RuneScape developer Jagex announced the promotion of Mark Gerhard, formerly the company's chief technical officer, to CEO, effective February 2nd.Gerhard replaces Geoff Iddison, who was previously CEO of PayPal's European operations and was brought into Jagex as CEO in October 2007 with the intention of accelerating international growth. He resigned from the company last month for undisclosed reasons.I have enjoyed working for Jagex immensely, Runescape Gold says Geoff Iddison. The business remains at the cutting edge of the video games industry and its continued growth reflects the strong business model and the high calibre of people within the company. It was great to be part of a business which is shaping the industry in such a way.Gerhard joined Jagex in February 2008, and was previously principle security architect for the national lottery at gaming and lottery technology systems company Gtech.Based in Cambridge, England and founded in 1999, Jagex's flagship title is free-to-play browser-based MMORPG Runescape, which claims some 5.3 million active players per month. The company also launched FunOrb, a casual games portal, last February.On behalf of everyone at Jagex, Id like to thank Geoff for everything he has brought to the business over the last 18 months, and wish him all the best with his future endeavours, says Jagex founder Andrew Gower.We have an exciting year planned for 2009 and are confident of continued success with Mark as our new CEO. Mark has performed exceptionally well since joining the company last year and I am sure that Jagex will continue to flourish under his leadership.
Organizers for Future Play, an annual conference focusing on emerging game development trends and ideas, RS 07 Account announced that the event will colocate with the first Game Developers Conference Canada (GDC Canada) this year.Presented by Reboot Communications and Think Services (owners of Gamasutra), GDC Canada enables Canadian game developers to share best practices for fostering ingenuity and quality games. The conference emphasizes studying the challenges and opportunities inherent in creating games with long-production cycles, large development teams, and across multiple platforms. Future Play 2009 will run alongside GDC Canada, which will take place May 12-13th in Vancouver, British Columbia. Running since 2002 -- when it was known as Computer Game Technology (CGT) Conference -- Future Play was previously held in Michican and Southern Ontario, hosted by Algoma University.Future Play brings together academics, industry leaders, government officials, investors, and students to discuss future game developments, future game impacts and applications and future game talent. Researchers and leading intellectuals from universities around the world share their findings on those three areas in various panels and lectures.This year's scheduled speakers include Duane M. Dunfield, President of Red Hot Learning Eric Gagnon, General Manager of Cinetek Studio Jerry Heneghan, Founder and CEO of Virtual Heroes Incorporated Lucie Lalumière, Vice-President Interactive with Earth Rangers Kevin McNulty, founding partner of Coole Immersive Incorporated Kal Shariff, CEO of Project Whitecard Incorporated and Kenton White, co-founder and CTO of DISTIL.We're excited to be joining forces with GDC Canada, says Dr. Buy RS Gold Bill Kapralos of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and chair of the Future Play 2009 committee. We feel that the new format we will be introducing will provide leaders from both the gaming industry and academia with a unique forum to discuss the future of games and gaming.More information and registration details for Future Play at Game Developers Conference Canada 2009 can be found at Future Play's official site.