In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from SCEA Santa Monica, WB Games and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

Gameloft: 3D Graphics Programmer
"As a member of our engineering team you will be part of the full development cycle of 3D video games for iPhone from start to finish, primarily focusing on 3D graphics. Duties could include: Analyze existing 3D functions in the engine and adapt them so they are compatible with current conventions; Support 3D functions and systems conceived for the production; Work with Game Developers, as well as Design teams to determine the different constraints of the game and put all the elements together."

Guerrilla Games: Senior Game Designer
"Guerrilla Games is looking to add a battle-hardened Senior Game Designer to its ranks for an upcoming project. If you're recruited, you will play a pivotal role in formulating the game design and guarding the game's vision. You will also act as a mentor, problem solver and source of bravery and inspiration for your fellow troops."

Organizers of this May's GDC Canada event in Vancouver, BC have confirmed the first social game and iPhone lectures for the event, with speakers from Zynga (Farmville), iPhone experts IUGO, and Diner Dash creator Nick Fortugno discussing major emerging markets.

Registration is now open for the event at the Vancouver Convention Centre, which talkes place on May 6th and 7th -- with early, reduced-price passes only available until the end of March.

This year, new tracks will focus on more hot games industry topics including digital distribution, social games, and iPhone games.

Some of the initially announced highlights for these vital tracks, many of which are bringing major creators to speak to the Canadian market for the first time, are as follows:

Electronic Arts studio Black Box announced the closed beta launch of Need for Speed World, a massively multiplayer online take of its popular Need for Speed racing game franchise.

The company will give away access to the beta to thousands of gamers who sign up at world.needforspeed.com. Black Box says fans who are picked for this testing phase will not only receive an early look at the game but will have the chance to submit feedback its team can use to "add polish, finesse and tuning to the final product."

Billed as "the first MMO action racing game", Need for Speed World allows players to compete against others in online battles and police pursuits across a 150-mile open world setting. The 3D environment combines the fictional cities featured in the series's console games, Need for Speed Most Wanted and Need for Speed Carbon, to create the biggest racing world ever in the Need for Speed universe.

Since its debut 16 years ago, the Need for Speed franchise has sold more than a 100 million copies across many platforms and titles. Need for Speed World, which is co-developed by EA Black Box and EA Singapore, will release for PC some time this summer. You can see screenshots of the MMO action racing game after the break.

"Need for Speed World is the world's first MMO racer -- a completely new entertainment experience for speed junkies all over the world," says the game's senior producer John Doyle. "We have expanded Need for Speed's classic adrenaline fueled racing with an all-new power up system and deep RPG style progression to create a truly massive, socially-connected white-knuckle Need for Speed experience."

Developers of free-to-play games have a problem: a lot of of gamers want to play them for free. That is, while some gamers are active parts of a game's community, the majority are not spending any money on virtual items, the main revenue stream of many of these games.

But with the new pricing model provided by Kwedit, gamers will be able to essentially borrow money to buy virtual items, and pay later. "One of the reasons why the typical conversion rate is 2 percent or lower isn't because the gamers don't have the resources or aren't willing to pay," says Danny Shader, Kwedit's CEO in a new feature at sister site Gamasutra. "There is a group of people who just lack the mechanism to do so." Shader thinks that Kwedit provides that mechanism.

While there were reservations of essentially providing credit to young gamers, Shader explains that the Kwedit system is "a completely virtual simulation of credit in a completely safe environment."

Instead of a collector knocking on a 12-year-old's door demanding that he pay back his Kwedit, delinquent customers just receive a dock in their Kwedit score. Lower Kwedit scores limit the player's ability to use the system in the future. On the other hand, the amount they can "promise" in the future grows, as previous promises are paid up.

One company trying out Kwedit is Three Rings Design, whose games include Bang! Howdy. "I'll tell you very honestly that our average conversion rate for someone turning into a paying customer is about 5 percent," says CEO Daniel James. "So we've got a large population of players who are enthusiastically enjoying our game who have not transacted with us which is, of course, part of the free-to-play business model."

James says that there was some hesitation about using Kwedit until he determined that it was safe for users. "There's no enforcement. No one is going to show up at your house and say, 'Hey, give us the money, kid!' But since they weren't going to spend money with you anyway, the risk is minimal. On the other hand, if they do pay, the upside could be very large."

If James is able to move his conversion rate from 5 percent to, say, 7.5 percent, he says, that would make a huge material difference to his business. "It is worth taking a risk in order to see if we can do that," he adds.

What enables him to shrug off non-payments, of course, is that the cost of creating the virtual goods that he sells is essentially zero. "We are like the Fed," he explains. "When they need more money, they print it. We do the same."

ZeniMax Online Studios will be using the Fork Particle SDK to create the particle effects in its unannounced upcoming massively multiplayer game, the studio said in a statement.

