It was the latter last night, as the Mass Technology Leadership Council held the latest of its monthly Tech Tuesday events at Microsoft Corp.’s New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge, affectionately and appropriately known as NERD. The topic of the evening was the gaming sector in the Bay State, as MassTLC celebrated the official launch of its digital gaming cluster with a report on the local industry.
Tech Tuesday attendees rock out to The Beatles: Rock Band at Microsoft NERD.
To help set the gaming mood, folks from Cambridge neighbor Harmonix Inc. set up a full set of its now ubiquitous fake instruments for attendees to try their hands at The Beatles: Rock Band. After a demonstration by Sean Baptiste, Harmonix’s manager of community development, who rocked out with other players from companies like GamerDNA Inc., game geeks from the crowd decided to step up and try their hand at being an erstwhile John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr or even George Harrison.
With the smell of pizza, beer and soda in the air, it could have been any basement in the Greater Boston area — if that basement was on the 11th floor of a building on the Charles River and could hold 200 people.
Coincidence that on the same day that Turbine Inc. officially launched the free-to-play version of its MMO Dungeons & Dragons Online the Bay State declared today to be Video Game Innovation Day? Probably, but still good timing on somebody’s part.
On the Mass Innovation blog, Gov. Patrick declared today Video Game Innovation Day in the commonwealth:
Whereas In 1961, MIT students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell and Wayne Wiitanen invented the game Spacewar!, one of the first video games ever created; and …
Whereas On this day, Harmonix Music Systems, the Cambridge-based inventors of Rock Band and developer of the original Guitar Hero games, is releasing The Beatles: Rock Band, a game that will not only bring the creativity and joy of The Beatles music to countless people, but will introduce the Fab Four to new generations of fans,
Now, Therefore, I, Deval L. Patrick, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, do hereby proclaim September 9th, 2009 to be, Video Game Innovation Day and urge all the ctizens of the Commonwealth to take cognizance of this event and participate fittingly in its observance.
You heard the man, get innovating.
Not to be overshadowed by the governor’s declaration, Westwood-based Turbine today opened up to all comers a free version of its game based on the long-standing virginity-enhancement tool known as Dungeons & Dragons. Turbine has had the “freemium” — that is, you can play for free but the really good stuff is gonna cost you “Turbine Points” which conveniently can be bought with “real cash” — version of DDO open for beta testing over much of the summer.
For perspective on how far we have and have not come, watch video after the jump of The Beatles: Rock Band, a video game released today featuring music made around the time Spacewar! was released. (more…)
CNNMoney talks to Harmonix founders Eran Egozy and Alex Rigopulos about starting the company:
ALEX: As we were finishing grad school at lab, we were doing work in an area so weird that I figured no one would actually pay me to do it. Getting a job didn’t seem like an option. Starting a company was the only avenue at my disposal to continue to do the type of work that I wanted to do.
And about developing its latest product, The Beatles: Rock Band:
ALEX: Yoko was sitting on the couch pointing out that no, she wanted John’s eyes to move that way…
The LA Times takes a look at the Beatles: Rock Band — developed by Cambridge-based Harmonix — and notes parent-company Viacom’s shift away from hardware:
Although MTV is offering a limited edition of the Beatles: Rock Band with instruments based on ones used by the band, it costs $250, $70 more than the equivalent version of Rock Band 2 last year. Dollar-conscious consumers who don’t already have instrument controllers will probably be attracted to a $160 “value bundle” that uses ones from the original Rock Band that Viacom has been unable to sell.
The marketing material for the Beatles: Rock Band urges consumers to use Guitar Hero controllers, enabling Viacom to piggyback on its more successful rival.
Ms. Nelsen has done much to influence the recent culture shift towards commercialisation by UK universities. In 2002, with David Secher then Director of Research Services at Cambridge University, Ms. Nelsen organised Praxis, a not-for profit organisation running a training programme on knowledge transfer for commercialisation staff in UK academic institutions.
Nelsen joins all four Beatles, golfer Nick Faldo and Jackie Chan as a member of the order. The 2009 class also includes former Boston and current Los Angeles police commissioner Bill Bratton.
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It was the latter last night, as the Mass Technology Leadership Council held the latest of its monthly Tech Tuesday events at Microsoft Corp.’s New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge, affectionately and appropriately known as NERD. The topic of the evening was the gaming sector in the Bay State, as MassTLC celebrated the official launch of its digital gaming cluster with a report on the local industry.
MIT’s “grand dame of tech transfer,” Lita Nelsen, has been made a 
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