Category Archives: DICE Summit 2009

EA’s COO, John Schappert, gave a speech at DICE this week chatting about 20 years of technology transitions in the gaming industry.

During it, he admitted that both Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge weren’t given enough of a marketing push.

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Develop’s been and gone – find out what we thought of the UK show in the second episode of our podcast after the break.

There’s also an interview with Rare’s head of animation, Louise Ridgeway, in there, where she talks about Rare’s work on 360′s Avatar system. It’s good stuff, so take a listen.

• 0.00-12.09 – Pat and Steph discuss this week’s Develop Conference in Brighton
• 12.10-22.29 – Rare’s Louise Ridgeway on Avatars and how they’ve changed Xbox 360

More next week.

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Dorian Bloch, GfK Chart-Track director, expects the digital download market for PC to be worth over $1 billion in 2009 thanks to services like Direct2Drive, Steam, and Metaboli.

Bloch estimates the market accumulated close to $600 million last year, with publisher’s relishing the idea of including sales number’s in GfK Chart-Track’s data.

“This is a huge business,” said Bloch at Develop. “The key thing for me in this is that these publishers support me in what I do and they want their sales included in the charts.

“Sega has been asking us, ‘when can we include our Football Manager sales in our charts?’ We’d like to include them, but I can’t just include one publisher’s sales, I need a balanced approach for doing that.”

Bloch said that the only way to include digital sales in the company’s data, is for a wider selection of publishers to start providing sales statistics.

Thanks, GI.biz.

Speaking at DICE today, Gamestop CEO J Paul Raines claimed that secondhand sales don’t impact the success of new games.

“Do used game sales hurt new game sales?” he asked. “No.”

Raines said that only 4 percent of GameStop’s used game sales are for titles that debuted in the last 60 days.

The retailer’s surveys of 2,000 gamers show that gamers view used games as a way to try out new kinds of games they wouldn’t otherwise have played, said Raines.

Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter was sitting in the audience at Raines’ talk and begged to differ, however, saying that around 20 percent of Gamestop’s business – some $2 billion – was based on used game sales.

More on VentureBeat.

Acclaim boss Dave Perry said at DICE yesterday that single-player games will not be able to compete with online free-to-play games.

The creator of Earthworm Jim told the crowd that “the days of single-player games are numbered,” and added that his company’s focus is “entirely on multiplayer.”

More over on Gamasutra.

Speaking at DICE in Las Vegas today, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said that some 75 percent of gamers say they prefer a boxed product, and 58 percent had never downloaded a game.

But out of those who have downloaded a game, 77 percent said it was just as good as a retail box, she added.

The NPD perennial number-cruncher went on to say that 65 percent of surveyed gamers said they would be more likely to purchase a digital product if it were 10 percent less than retail.

More on Edge.

Ensemble Studios co-founder Bruce Shelley is very happy for the ex-Ensemble vets who have moved on to form Robot Entertainment and Bonfire Studios.

Speaking at DICE, Shelley said the studio’s demise mostly boiled down to lack of quality, lack of quality hires and genre diversification as projects not related to RTS were canceled.

Shelley also said that the worst thing Ensemble did was to close, as there were ways to have moved on specifically downsizing and reaffirming its relationship with Microsoft.

“It’s a sad day, but this is business,” Shelley said. “Maybe we didn’t do some things very well. We were shocked, but we’ve gone through the stages of grief and now we’re looking for a new direction.”

More through here.

Comedian Jay Mohr was the host of this year’s AIAS awards, and what better way to get the crowd warmed than by making fun of some of the most prominent people there?

Here are just a couple of them:

• Cliff Belinski:  (Dropping the “y” from his name to be more adult): “That worked well for Rick Schroder.”

• Richard Garriott: “That guy used 30 million to launch himself into space. Maybe he should have used that to launch Tabula Rasa.”

• Makers of Grand Theft Auto IV: He couldn’t joke about the game: “If you want to watch an awards show about thugs beating up ho’s, watch the Grammys”

More over on MTV Multiplayer.

Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet has swept the board at the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in Las Vegas, taking eight trophies from the ceremony.

The platformer won Family Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction, Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering, Outstanding Character Performance, Outstanding Innovation in Gaming, Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction, Console Game of the Year, and, obviously, Overall Game of the Year.

Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead and Dead Space all did well on the night, but there was no stopping the little sack man.

Full list of winners, in bold, after the break. Thanks, Gamespot.

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Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi told DICE yesterday Capcom’s ten-point plan for making good games. As you do.

The first three:

1. Keep staff turnover below 10 percent per annum.
2. Maintain the ability (and cash reserves) to increase personnel by 10 percent each year.
3. Keeping the first two points in mind, keep development cost fluctuation within 10 percent.

See, developers of the world? Easy. Get the rest on MTV.

EA’s John Riccitiello has told DICE attendees that the recession has “been a blessing in disguise that can clear away junk”.

Speaking at the Las Vegas summit today, the exec said current economic issues will lead to the industry stop sending pointless product to retail stores.

“Junk is hard to compete with,” said Riccitiello who said he felt that developers should shift their focus on quality, and away from quantity.

“We did get fat in too many places. It seemed like anyone who could draw a guy with a gun with a crayon could get funded. At least for EA, we got a little too fat, and a little too reliant on where things were.

“I’m not pro-recession but to quote Rahm Emanuel: never waste a crisis.”

More through the link.

Gabe Newell revealed at DICE yesterday that Left 4 Dead sold one-third more on Steam last weekend than it did at launch, thanks to its 50-percent-off sale.

