Organizers of the Nordic Game 2011 conference announced the tentative program schedule, including some of the companies that plan to take part in the three-day event. Companies announced today include Codemasters, PopCap, Insomniac, Sony, Microsoft, and Autodesk. They join what organizers are calling "a strong roster of Nordic companies such as CCP (IS), Starbreeze (DK), Majong (SE), Cockroach (SE), and Virtual Air Guitar Company (FI).

"The Nordic Game 2011 Advisory Board has worked hard to create a focused program that will inspire, educate and entertain our attendees from the region and abroad", says Jacob Riis, responsible for this year’s program.

The event will also feature keynotes by Jordan Mechner (Creator of Prince of Persia), Ed Fries (Co-founder of the original Xbox Project), and Brandon Boyer (Chairman, Independent Games Festival).

Blizzard Entertainment will start selling tickets for its sixth BlizzCon gaming convention in two batches on Saturday, May 21 and Wednesday, May 25. In addition, a limited number of tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County will go on sale Saturday, May 28. As Gamasutra points out, this year's tickets will cost much more than last year's entry fee. This year a ticket costs around $175; in 2010 they were $150, in 2009 $125, and from 2005 - 2008 they costs $100. Approximately 28,000 tickets were sold for the 2010 event.

If you happen to be in São Paulo, Brazil April 16 and 17, then you are pretty lucky. I mean, come on, you're in Brazil and probably on vacation while we're all trapped here. But an added incentive might be a two day event being put on by Gamecultura. Gamecultura is hosting an exhibition with games and consoles of the 70s in São Paulo, Brazil and it is free and open to the public. The free exhibition, being curated by Roger Tavares, PhD, and the production of Guilherme Bellini, the exhibition will bring the curiosities and majesty of the early history of video games, especially games and machines produced in Brazil during that time.

Rockstar Games’ upcoming crime noire thriller, L.A. Noire, is officially the first video game to be honored as an official selection for the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. It cannot be emphasized enough that, with this selection, Rock Star's game is the first to ever be chosen as an "official selection" in a festival reserved for film.

"We’re thrilled that L.A. Noire is being recognized by the Tribeca Film Festival in this way," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. "It’s a real honor, and another step forward for interactive entertainment."

UK games industry trade group UKIE announced that it is sponsoring for the Digital Shoreditch Festival. Taking place May 3 - 7, the Digital Shoreditch Festival is a "digital playground" featuring open houses, large-scale projection screens, interactive artwork, augmented reality games, and late night parties provided by the local community of digital businesses.

The festival will end with a one day summit featuring festival founders PlayGen, London Metropolitan University, Less Rain, Albion, and Intro. There will also be a family day with digital interactive displays, installations and artwork, and a 3D printing conference and exhibition called Thingmakers.

Also taking place during the event will be The SCAMP conference. Hosted by SheSays, the conference will examine how digital businesses influence other creative industries, with designers, artists, educators, advertisers, and technologists offering keynotes.

Inventing the Future of Games, a day-long symposium taking place April 15 in Silicon Valley, aims to explore the possibilities of the next decade of gaming with luminaries from the industry. Sponsored by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Games and Playable Media, the symposium will gather academia and industry leaders to discuss the advancement of game design and technology.

A popular PAX Prime panel will debut in Boston to discuss legal issues in gaming. In a year when the Supreme Court considers that annoying California Game Law, this panel is more relevant than it ever has been. The panel will discuss the Supreme Court case involving sales of violent games to minors, lawsuits aimed at various publishers (Activision, EA, and others) and a number of legal issues facing publishers and indie developers this year. The panel will also offer a question and answer session aimed at legal issues related to independent developers.

Panelists include Dan Rosenthal (Contributing Editor, GamePolitics.com), Tom Buscaglia (Director, IGDA), Greg Boyd (Attorney, Davis & Gilbert), Ross Dannenberg (Partner, Banner Witcoff), and Seth Krauss (Executive VP and General Counsel, Take-Two Interactive).

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference offered a positive post mortem on last week's show, listing attendance, the number of talks, and other important highlights. GDC hosted a record 19,000 game industry professionals and media at the San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. The event featured more than 450 lectures, panels, summits, tutorials and roundtable discussions across five days of content, with GDC references. Media coverage from outlets like the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, USA Today, and more covered this year's event.

Lecture highlights from GDC’s 15 tutorials and summits included Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka discussing the Angry Birds phenomenon (GDC Smartphone Summit), Zynga's Mark Skaggs on going from FarmVille to CityVille (Social & Online Games Summit), game designer and author Jane McGonigal on 'gamefulness' (Serious Games Summit), and Super Meat Boy's creators on their rough route to success (Independent Games Summit).

indiePub, sponsor Zoo Entertainment, and South by Southwest (SXSW) announced the finalists of the first video game development competition, the Independent Propeller Awards. The ceremony to name the winners will be held during SXSW ScreenBurn, the gaming portion of the SXSW Interactive Festival. Seven finalists were chosen among 150 submissions, representing the puzzle, strategy and adventure genres.

