Round Up: Darwinia, Shatner & CAEAA 2006, Wes Craven/MI6

Today's round-up includes news of Cinemaware Marquee shipping Darwinia, William Shatner hosting CAEAA 2006, and Wes Craven at MI6: Marketing Interactive '06, as well as the latest GameSetWatch posts, product news, Serious Games Source news, and Gamasutra job postings. - eGames affiliate label Cinemaware Marquee announced that it has shipped Introversion's cult action-strategy PC game Darwinia to North American retailers. The game, which is also being distributed via Valve's Steam service, recently won the grand prize at the 2006 Independent Games Festival. "Vastly different from anything I have ever seen or played, I fell in love with Darwinia from the moment I saw it," said Lars Batista, Vice President of Product Development at eGames. "The game experience in Darwinia is really a work of art, something completely original. It's a throwback to the classic days of computer gaming, while at the same time futuristic and brand new." - Star Trek icon William Shatner will host the inaugural Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts (CAEAA 2006), which will take place in Vancouver, British Columbia, on September 14, 2006. The event will honor Canadian achievements in three separate areas of the Electronic and Animated Arts industry: talent development (New Media and Animation Art Schools), animation, and video game development. “We wanted Mr. Shatner as our host from the beginning and I cannot tell you how excited we are to learn today that he has accepted the role,” said Holly Carinci, CAEAA producer. - During the recent MI6: Marketing Interactive '06 conference, which took place this week in San Francisco, and was attended by Gamasutra, horror film creator Wes Craven spoke to attendees of about telling stories, making movies, and how marketers continue to underestimate young audiences. As detailed by Dean Takahashi at the San Jose Mercury News, Craven added that marketers and artists should respect the younger audience, and give them credit for being as smart as they really are. He also lamented that video games, like horror movies, are not instructive by nature, and people do not play them in order to later emulate what has happened on screen. - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include the news of the world's largest Super Mario structure (now with a photo included), a look at the NES ROM hack Luigi's Coin Quest, and a note on the new VGCharts game chart website. - Also updated today: Serious Games Source news on a new set of mobile games designed to raise funds to increase HIV/AIDS awareness, Gamasutra product news on the release of a Maya Cloth tutorial DVD, plus the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Activision / Z-Axis, Blizzard Entertainment, High Moon Studios, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, and Vigil Games.