Round Up: Peter Jackson & Halo, Adscape Hires, Wild Hare Deal

Today's round-up includes news of an interview with Peter Jackson on the Halo movie, Adscape Media adding executives, and a distribution deal between Wild Hare Entertainment and 2WG Media, as well as the latest Game Career Guide updates, Serious Games Source news, GameSetWatch posts and Gamasutra job postings. - In an interview with popular website Ain't It Cool News, film producer Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) has spoken out about the upcoming movie adaptation of Halo, specifically concerning the choice to go with an arguably unproven director in Neill Blomkamp. “At the end of the day, Neill (Blomkamp) is not a first time director. He's a first time feature film director, but he understands film and grammar as good as anybody. He's done some wonderful short films and commercials. His visual eye is fantastic and his storytelling is great. The fact that it's a feature film just means that he gets to shoot for longer than he did in the short film. There really isn't anything else that's different.” - In-game ad firm Adscape Media announced that it has added two new members to its executive team. Matthew Ackerman has joined as chief financial officer and vice president of operations, and Greg Schaffer as vice president of sales. Ackerman is a finance executive with 20 years of financial management and operations experience, including Mergers and Acquisitions, IPO's, private financing, project management, and investor relations. Schaffer has had a notable career in interactive media sales and service, including seven years with Knight Ridder Digital and most recently with media solutions provider PointRoll. At Adscape Media, Greg is responsible for leading the company's advertising sales and strategy. "Matt's ability to problem solve in rapidly changing environments makes him ideally suited to the still evolving in-game advertising space," said Chris Gilbert, President and CEO of Adscape Media. "His ROI mentality, proven track record with start-up companies, as well as his ability to see the big picture financially, will help Adscape Media scale as we continue to grow our business." - Dallas-headquartered privately funded publisher Wild Hare Entertainment announced an exclusive North American distribution deal with Texas-based publisher 2WG Media. Under the agreement, Red Mile will distribute Shockwave Productions' Aircraft Powerpack for Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Microsoft Flight Simulator 9 and Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3. Aircraft Powerpack includes several expansions in a single box, including Wings of Power: Heavy Bombers, Wings of Power: Heavy Bombers, and FirePower. -Gamasutra's new education-specific sister website, Game Career Guide, has updated today with news the Hidden Agenda Game Development Contest, as well as a feature covering what it takes to get a job as a game designer. -The latest posts on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include a look at Suda51's Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked, the latest Our Blazing Destiny webcomic (this week featuring Oregon Trail), and an expose covering conversions of Street Fighter II for the PC. -Finally, Gamasutra has updated its job postings today, with new openings from Activision / Raven Software, Datascope Recruitment, HumaNature Studios, Idol Minds, Kush Games, n-Space, Namco Networks America, NaturalMotion, NCsoft, nFusion Interactive, Spark Unlimited, The International Academy of Design and Technology, and Vivendi Games.