DICE 2024 Recap: The Game Changers
Last week, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) held the 2024 DICE Summit, an annual event for developers, publishers, media representatives, and other people in the games industry to come together and interact face to face for a few intensive days of meetings, pitches, and networking. Two Tyz Law Group team members – Jonathan Downing and Guinevere Jobson – joined hundreds of our gaming industry friends and peers in Las Vegas to catch up with one another, discuss the latest industry trends, and most importantly celebrate the games we love and the people who make them. It was an exciting and educational week of intimate conversations, round-table discussions, and curated presentations revolving around this year’s overall theme: “Game Changers.”
“Game Changers” is a big topic, with some obvious and some not-so-obvious implications. One major change that was on top of everyone’s mind was of course the multiple rounds of layoffs faced by thousands of games industry workers since this time last year. Larian Studios’ Michael Douse, in accepting the award for Game of the Year for their hit title Baldur’s Gate 3, spoke to this uncertainty with a degree of optimism, promising developers that they “are talented and [they] matter, and that [they] are the future of this industry.” In the same award acceptance, Larian Studio’s David Walgrave also took a swing at recent trends in industry consolidation, noting that “[w]e don’t have shareholders, but we also don’t think about them.” These twin sentiments reflected a common undertone to the entire summit: the games industry is in a tumultuous period right now as larger studios continue to consolidate and downsize, but this reduction in workforce will one day reverse course and may even be met with talented developers hanging out their own shingles and starting a fresh wave of indie studios once funding becomes more readily available again.
Generative AI and its impact on the future of game development remained a prominent topic of discussion this year as well. Several round-table discussions were held on the subject, both from the vantage point of purely legal developments and issues surrounding the technology (which we have written about previously), but also whether it would prove good or bad for games in general. While many individuals are excited about the possibilities generative AI has for aiding artists, programmers, and developers, many others remain concerned about that very technology minimizing or replacing said artists, programmers, and developers. A conversation between ESA President Stanley Pierre-Louis and Xbox’s Haiyan Zhang on the technology’s anticipated effects provided a generally positive outlook on generative AI’s prospective uses in gaming, noting that the games industry thrives on innovation and creativity, and that generative AI does not change that basic fact. Making an analogy with 19th century Manhattan, the presenters compared generative AI to the electric elevator: where before Manhattan’s buildings were only a few stories tall, after the electric elevator’s invention the modern skyscraper could be born, forever changing the landscape of New York City. So too, the analogy went, might this new technology permit games to reach new heights.
Other presentations included CD PROJEKT RED’s Gabe Amatangelo discussing his experiences and lessons learned as his studio literally changed Cyberpunk 2077 during the development, prerelease, and eventual full release of the game’s expansion, Phantom Liberty. The studio’s development policies and production frameworks were reconfigured and refocused, and many of the base game’s mechanics were completely overhauled in preparation for the expansion’s release; no small task for even an experienced studio and team, but one they pulled off with widespread acclaim. Mitu Khandaker and Latoya Peterson, co-founders of Glow Up Games, spoke about building entirely new genres in games, focusing on celebrations of Black and brown joy, a traditionally underserved space in gaming. They spoke not only of the challenges in designing “culturally informed” game mechanics, but also of the inherent difficulties in leveraging AI to assist in their development. And finally, Aaron “Noxy” Donaghey of Hypixel Studios shared the touching story of how just one player shaped a community of gamers, created an army of fans, and helped change a studio. It served as a reminder that while we work in gaming and entertainment, the stories we tell can have impact and meaning far beyond the confines of those spaces.
Overall DICE 2024 was a smashing success – congratulations to all the award nominees and winners, and we hope to see many of you again at GDC in just a few weeks.