Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences

• 1. Introduction

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  The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences got its start in an unlikely spot: primetime cable television. In 1994, Leslie Nielsen and Jonathan Taylor Thomas hosted an awards special called Cybermania '94 on TBS. At that point, the organization had nothing to do with video games as an industry body. It began three years earlier as an entertainment industry venture, founded by an attorney named Andrew S. Zucker. How did a broadcast novelty hosted by a comedic actor and a teen sitcom star become the organization that now runs the D.I.C.E. Summit? Why did the video game industry's biggest names, including Nintendo's Peter Main and Sega's Tom Kalinske, decide to rebuild this group from scratch? And what happened to the awards show once the video game business finally took charge of it?

• 2. Uneven Early Years

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  AIAS co-promoted numerous events with organizations such as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Directors Guild of America, and Women in Film. These partnerships built the young organization's credibility inside the wider entertainment business before it ever touched the game industry directly. A second awards show ran in 1995 and became the first awards program ever streamed over the Web. That milestone did not help attendance: the 1995 broadcast drew far fewer viewers than the first show had a year earlier. Video game industry leaders were watching this identity crisis and had a very different plan for what AIAS should become.

• 3. Remade by the Industry

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  Peter Main of Nintendo, Tom Kalinske of Sega, and Doug Lowenstein, founder of the Entertainment Software Association, backed a plan to remake AIAS. Their goal was to convert the group into a nonprofit built specifically for the video game industry, with the Entertainment Software Association providing funding. AIAS was formally reestablished on the 19th of November 1996, with Marc Teren installed as president. Teren was soon replaced by game developer Glenn Entis. In 1998, the reorganized AIAS took on one defined job: running an awards program originally called the Interactive Achievement Awards. Fellow game developers who belonged to AIAS nominated and selected the winners themselves. The organization compares this voting method to how the Academy Awards are decided by film academy members. Marc Teren's brief tenure as president was just the first of several leadership changes still to come.

• 4. Funding the D.I.C.E. Summit

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  Around 2000, the Entertainment Software Association withdrew its financial backing from AIAS, cutting off the group's main funding source. AIAS members Richard Hilleman and Lorne Lanning proposed a fix: a standalone convention built around the awards. They called it the D.I.C.E. Summit, an acronym for Design Innovate Communicate Entertain. The Summit targeted industry executives rather than general attendees, structured around networking between companies rather than open access. It launched in 2002 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and has run every year since. AIAS used the gathering for more than the awards ceremony, treating it as a bridge connecting video games to other entertainment industries. The Summit's growth in the years that followed would rest on a rotating cast of AIAS presidents deciding how the event should look.

• 5. New Presidents, New Rules

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  Joseph Olin served as AIAS president from 2004 to 2010. Martin Rae was named president in 2012, two years after Olin's departure. Rae shortened individual talk times at the Summit to put more focus on each speaker. He also rebranded the awards as the D.I.C.E. Awards for the 2013 summit, retiring the Interactive Achievement Awards name AIAS had used since 1998. Mike Fischer replaced Rae as president in 2016. AIAS states its mission plainly: "to promote and advance the worldwide interactive entertainment community, recognize outstanding achievements in the interactive arts and sciences, and host an annual awards show, the DICE Awards, to enhance awareness of games as an interactive art form." Fischer inherited a Summit that, by then, had already changed how it opened each year.

• 6. Keynotes Take the Stage

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  In 2007, AIAS added a keynote speaker to open the D.I.C.E. Summit, replacing the informal recreation that had traditionally started the event. The keynote slot went to a rotating set of executives and industry figures in the years after. The President of Valve opened the 2009 summit and returned in 2013 alongside a film director that same year. The CEO of Activision Blizzard addressed the 2010 summit, and the CEO of Riot Games spoke in 2015. Executives from Bethesda Game Studios delivered keynotes in both 2012 and 2022, and Microsoft's Executive Vice-President of Gaming addressed attendees in 2018. The people on stage rotate year to year. Behind them sits a fixed roster of member companies that keeps the Summit funded and running.

• 7. The Corporate Roster

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  As of the 13th of April 2026, AIAS lists dozens of corporate members across the video game industry. Current members include Nintendo, Sony Computer Entertainment, Valve, Ubisoft, and Take-Two Interactive. Smaller studios on the list include Annapurna Interactive, Obsidian Entertainment, Romero Games, and Schell Games. The roster also includes Bungie, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft Studios, Riot Games, Square Enix, Wargaming, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. AIAS' list of former corporate members includes companies that shaped earlier eras of the industry. Among them are Sega, Capcom, THQ, Google, Disney Interactive, PopCap Games, and Double Fine Productions. Double Fine Productions and PopCap Games once held membership before dropping off the current list. That leaves open which studios might join next as the Summit's annual run continues.