![]() This year’s theme was simply dubbed “the long game.” In the past, it would have been easy to see that and scoff that it was going to just be about more live service games and the new and relentless ways to exhaustively poop out content for experiences in pursuit of maximizing fun-sounding acronyms like ARPDAU (average revenue per daily active user) and LTV (lifetime value), but that was not the case. With each step along that path, there has always been a healthy dose of cynicism from the group at DICE, because it’s predominantly the community of game makers that takes the “Arts” part of “Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences” very seriously. That eventually sort of stumbled its way into blockchain and metaverse over the past couple of years, and that leads us to the artificial intelligence bonanza of today. Both of these trends came with accompanying giddiness about the potential for individual games to make billions of dollars, usually spouted by obviously media-trained men wearing Patagonia vests over button-down shirts. In the past this has sometimes meant that there’s been an element of buzzword-compliance to the conversations up on stage, especially if (some) studio executives are doing the talking rather than creative leaders.įirst there was the gold rush to mobile and free-to-play gaming years ago that evolved into the move towards games as a service. Every year the Academy sets an overarching theme that establishes the general tone, but it’s usually pretty spot-on in terms of nailing what’s on everyone’s mind. This year IGN’s Stella Chung joined Kinda Funny’s Greg Miller to host the awards, and you can watch the full thing here.ĭICE is unlike a lot of other events that we cover because the information we can bring you from it is less about announcements and more about spotting trends and getting a feel for what’s going on in game developers’ heads. ![]() The event attracts developers and leaders from across the games business to get together and discuss the biggest challenges of the moment while celebrating the top achievements of the past year at a peer-judged awards ceremony that we partner with the Academy on to live stream. Now in its 26th year, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences hosted its DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit in Las Vegas last week. This enthusiasm for working with the audience means much more than just reacting to feedback and suggestions on Discord. I spoke to multiple developers that have put not just early code, but game-making tools into the hands of passionate players at a very early stage and invited them to help shape the experience – sometimes hiring them to work on it full time as a result.
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