As well as the price drop, free trial passes and the recent DLC announcement added to the game’s overall value, said the Valve boss.

Newell did note, however, that while increased discount sales were good financially, such tactics run the risk of gamers beginning to wait for similar deals instead of paying full price at launch.

DICE has released a list of the big names now convened in Las Vegas for DICE, and it’d be fair to say that anyone with half a brain and a dictaphone could do some serious damage. Maybe we’ll go next year.

Here’s who’s there:

• Gabe Newell – Valve, Founder
• John Riccitiello – Electronic Arts, CEO
• Jun Takeuchi – Capcom, Producer
• Randy Jackson – The Planning Center, President
• Chris Cao – SOE Austin, Creative Director
• David Perry – Acclaim Entertainment, Creative Officer
• Lars Gustavsson – D.I.C.E. Studios/EA, Creative Director
• Bruce Shelley – Ensemble Studio
• Rich Hilleman – Electronic Arts, Chief Creative Director
• Chris Taylor – Gas Powered Games, Creative Director
• Mona Hamilton – Capcom, VP Marketing
• Dan Bilson – THQ, SVP Creative Director
• Ted Price – Insomniac Games
• J. Paul Raines – GameStop, COO
• Anita Frazier – NPD, Senior Analyst
• Brian Raffel – Raven Software, Co-Founder & Studio Head
• Alex Laurant – Lucas Arts & ILM, Art Director
• Todd Howard – Bethesda Studios, Game Director
• Alex Evans – Media Molecule, Co-Founder
• Tom Prata – Nintendo
• Ben Bell – Maxis/EA, Producer
• Ralph Osterhout – Serial Inventor
• Michael Denny & Mike Haigh

Gabe Newell gave his keynote last night, focussing on entertainment as service.

The event ends tomorrow. The Interactive Achievement Awards are being broadcast live tonight.

Valve boss Gabe Newell stuck to familiar ground in his DICE keynote last night, saying the best way to reach new customers is through the word of mouth of your existing clients.

“The old way was using intermediaries,” Newell said. “The product would be sold through retailers or other intermediaries.

“You were really focused on spending three years to build value for your customers to get through the friction of the retail experience.”

When you focus on entertainment as a service, on the other hand, “you will use your customer base to reach new customers, and your focus is much more about providing ongoing value to your customers – maybe every three weeks, or even more often than that.”

To illustrate the point, Newell rolled out some frankly disturbing Steam stats.

• 20 million people connected
• All major PC publishers on board
• 350+ of the best PC games
• Worldwide in 21 languages
• 100% Year-over-year growth since 2004

Get a fuller reports on Gamasutra and G4. From the look of it, the only announcement as such was that Valve’s making a Team Fortress 2 comic.

Terminal Reality announced licensing details for its Infernal Engine today.

The tech powering the upcoming Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Infernal is being shown at DICE as we speak (using The Stranger from Nocturne).

Press release after the break.

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The Interactive Achievement Awards are to be broadcast live by IGN, taking place at DICE in Las Vegas next week.

The annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awards are pretty much “hot shit,” self-styled as they are as gaming’s Oscars.

The magic happens at on Thursday, February 19 and 10.00pm EST, 7.00pm PST.

For the UK crowd, that’s 3.00am GMT. See you there, right?

Las Vegas expo DICE has sold out, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences confirmed this morning, a week before it’s to start.

The summit, held at the Red Rock Resort from February 17-20, will include speeches from EA’s John Riccitiello, Capcom’s Jun Takeuchi and Bethesda’s Todd Howard.

“DICE was designed to be an open, collegial and productive gathering so we have always limited our attendance,” said Joseph Olin, president of the AIAS.

“It’s gratifying to see the level of support the Summit receives from our peers, especially in what we all know to be a challenging year.”

More on GI.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has announced that Media Molecule’s co-founder Alex Evans, the co-creator of LittleBigPlanet, will speak at DICE later this month.

“Our take on ‘Creative Gaming’ is that it’s an incredibly broad church, and Little Big Planet represents our particular first take on User Generated Content,” said Alex Evans, co-founder of Media Molecule. “The D.I.C.E. Summit gives us the opportunity to present our design philosophy to the industry in the most prestigious forum today.”

DICE, which runs from February 17-20 in Las Vegas, will also host the Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony on February 19, with comedian Jay Mohr to return as host.

Full list of speakers can be found here.

Valve boss Gabe Newell will deliver DICE’s keynote address, the show’s announced.

No details of the talk have been given, unfortunately, so it remains title-less.

“Gabe Newell and Valve have become a force for innovation in gaming over the past a decade, creating some of the best-selling games of all time and a ground-breaking platform for PC entertainment,” said Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences president Joseph Olin.

“His perspective and vision of the games industry are a welcome addition to this year’s D.I.C.E. Summit, and will greatly contribute to the high-profile line-up.”

DICE takes place in Las Vegas from February 17-20. For a list of confirmed speakers so far, hit the break. Thanks, GameDaily.

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This year’s Interactive Achievement Awards, to take place at DICE in Las Vegas on February 19, will be televised thanks to a deal between the event and Independent Film Channel.

“The Academy is excited to bring the Interactive Achievement Awards — the Oscars of video games — to the IFC audience,” said Joseph Olin, President, AIAS.

“The amazing popularity of interactive entertainment is attributed to the manner that today’s games allow people to be part of fantastic worlds, incredible challenges and the simple fun of sharing these experiences with friends and family.

“As IFC celebrates the creative spirit of independent filmmaking, I can think of no better place to showcase the talented men and women who are responsible for our dynamic entertainment art form.”

Should be fun. Press release after the link.

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