Hosted by Adam "Atomic" Saltsman, maker of the indie hit Canabalt, and Meredith Molinari, host of PlayStation Network's The Tester, the Independent Propeller Awards will offer $150,000 in total cash prizes, awards recognizing innovation and development from the Intel AppUpSM developer program and Unity Technologies, and the chance for titles to be published by indiePub through its sponsor, Zoo Publishing. Below are the finalists that have been selected to show off their games at SXSW:

The Gnomon School of Visual Effects will hold a reception for its High Moon Studios exhibit on Saturday, March 5 from 7 PM - 11 PM at the Gnomon Gallery in Hollywood. The new exhibit highlights the work of five video game developer's concept art based on the new Transformers: War for Cybertron video game, as well as their personal artwork. The exhibit features a variety of backgrounds including illustration, fine art, industrial design, comic books and animation. Each artist's personal work showcases their individual strengths and influences.

Gnomon founder Alex Alvarez and several of the artists will also be available for interviews at the opening. For more information on the exhibit, visit Gnomongallery.com.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has been named the keynote speaker for Texas Game On! 2011. Her keynote will address the importance of game-based education. Specifically she will talk about iCivics, a game-based learning platform designed to teach students about the importance of playing an active role in our democracy.

Warren Spector of Junction Point (and the man behind the original Deus Ex and the recent Disney game Epic Mickey) will also speak at the event.

Other sessions scheduled for Game On! Texas 2011 include the panel "Texas Higher Education Game Development Education," and a video game design workshop for amateur developers.

Game On! Texas 2011 takes place April 12 (8:00 AM - 7:00 PM) at the AMD Lone Star Campus in Austin, Texas. Tickets cost $40 per person. For more information check out the event's web site.

Blizzard Entertainment announced some of the things fans can expect from the sixth annual BlizzCon gaming convention, this year taking place at the Anaheim Convention Centre in Anaheim, California October 21 - 22.

This year's event dedicated to all things Blizzard (StarCraft, Warcraft, and World of Warcraft) promises hands-on play time with the latest Blizzard games (we assume that means players will get to try out Diablo III, the latest chapter in the StarCraft II series, and any new WOW stuff Blizzard has planned), casual and competitive tournaments for players of all skill levels, community contests with special prizes, "commemorative" merchandise based on the company's various game universes, and the usual assortment of keynotes, workshops, and discussions.

The organizers of the Games For Change festival have issued a call for speakers, demos and award nominees for its 8th annual event. Game For Change takes place in New York City June 20 - 22. Those interested in submitting ideas should visit the event's official site.

A minimum of five in-development games that adhere to the organization’s goal of supporting "serious games" will be shown off during the event this year. These games will be shown off to designers and potential funders for feedback and possible opportunities. Games that are already completed can be submitted for the annual Games for Change Awards. Award categories including Direct Impact, Learning & Education, Transmedia and the Knight News Game Award.

Speakers are also welcomed to pitch topics such as promoting real-world action, games that aid underserved communities, games and education, games as art, and more.

Rosetta Stone revealed the winner of the second annual Rosetta Stone Game Jam. The challenge saw 11 teams and 32 developers code and complete games on January 7-9, 2011 in Harrisonburg, VA. The challenge was to incorporate the concepts of "ink,” "exploration" and "layers" to create a game in 36 hours or less. First prize team members won a 27 inch iMac computer and Rosetta Stone Version 4 TOTALe in the language of their choice, while each member of the second prize teams won a MacBook Air computer, and Version 4 TOTALe as well.

In the Professional Category, first prize was awarded to the Dino Nuggets for creating an octopus collaboration game. Members included Lisa Takehana, Justin Lewis and Gavin Keese, who met while attending the University of Southern California. Second prize was awarded to last year’s Game Jam champions, the Baltimore Eulers. Jack Cooke, William Miller and David McDonough developed an exploratory puzzle game.

The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) and the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) announced that EA Sports President Peter Moore will keynote the 2011 GameSupply Summit. Moore will deliver a speech entitled "Digital Play – What’s The Future," which attempts to address the process of making money in the digital, free-to-play, subscription and micro-transaction space of video games.

The one-day event is scheduled to take place February 2 in Burbank, CA at the Marriott Burbank Airport hotel.

The GameSupply Summit is a gathering of game retailers, distributors, analysts, content creators, and publishers to discuss and exchange ideas related to interactive entertainment supply. 2011 marks the third year for the event.

