I highly recommend downloading highlights from the Interactive Achievement Awards and DICE 2011 through Xbox Live. Just head on over to the Zune section of the dashboard. You’ll be able to find the awards highlights (search “interactive”) and three DICE panels (search “DICE”). Here are the panel descriptions from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences:
Richard Garriott, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Portalarium, speaking on his foray into space and its influence on him from a game creation standpoint in his session titled, “Achieving the Impossible – Creating Games and Gateways to Space!”
John Stevenson, filmmaker and director of Kung Fu Panda, speaking on passion and pursuing his dreams as an animator in his session titled, “Monsters, Muppets and Movies”
Dr. Dave Gallo, Director at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, speaks on diving deep into the ocean and exploring the Titanic in “Exploring the Ocean Deep in 3D: To the Titanic and Beyond”
I definitely recommend the Stevenson and Gallo panels — super interesting views on gaming from people outside of the industry. It’s hard for me to recommend a session that has Garriott showing off his adventures in space. To steal a joke that Jay Mohr laid on Garriott a few years ago, “Let me get this straight. You can launch yourself into space, but you can’t launch Tabula Rasa?!?”
Dr. Gallo FTW!