A Slice of DICE

It entails that we're actually going to take one of the days of GC Asia and programme it - and use it as a foundation to create a DICE type of experience that will really be tailored for the Pacific Rim. I think that the one thing that DICE has always tried to do is bring in game-makers and creative talent from around the world, even though probably no more than 20 per cent of our Las Vegas attendance is international... it's 120-plus people who aren't from California or Seattle who come in and try to pick up, meet and share ideas.

I think that the opportunity in Singapore is that it's a place that no one necessarily doesn't want to go. It's not geographically that difficult to get to Singapore from China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Tokyo... so it just seemed right to be able to capitalise on... I hate to say the growht, because we've been enjoying no shortage of titles from Asia over the last ten years, but I think that the change in connected gameplay and the enjoyment that everyone seems to have from these different MMOs means that we should bring all these talents together and see if we can get them to share ideas. DICE seemed to be the right format to do so.

I also thing that GC Asia was more a business conference initially, similar to what Leipziger Messe was doing with GCDC and Games Convention consumer show for the past eight years. In our conversations - and I sat on the advisory board of GCDC and always tried to push the group to try and acknowledge that they want more game-makers to talk about game-making than some of the sponsored sessions and what have you.

This is the opportunity, and I think that to get to the next level, to try and create a gathering of game-makers, that we needed to try and programme a little bit differently and that DICE was really an experience that would be relevant and hopefully enjoyable for the senior members of the Pacific Rim creative community.

I don't know that they're separate agendas, it's just the differences that come from each of the territories in terms of serving their markets. I think that Nexon is a great example of an enterprise that was first and foremost designed to create an entertainment service specific to the Korean market, and based on the success that they enjoyed in their home country it wasn't too difficult for them to think maybe they could export it.

Obviously they've been very successful - KartRider enjoys large audiences globally; MapleStory, even though it's geared towards a younger player has enjoyed pretty much equal success - if not in raw numbers, at least in terms of attaining critical mass in every market they've launched in.

You then look at China and that market is so massive potentially, even if you just isolate the 16 connected cities in China you're dealing with a population that's greater than Western Europe... the numbers are mind-boggling, so I think that you look at that, and the traditional creative power that's come out of Japan, and I don't know that we've ever done a good job as an industry to embrace the differences across the region - let alone globally.

So not to isolate the Pacific Rim from Europe or the United States, I think if anything the Academy wants to recognise and capitalise on the universal great talent, period. The opportunity to use DICE as a form to not just talk about our own agendas, but talk about and share the experiences that allow our IP, products and services to enjoy success globally and look for the common threads - that seems to be a natural starting point.

Because I think the commercial side is the least interesting... okay, it pays all of our bills and it's not that it's unimportant, but I don't know that the commercial side - we don't get to talk about it unless the creative side does a good job.