academy-of-interactive-arts-and-sciences posts

For the past several years the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has sponsored Into The Pixel, an art exhibition featuring video-PC game related artwork from professional game developers. The organization has now begun to start accepting submissions for the 2011 edition of Into The Pixel.

Artists in the game industry can now submit their entries at the official Into The Pixel web site from now until April 15. The submissions will be reviews and judged by a still unannounced number of panelists. The final picks will be shown off at the Los Angeles Convention Center during E3 2011 from June 15-17.

Usually the keynote address at the annual DICE Summit is handled by just one person. For the 2011 edition in mid-February the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences are doing something a little different. The opening keynote address on February 9 will have five major speakers. All of them have been past recipients of the AIAS's Hall of Fame award.

The speakers will be Mike Morhaime (co-founder and CEO of Blizzard), Bruce Shelley (co-founder of the now defunct Ensemble Studios), Mark Cerny (founder of Cerny Games), and Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk (the co-founders of BioWare). All five will participate in a "lively discussion, debate and predict the next frontier of interactive entertainment." The panel will apparently not have the AIAS's newest Hall of Fame member Peter Molyneux.

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences will give out its second annual Pioneer Award to Bill Budge at the 2011 DICE Summit on February 10 This award differs from the AIAS's Hall of Fame honor in that the Pioneer Award is given to "men and women who helped to create the interactive entertainment industry."

That's certainly the case for Budge who created programs in the early 1980s like 3-D Game Tool and Pinball Construction Set which allowed anyone to make their own games without the need to know or understand programming codes. Will Wright is quoted in the press release as saying, "Pinball Construction Set was the first game that introduced me to the idea of constructive games and systemic thinking. I doubt SimCity would have existed without it."

Budge has worked for Apple, Electronic Arts, Sony Computer Entertainment and the now defunct 3DO in his long career. He currently works at Google "where he is helping to make the Web a better platform for games and game makers."

The second annual Indie Game Challenge has announced its finalist for the 2011 edition of the independent game competition sponsored by The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, GameStop and The Guildhall. Like last year, six finalists each were picked for the non-professional and professional categories. You can check out the finalist after the jump.

All of the nominated teams will be flown to the DICE Summit in Las Vegas where the winning game and team in each category will be announced on February 11. The winning team in both categories will get $100,000. All of the team will also be able to have meeting with top publishers. In addition the Indie Game Challenge will also name the winner of the Kongregate Award for best browser-based game.

One of Electronic Arts' most influential former executives has been named as the fifth receipiant of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Science's Lifetime Achievement Award. Bing Gordon will receive the award during the annual DICE Summit in Las Vegas on February 10.

Gordon started at EA in 1982 and rose up the ranks, eventually becoming the Chief Creative Officer at the publisher where he would stay for 10 years. Bing helped to lead EA to become one of the biggest publishers in the industry. Gordon left EA in 2008 and currently is a partner with the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

One of the major game industry awards has found a new TV network to broadcast the event. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has announced that it has partnered with the G4 cable TV network to broadcast the 2011 edition of its Interactive Achievement Awards. The awards had been shown for the past two years on the IFC cable TV network.

This year's award ceremony will be held on February 10 during the AIAS's annual DICE Summit in Las Vegas. Actor and comedian Jay Mohr will be the host of the ceremony for the sixth year in a row. G4 will stream the awards ceremony live in its entirely on its G4TV.com web site along with online content from the DICE Summit session and its Indie Game Challenge. G4 will broadcast the awards on its network on February 12 at 4 pm Eastern time.

The founders of one of the most successful game developers of all time will be getting a big honor in 2011. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has announced that BioWare's co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk will be the latest game developers inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame. It will be the first time in the award's history that it will be given to two people in the same year. The award will officially be presented during the AIAS's annual DICE Summit on February 10 in Las Vegas.

After getting their medical degrees, Drs. Muzyka and Zeschuk founded BioWare and since then have given us some of the best PC and console games ever made. Titles like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect,and Dragon Age Origins have cemented the developer's reputation as one of the best, if not the best, RPG maker in the industry. At the moment the developer has three games scheduled for release in 2011: Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and the long awaited MMO Star Wars The Old Republic.

[Via email press release]

The console-PC game organization The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has a new leader today. The group, which sponsors the annual DICE Summit and the Interactive Achievement Awards has announced that its long time president Joseph Olin has decided to leave the AIAS "to pursue new opportunities". Olin has been the head of the organization since 2004.

The AIAS has already announced Olin's replacement with Martin Rae taking over the president's position. He had held a number of executive and CEO positions at various game and game-related companies. Prior to his new gig Rae was the CEO of Sunleaf Studios. Olin will work with Rae and the rest of the AIAS's board through the end of the year.

In related news registration for the 2011 DICE Summit has now started. This year's summit will be held once again in Las Vega on February 9-11.

With E3 2010 now well underway, the game industry concentrates this week on the near future and the upcoming game releases for the next year or so. But what about beyond the usual sales year. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has sponsored or co-sponsored a number of events and awards designed to broaden the scope of the industry.

This week the AIAS co-sponsored the Into The Pixel game art exhibit at E3. It is the primary organizer of the annual DICE Summit and its related Interactive Achievement Awards. It also is a co-sponsor of the Indie Games Challenge competition that gave $100,000 each to two development teams in its first year.. Overseeing all of this is the AIAS's president Joseph Olin. Big Download got a chance to ask Olin some questions about all the AIAS's efforts and other topics.

The Interactive Achievement Awards, held during DICE, will be streamed live on the IFC.com web site starting at 10 pm Eastern time on Thursday. Comedian/actor Jay Mohr will host the event for the fifth time. The IFC cable channel will broadcast a half-hour special with highlights of the ceremony on February 26 at 10 pm Eastern Time.

The Interactive Achievement Awards won't be the only awards to be given out during the DICE Summit this year. The grand prize winners of Epic Games' latest Make Something Unreal mod contest will also be revealed during the event. Also the Indie Game Challenge will give out its two $1 million prizes for the best professional and non-professional independent games.