its annual fan event, SOE Live. In its 12th year, SOE Live is a fan gathering for the entire SOE community to celebrate their favorite games and connect with other players and the games' developers. Taking place at Bally's in Las Vegas October 18-21, SOE Live will celebrate the communities of such games as DC Universe Online, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Free Realms, Magic: The Gathering - Tactics, PlanetSide 2, PoxNora, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.

British indie developer The Indie Stone, best known for its popular zombie apocalypse game Project Zomboid, will be conducting an interesting developer session next month at the Rezzed: The PC and Indie Games Show event. What is particularly noteworthy about the talk called "How (Not) To Make A Game" is that it will unabashedly dive into the joys and sorrows of the first year as an indie studio. During the session they will discuss what they believe indie developers should and shouldn't do when making a game.

Online registration for the Online Community Summit ends tomorrow (June 22). Taking place next week, the annual event dedicated to managing communities in the age of social media starts June 28 in San Francisco, CA at the Moscone Center. Admission to the event is $99 if you register online at communitysummit.org.

Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb announced via his official blog that Microsoft will skip two key gaming events later this year: Gamescom in Cologne, Germany and TGS in Tokyo, Japan. Hryb said that Microsoft is changing its focus from participating in large scale gaming events to doing more localized, smaller events.

Ben Sawyer, the director of Games For Health, passed along a note to remind everyone that the 8th Annual Games for Health Conference in Boston, MA at the Hyatt Harboside Hotel is coming up fast. Online registration for the event that takes place June 12-14 closes at the end of the day on Friday, June 8. You can register for the event here until that time.

Sony is on the fence about having a major presence at the popular European gaming event Gamescom later this year. Sony Computer Entertainment's German communications director Guido Alt told the German arm of GamesIndustry International that a decision has yet to be made on Gamescom and that they are still negotiating terms with the event's organizers.

Engage Digital has issued a call for speakers for the second annual App Conference on October 18-19, 2012 in Santa Clara, CA. Those interested in sharing their expertise with the app development and business community can submit their pitches here.

The deadline is June 11. The event caters to app developers on various platforms including game developers.

As part of Episode 5 of the Super Podcast Action Committee we sat down with Matt Conn, the founder and key organizer of GaymerCon – the first of its kind fan-focused gaming event that caterw to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) community.

Troubled UK retailer GAME announced via Twitter today that it has canceled its GAMEfest event this year.

"I'm afraid #GAMEfest won't be happening this year - but we do have some cool things in the works! Stay tuned," the company said to several consumers who enquired about the event.

In a subsequent tweet the company said that "by the way - this doesn't mean it won't happen next year. *wink*"

GamesBeat 2012, VentureBeat's fourth annual conference on "disruption in the video game market," has already lined up a number of major players in the video game industry who will either give keynotes or participate in discussions during the event.

Valve Software's director of business development, Jason Holtman, will deliver the opening keynote for the Evolve conference this summer at Develop in Brighton. His keynote address, "Everyone's Business is Business" will explore how companies and organizations can lay a foundation for making better business decisions and creating better products by nurturing a system where creative content and traditional business functions are not separated.

This year's Games for Change Festival is set for June 18-20 in New York City. The event dedicated to promoting social change through video games will offer plenty of activities this year including case studies, roundtables, lectures, demos, and more. Featured speakers for this year's event include Jane McGonigal, New York Times bestselling author (Grand Theft Childhood) and co-founder of SuperBetter Labs; leading researcher, Dr.

Registration is open for the eighth annual Games for Health Conference, set to take place June 12-14 at the Hyatt Harboside Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. Organizers of the event have scheduled over 80 talks covering various topics related to merging video games and video game technologies with health and healthcare.

Organizers of the East Coast Game Conference (ECGC) revealed the full line-up of speakers and sessions planned for this year’s event April 25-26 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Along with exploring this year's core topic of “content > platforms,” game industry professionals from around the country will give a variety of speeches and lead panels about various game development-related topics..

At a recent Google-sponsored Big Tent event in Mountainview, Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of and executive director of Code for America, participated in a "fire side" chat with Google's SVP, David Drummond, about her various initiatives related to using technology to solve public sector problems and civic life in general.

We like the work that the fine folks at Gamers Outreach does for the benefit of U.S. military personnel deployed overseas, so it makes sense that we share a recent TEDx EMU talk delivered by Zach Wigal entitled "Video Games - Helping Others Level Up." Zach writes about his experience delivering the presentation on his web site.

Epic Games and Train2Game announced over the weekend that Commando Kiwi is the winner of the Make Something Unreal Live competition, with its iOS game The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: Lost Chapters. The winner of the competition was revealed during the Gadget Show Live. Four teams presented their new iOS games based on individual books in the Fighting Fantasy series to franchise creators Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone OBE, who selected the winner. 

The organizers of Classic Gaming Expo announced today that the 2012 Classic Gaming Expo will be held August 11 - 12 at the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show’s historic ties with Las Vegas, and the Plaza Hotel, made it the obvious choice to play host to this year’s convention, according to organizers.