A division of ZeniMax Media, which also owns publisher Bethesda Softworks and developers Bethesda Game Studios and id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios has been known to be working on an MMO since late 2007, although the group has yet to reveal details of its game.

Studio president Matt Firor extolled the benefits of Fork Particle as part of the announcement.

"Spectacular effects bring out the best in game graphics," Firor said. "Fork Particle is robust and feature-rich. It has enabled us to make advanced special effects easily and save time with fast iterations. Our experience with Fork’s particle system SDK and support has been good. We look forward to a long and durable relationship."

Fork Particle CEO Noor Khawaja called said his company is "honored to have [a] prestigious company such as ZeniMax choose Fork Particle," calling the deal "a serious endorsement."

Numerous games developed by ZeniMax Online's sister studio Bethesda are built with the Gamebryo engine, which recently integrated Fork Particle, but in 2007, ZeniMax Online said it would develop its MMO using Simutronics' MMO-centric HeroEngine.

Alganon developer and publisher Quest Online has fired president and founder Dave Allen for insubordination, replacing the executive with industry veteran Derek Smart (Battlecruiser 3000AD) as the company prepares to re-launch its MMORPG.

Quest Online put out a statement last week notifying the press of Allen's "departure", to which Smart remarked on the game community's forums, "Dave Allen didn't 'depart'. I fired* him back in February for insurbordination [sic] and for acting against the best interests of the company, the LLC investors (who I represent), the game, and the team."

"Shortly after, the investors of the LLC unanimously voted him off the LLC," he clarified. "Leaving his previous partner and co-founder (Greg Wexler, one of the most cheerful and straight up guys you'll ever meet in your lifetime) and myself to run the company."

Smart added that former director of Development Jason Blood and director of Design Hue Henry, are also no longer at the company. He commented, "I have no personal relationships with any of these three and the decisions surrounding these events were pure business. Nothing more. Nothing less."

Organizers of the 2010 Game Developers Conference, the world's largest industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of interactive entertainment, has announced an all-time record of 18,250 game industry professionals attending San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center for the March 9th-13th event.

Surpassing last year's total of 17,000 attendees, the event - created by the UBM Techweb Game Network, as is this website - brought together experienced game developers, publishers, deal makers, industry aspirants and working press for more than 400 lectures, panels, summits, tutorials and roundtable discussions.

Offering a full five days of content, the event also hosted an extensive Exposition floor, featuring the biggest firms in the games space alongside the Career Pavilion and associated Game Career Seminar.

Also presented were the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival, the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, Game Connection America, and more opportunities for networking, discussing business, sharing knowledge, and meeting with equally-devoted fellow developers.

Following the success of the show, organizers of the Game Developers Conference have announced that GDC 2011 will return to the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco from Monday, February 28 to Friday, March 4, 2011, with a call for lecture submissions to open this Summer.

R.A. Salvatore, the popular fantasy author best-known for his Forgotten Realms novels starring Drow Elf Drizzt Do'Urden. For the past several years, he's been working with Curt Schilling's 38 Studios to produce a game codenamed Copernicus, an MMO.

With the disclaimer "I'm not here to tell you how to create a world. I am certainly not here to tell you how to design a game. What I am here is to tell you the principles I use when I create a world," Salvatore began a journey through his gaming and writing careers and espoused core concepts of his world building methods.

"The first thing in an MMO is the size of the world. Any discussion of game design is about hitting sweet spots. For me, one of the most important things in an MMO is the size of the world," said Salvatore. "[EverQuest] is still the game that I look to as the best world in a game," due to its size and scope.

As an avid EverQuest fan, Salvatore also said "I've come to believe that one of the problems of gamers going forward if we're not careful is how mechanics will take all of the pain out of the games." At 38, he's gotten in many arguments about death penalties -- EverQuest can actually de-level you if you die.

"If you take out of a world two things: the pain of losing, it will diminish the accomplishment of winning. And if you take the element of chance of out it, I won't enjoy it," said Salvatore. "You need that in games. It's harder to do that in a computer game, because your phone lines will light up. Never listen to your customer service guys when you're designing a game."

In a lecture Thursday at GDC, Blizzard EVP of game design Rob Pardo shared Blizzard's core design concepts, offering examples of places where the World of Warcraft developer succeeded and failed in creating compelling multiplayer experiences.

Pardo offered a plethora advice to the designers present, stressing that these lessons may not necessarily gel with other studios and suggesting that everybody go through this same exercise to set down their individual design team's rules.

Below are a few of Blizzard's rules that we found particularly helpful. Some may seem obvious, but often it is the obvious advice that we tend to forget about first.

Gameplay First

Blizzard's core design philosophy is to design around the core fun gameplay concepts, rather than working around other aspects such as tech. By way of example, significant changes had to be made in the world's lore between Warcraft III and World of Warcraft in order to make a more fun and balanced game, despite pushback from some who felt the lore was sacred.