Organizers of LOGIN 2011 have put out the call for speakers this week. The annual event dedicated to online and social gaming is looking for speakers and their abstracts to be submitted so they can be properly vetted and approved ahead of the events launch on May 16 - 18 in Bellevue, Washington. Candidates are asked to review the topics of interest and session submission tips on the LOGIN 2011 website and then submit a completed session proposal form with 1,000 word abstract and biography before the deadline of Feb. 13, 2011.

The organizers offer the following five tips for submitting suggestions:

Organizers of the China Game Developers Conference 2011 (July 28 – 30) alongside with the ChinaJoy Expo) have put out a "global call" for papers today. Developers, publishers and other industry professionals that would like to speak or present panels can submit proposals beginning today at 2011en.chinagdc.com.cn. Guidelines for submissions can be found in this PDF.

Topics should cover programming, art, game design, operation, management, security, testing, game audio and future game technologies. The speakers will receive VIP passes by the CGDC organizing committee, which will allow them entry into all of the sessions including the welcome reception. The deadline of submission is April 10, 2011.

Organizers of the Game::Business::Law Summit announced several panels that will be featured at the third annual international conference on the business and law of video games, taking place Jan. 26 – 27, 2011, at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law in Dallas, Texas.

Hosted by The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University, SMU's Dedman School of Law and The Center for American and International Law, Game::Business::Law is a gathering of game industry leaders, developers, publishers, lawyers, and members of the venture capital and financial sectors. This group gets together annually to discuss evolving trends in the digital games marketplace from various perspectives.

Three panels recently added to the growing schedule include the following:

Journalist Scott Steinberg is set to speak at the upcoming Festival of Games April 28 & 29, 2011 in the Netherlands. He will be talking about how piracy may be a good thing for the video game industry and how new platforms such as Facebook and online distribution may naturally stamp out game copying.

"Instead of selling a €50 console game, the free-to-play model, where gamers play for free and pay as they go for virtual goods such as better weapons, may actually make more money in the end, while also helping stamp out game copying – and competition," says Steinberg."

Scott Steinberg is the CEO of video game consulting firm TechSavvy Global, and founder of GameExec magazine and Game Industry TV.

The Festival of Games takes place on April 28-29, 2011, at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht (the Netherlands). The 2010 event attracted over 2000 visitors, with 180 companies from 25 countries.

Organizers of the 2011 Independent Games Festival announced the jury panel that will select the finalists and the winner of its Excellence in Visual Art award, a category which highlights innovation and quality in visuals for indie games.

This year, the jury will receive recommendations from over 150 IGF Main Competition judges (including former IGF winners, finalists and game development notables including Jon Chey, Soren Johnson, Brandon McCartin, Miguel Sternberg and Tom Sennett) as they consider the merits of each of the five finalists and eventual award winner.

The Triangle Game Conference announced a new name for its annual East Coast event serving professionals working in the interactive entertainment and serious game industries. Henceforth the Triangle Game Conference will be called the East Coast Game Conference (ECGC).

ECGC also today announced its call for speaker submissions to lead panels, lectures and roundtable sessions at its conference April 13-14, 2011 to be held at the Raleigh Convention Center. The call for submissions will close Friday, January 21, 2011.

The 2011 theme is "Engage and Connect." Speaker session submissions are being accepted online in several categories including technologists and artists developing games, individuals working with advanced learning technologies, and the business of making games. Speakers that want to talk about game development, advanced learning and visual simulation, and the business of games and media convergence, are encouraged to submit ideas.

The initial line-up of major Summits for the 2011 Game Developers Conference have been announced today. GDC 2011 will offer seven major summits covering such sectors as independent gaming, mobile, social gaming, business, and more. Held alongside the GDC tutorials on Monday, February 28th and Tuesday, March 1st in San Francisco, a number of one and two-day Summits will kick off GDC week with programs led by industry experts from Zynga, Google, MIT, etc.

Game Developers Conference 2011 will be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from February 28th to March 4th. Registration is now open. For more information on all aspects of the show, visit the official GDC 2011 website. A full list of the summits can be found below:

According to a report from NBC San Diego, the web site for Comic-Con continues to have trouble. On November 1 organizers of the annual event dedicated to comic books, film, animation, and video games opened registration for its 2011 event. The site promptly tanked, causing those wanting to register for the April 1 - 3 event to be denied.

When that happened organizers promised a new registration date of November 22. But as users pushed to register once again, the site gave up the ghost, forcing organizers to close registration once more. Fans are frustrated and organizers seemed to be baffled by the problem..

At this point in time registration is in limbo. According a message on the site:

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences announced the first set of speakers for the 2011 D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit. The event will be held at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas, February 9-11, 2011, and feature a line-up of industry leaders, decision makers and visionaries in the interactive entertainment industry.

