aias posts

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."

It's awards season and we are not just talking about the movie industry. Today the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for its annual Interactive Achievement Awards. The winners, which are voted on by members of the game industry, will be held as part of the DICE Summit in Las Vegas on February 10. As we previously reported, comedian and actor Jay Mohr will return as its host and the G4 cable TV network will provide live streaming of the awards ceremony on its web site and show an edited version on the network itself on February 12.

Call of Duty Black Ops and Mass Effect 2 got the most nomination for a game released on the PC platform with five nods each including Game of the Year. StarCraft II got four nominations including one for Strategy/Simulation game of the year which it shared with Civilization V, Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II Chaos Rising and Supreme Commander 2. The full list of catagories and nominated games can be seen at this PDF page.

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 Indie Game Challenge from last year has turned into an annual event. Sponsored by SMU, Gamestop, and AIAS, it is now accepting entries to be judged in the 2011 competition. Much like last year, the competition is split into two parts: professional and non-professional, with grand prize winners from both categories getting a whopping $100,000. If a person or team wins, they get to travel to vegas and pitch their game ideas to a bunch of publishing execs.

Last year's winners include the flying action game Altitude, student puzzle-platforming game Gears, and sliding-puzzle game Cogs. Strangely enough, in all of the categories (2 grand prize, 3 lesser prizes), these were the only three games to win anything. Maybe it was due to a lack of alternative entries? Either way, those seeking to submit their game can do so now. You can read all the rules on the official website.

The man who helped to create and run the US's leading trade organization for the game industry will be given a huge honor next year. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has announced that it will give its annual Lifetime Achievement award to Doug Lowenstein, the long time president of the Entertainment Software Association.

Lowenstein, who left the organization in 2007, helped to launch the ESA (then called the Interactive Digital Software Association) back in 1994. The trade group helped to establish the current ESRB ratings system for games, launched the E3 trade show in 1996 and defended the industry against lawmakers who seeked to restrict the sales of certain games to minors. Lowenstein will receive his award during the AIAS's annual DICE Summit in February.