DICE Summit 2012

The first three months of the year are always packed with excitement for games industry people, with CES in January, DICE in February and GDC in March.

While I personally love GDC and all the events surrounding it, we chose to check out the D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas instead this year.

Organized by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, DICE stands for Design, Innovate, Communicate and Entertain and brings together the top video game designers. developers and publishers from around the world to discuss important topics about the industry.

This year was no different, with speakers like Tim Sweeney, Richard Hilleman, Eric Hirshberg, David Jaffee, Tomonobu Itagaki, Todd Howard, Seamus Blackley and many more. You can check out some of the talks from DICE 2012 here.

And here is my favorite: Tim Sweeney’s thoughts on the next 20 years in gaming:

But the talks alone don’t begin to describe the true appeal of DICE – compared to events like GDC, DICE is really small and you can actually hang out with the best and the brightest in the industry at cool networking events like go-karting (which was awesome), golf, poker tournaments (welcome to Vegas) and several great parties.

I had a great time at the conference and I am definitely coming back whenever I can – and not just for the nice February weather (wearing a T-shirt while there was heavy snow back home), the classy venue (Red Rock Resort) and the abundance of high-quality shows in Vegas.