The game academy's new board signals the shift to digital gaming (exclusive)

Call it a gradual palace coup. But the leadership of video game creators — once dominated by the makers of console video games — has made a definite shift toward digital games such as mobile, social, and online. The changes are a mirror of the transformation of the soul of the game industry amid huge turmoil.

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, which puts on the elite Dice Summit and the Oscar-like Dice Awards, is announcing several new board members from digital gaming today. Min Kim, chief executive of Nexon of America, the U.S. division of the Tokyo-based free-to-play online gaming pioneer, will become chairman of the AIAS. This kind of change is like the makers of talkies taking over from silent film creators as the stewards of the movie industry’s Oscars.