The 2011 speaker line-up includes:

The annual event dedicated to developers and publishers of online and social games managed to attract more than 3,000 attendees, according to its organizers. The Game Developers Conference Online (previously known as GDC Austin) concluded on October 8.

The four-day event featured sessions, discussions, networking opportunities, and game announcements. Highlights included a keynote from Brian Reynolds (now working as Chief Game Designer for Zynga) and the debut of the Game Developers Choice Online Awards.

GDC Online featured more than 140 lectures, panels, keynotes and roundtable discussions presented by 190 speakers. During the Awards show Ultima Online received the first-ever recipient of the Hall of Fame award, and League of Legends won multiple awards - including the audience award.

GDC Online returns to Austin, Texas on October 11-14, 2011.

At the Ambassador theatre in Dublin, Ireland, a new exhibition called Game On, dedicated to the history and culture of video games, opened last week. The touring exhibition opened at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, and has, to date, toured across the globe. Organizers claim that it has been experienced by "more than one million people." The exhibition will remain in Dublin until January of next year.

Game On is about nostalgia and education on the rich history of video games, and many of the exhibits are meant to be experienced "hands-on."

Arcade and console games from various eras are there to be enjoyed - games like Space Invaders, Street Fighter and text adventure games like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. There's also interesting exhibits on Apple; differences between games culture in the US, Europe and Japan; a kid-friendly game section featuring Pokemon, Sonic the Hedgehog and the classic Mario Bros; and many other oddities from the 1970's to present day.

Game On remains in Dublin until January 30, 2011. Visit gameon-dublin.ie for further details.

Update: I erroneously reported that attendance held steady compared to last year's event - when in fact Gamescom 2010 saw 9,000 guests and 46 more exhibitors more than last year. I apologize for the error..

Gamescom, the consumer-focused interactive entertainment event held in cologne, Germany last week, did slightly better in terms of exhibitor attendance but held the line when t came to attendees. According to organizer Koelnmesse, the event saw some 254,000 attendees and 505 exhibitors from 33 countries. Last year the event saw 459 exhibitors attend and 245,000 guests wander its halls to see the best games coming to Europe later this year and beyond. Organizers were pleased with attendance, calling it "a completely successful event."

Organizers also revealed this year's big award winners, with Sony nabbing three different categories. Gran Turismo 5 was named "Best of Gamescom" and "Best Console Game," while Sony's PlayStation Move scored "Best Hardware." Other winners included the following:

During participation in a GDC Europe panel on how the industry can combat censorship by the government, Remedy Entertainment's Matias Myllyrinne said that a lot of the problems that European game developers face are coming "from Brussels." G.A.M.E.'s Stephan Reichart agreed with that sentiment, saying that an international effort to fight against government censorship is needed: "We need to build up international structures in the games industry. If we do have a discussion in Germany it's really important to reach European developers, we have to organise a European game voice. In a few years nearly every important decision will be made in Brussels."

Germany's attitude was a major sticking point with panelists who are worried that a renewed effort to ban violent videogames could rise again. Though legislation for a ban on violent games has been overturned, Reichart felt that politicians remained resistant to the medium - a concern that seemed to be shared by all in the discussion. Remedy added that it decided against releasing a watered-down version of Alan Wake in Germany.

Brandon Boyer (pictured) has been named Chairman of the Independent Games Festival (IGF) by the UBM TechWeb Game Network, which organizes the Independent Games Summit (IGS) in addition to the IGF.

Boyer co-founded indie-games-focused website Offworld.com (a part of the Boing Boing network), where he is currently a Contributing Editor, and in his new role will be charged with overseeing submission and judging operations, providing community outreach and support, and helping to shape the structure and continued growth of the IGF.

Boyer has served as judge for the IGF, which takes place at each year’s game Developers Conference (GDC), since 2007. He replaces Simon Carless who moves up to become UBM TechWeb’s Global brand Director.

The International Olympic Committee has given the 2016 Summer games to Rio de Janeiro, sending Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid home looking toward 2020. Our shoutbox has been atwitter with the news, so for this item only, we have become Olympic GamePolitics. And in a not-so-stunning assumption, Sega is probably booking flights for Mario and Sonic to Brazil in 2016.

The plumber and hedgehog challenged each other in Beijing in 2008, and plan to go head-to-head again in Vancouver in 2010. Sega even has a web page for the official video games of the Olympics. It stands to reason that this dynamic duo will take their competition to London in the summer of 2012 and to Sochi, Russia, in the winter of 2014.

While many game sites rated the Beijing game average at best, sales for the game were still strong worldwide, according to the game's Wikipedia entry. So despite the criticism, Sega decided to continue with the tie-in and if their jaunt to Vancouver is a fiscal success, I suspect we'll see them galavanting around the world every two years with the rest of the Olympic athletes.

There was no official word from Sega.