Final Speaker Line-Up Revealed For The 2014 D.I.C.E. Summit

From Robotics to Industry Disruption and Leadership to Creative Inspiration, New Sessions Featuring Seven Diverse Industry Notables Round-Out the 2014 Schedule

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 27, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has revealed the final group of speakers for this year's upcoming D.I.C.E. Summit, completing a distinguished line-up of industry experts who will address this years' theme, The New Golden Age. The 2014 D.I.C.E. Summit (#DICE2014), taking place next week, Feb. 4-6, at the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas, is the first industry conference of the year and promises to set the stage for an exhilarating 2014, ripe with disruptive technology and mind-bending games to inspire the interactive industry. Attendees often look to the D.I.C.E. Summit to ruminate on the next big thing, and this year -- for the first time -- fans across the globe will get an inside look as each D.I.C.E. Summit session will be live streamed on partner site Twitch.tv at www.twitch.tv/dice.

When programming talks around this year's theme of The New Golden Age, it became immediately apparent that a true Golden Age is fertile ground for leaps forward in innovation and truly disruptive change. The Academy has decided to start the conference with ideas and technologies over the course of the morning that have a real chance at defining how everyone looks at their craft.

Leading off the conference will be Hilmar Veigar Petursson of CCP Games who will revisit and expand upon his popular session from D.I.C.E. Europe sharing how the human brain is THE platform for interactive engagement. This session will kick-off further discussions about eye-opening, next-gen technology and concepts from all corners of the industry with presentations from Anki, Oculus VR, and Unity. Companies like Niantic Labs, Media Molecule and MLG will take to the D.I.C.E. stage to enlighten attendees with their personal thoughts on how technology can inspire and manifest itself in clever and unexpected ways. Known to keep a keen eye on the industry's rising stars, the Academy will also welcome a new generation of creative individuals with talks from Vlambeer, Kabam, Funomena, and Fullbright Company.

The latest additions to the Summit schedule include:

• Mark Turmell moderates a discussion between Eugene Jarvis, this year's recipient of the AIAS Pioneer Award, and 2010's AIAS Hall of Fame honoree Mark Cerny titled "A Renaissance of Gaming or Just More of the Same?" Topics debated will include how the world of games has changed -- or not changed -- over the last three decades, as well as how the industry is likely to evolve over the coming years.
• Rex Crowle, creative director, Media Molecule, will present on "Using the Ordinary to Create the Extraordinary!" He'll discuss how using objects around us can be the basis of a new fantasy, and how this has influenced the narrative and experience from Tearaway.
• Ted Price, president and CEO, Insomniac Games, will discuss his take on leadership in a session titled "Trust & Ballz: Walking the Creative Tightrope." Insomniac has created several high profile franchises including Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet and Clank, Resistance, and Fuse.
• Boris Sofman, CEO and co-founder, Anki, which has taken the world by storm by making robotics technology accessible to consumers with its most recent product, AnkiDrive. He will be presenting on "Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: Changing Entertainment by Bridging the Digital and Physical Worlds."
• Gilman Louie, partner of Alsop Louie Partners, a venture capital fund, will tackle "Disrupting Gaming." Before founding his previous company and serving as CEO at In-Q-Tel, he ran Hasbro Corporation, where he served as chief creative officer of Hasbro Interactive and general manager of the Games.com. Gilman is also an advisor to the Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and is a member of the Technical Advisory Group to the United States Senate Intelligence Committee

These industry experts will join the line-up of confirmed speakers: Keiji Inafune of comcept; Rami Ismail of Vlambeer; Hilmar Veigar Petursson of CCP Games; Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe of Oculus VR; Steve Gaynor  of The Fullbright Company; Austin Wintory, Journey composer; Andrew Sheppard of Kabam Studios; John Hanke of Niantic Labs at Google; Robin Hunicke of Funomena; Trip Hawkins of If You Can; David Helgason of Unity; Ed Fries; and Sundance DiGiovanni of MLG.

The complete 2014 D.I.C.E. Summit schedule can be found at http://www.cvent.com/events/d-i-c-e-summit-2014v2/agenda-92100a88a22b4016bd8c0179ed0df16d.aspx.

SOURCE Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences