LAS VEGAS — The Golden Age of Gaming was the big theme of the annual Dice Summit, the game conference here where the important names in the industry gathers each year. The event’s organizer, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, named it so because of the big expansion under way across all platforms and territories.
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“It’s a testament to all of the changes happening,” said Martin Rae, the head of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, in an interview on the red carpet before the Oscars-like Dice Awards on Thursday night. “We are on the cusp of some really incredible stuff. Virtual reality will become a reality over the next few years. Fifteen years ago, you needed a big staff to build games. Now we have the Unity engine and the App Store. We can build games with small teams. We’re entering an age where the cost of building games will go down. It’s also where we will a big new blossoming of creativity.”
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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