dice-summit-2010
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Richard Garriott re-enters games atmosphere with new social media project: Portalarium
Known spacefarer and castle-owner Richard Garriott isn't going to let a relatively unsuccessful MMORPG launch keep him down. Lord British himself, along with former NCSoft colleagues Dallas Snell, Fred Schmidt and Stephen Nichols, has revealed the launch of a "broad-based" social media company dubbed Portalarium. The outfit is working to first offer "online game apps" and then hopes to expand into "open learning, open health, open science/environment, open government and much more." Whatever that means. The announcement was kind enough to detail the company's first big project: The Portalarium Player, a browser plug-in that allows games developed on a number of platforms (i.e., not just Flash) to work within the confines of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Garriott is speaking more about the young company's future at D.I.C.E. -- so we'll flag him down later today to find out what gamers can expect from the studio. (At the very least, we hope to get some totally awesome space stories.)
EA, Vigil, Gearbox hosting D.I.C.E. sessions
The D.I.C.E. Summit announced today that EA's Chief Operating Officer John Schappert, the co-founders of Vigil Games (Darksiders) and Gearbox Games' Randy Pitchford will speak at this year's gathering. They'll be joined by a whole mess of other speakers, including keynotes by Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and Disney Interactive President Stephen Wadsworth. For those who don't know, D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) is the annual Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences conference "dedicated to exploring approaches to the creative process and artistic expression as they uniquely apply to the development of interactive entertainment." However, more aptly, D.I.C.E. stands for "Damn, I C Executives!," as the conference is one giant big-money pow-wow. We'll be there when the conference kicks off February 17 in Las Vegas.
Kotick to keynote DICE Summit Sessions
Last time we heard from Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, he was explaining how terrible one of his company's franchises was. He's previously joked about increasing prices even further. If you want to be there when he issues his next great Quotick, you should go to the DICE summit -- or, barring that, wait five minutes for shocked journalists to pass it along. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences announced that Kotick will open the Summit Sessions with a talk about "how creative talent drives the video game industry." That is, creative talent who is not having any fun. "Activision Blizzard is home to some of the most talented developers in our industry and we are thrilled to have Bobby's insight on how great games are built upon great talent," AIAS president Joseph Olin said. Kotick's talk will take place Thursday, February 18.
Nathan Drake hoping to take home more shiny trinkets at AIAS awards
We're in the thick of awards season, and video games are no exception. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has announced its finalists for the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards ("The 'Racties" -- we're kidding but that's what they should be called), and, as you might have guessed, award hog Uncharted 2: Among Thieves leads the pack with 15 nominations. The rest of the nominees include more of the usual suspects from 2009: Assassin's Creed II with 10 noms, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with nine and Batman: Arkham Asylum with eight. This year's awards also features three new categories, including Outstanding Achievement in Game Design and Portable and Social Networking Games of the Year. You can find a list of selected categories and their nominees after the break, or check out the Academy's full list in PDF form. The awards will be given out at the DICE Summit on February 18 in Las Vegas, where Activision's Bobby Kotick is scheduled to keynote. We can only guess that he'll go all Kanye on the podium if Modern Warfare 2 doesn't win.
DICE 2010 featuring speakers from Naughty Dog, Zeebo
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has announced a few additions to the lineup of speakers for next year's DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) summit in Las Vegas. Naughty Dog game designer Richard Lemarchand, Zynga chief creative officer Brian Reynolds (previously a designer on Civilization 2 and Alpha Centauri), and Zeebo's Mike Yuen will speak at the summit. Hopefully Yuen will discuss the hot topic of what the deal with Zeebo is. Jamin Brophy-Warren, editor of the new Kill Screen magazine, will moderate a panel discussion between writer/director/producer Navid Khonsari, Raven Software lead designer Manveer Heir, and Dmitri Williams, and new media professor Dmitri Williams. Once again, this is DICE, the summit taking place in Las Vegas from February 17-20, 2010. Not the EA-owned developer, in case you were wondering why they were bringing a bunch of speakers in.
