Gearbox's Randy Pitchford

Well, it tends to draw a lot of folks that are really driving the industry. I love it, because it's not just an opportunity for me to connect with really important drivers behind the first parties - the folks at Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony - but also publishing partners and studio heads, pushing the craft.

It's very rare to have all these folks together in one place together to focus on the business and the craft, and how they're related. There are other events that touch on these things, but they tend to be diluted by a lot of other interests.

For example, I love GDC, but when I go there are a lot of people looking at how to get into the industry. At DICE we tend to focus on how to lead the industry, and where do we push moving forwards. That's a very important distinction.

It's actually the first time I've spoken at DICE, so I'm going to bring some thoughts about how I view the industry, and how my studio - Gearbox Software - has been impacted by its strategies and philosophies.

I'm also going to use the opportunities to explain a little bit about how we came to exist, why we do what we do, and how we've managed to do it. I think that by looking at my studio as a case study it might help other developers - whether you're independent or owned by a publisher - to understand how we've navigated the space.

I think it could also help publishing partners understand more of the mindset of an independent developer, and how we relate to one another. Plus the folks driving the platforms have an interest in those creating the content, so my goal is to speak to each of those parties that we expect to be there, and to help them understand how we think.

It was a very interesting year - the entire world really contracted economically. In fact, it was probably the most significant downturn that I've experienced in my entire lifetime, and I think that's true for everyone in the industry.

The games industry had previously experienced incredible growth, and a lot of folks who were risking what they had in order to build the future could tremble at that growth. People were expecting more extreme growth, but while the industry did grow, it was by much less than what everybody expected. And in the course of making decisions and leading towards that growth there was a tremendous amount of fear.

At my studio we focus on making games, so we were doing something pretty cool. We have a few things in development, so as an independent we were reasonably well diversified in that we tend to have more than one project at a time. This is a function of creative interests, but also balancing the natural cycles of production.

For example, in pre-production you have a small team gearing up and imagining what the plan should be, while in production you have a very large team - and in post-production, while you're in certification, the team begins to shrink again. For a single team company that's a huge challenge to deal with the fact that your team sizes should vary over time, but when you have multiple teams at different stages, you can even that out - it's quite convenient.

So from our perspective it was really sad - we saw some of our friends, and studios we really respected, run into trouble, and some even shut down. In Dallas we lost Ensemble last year, and I think those guys were among the best RTS developers on the planet. The Age of Empires series was beloved to me as a gamer, and the studio that created that has gone - that was local impact.

We saw some astonishing things - one of the reasons I'm an action and FPS game-maker is because of id Software, they're my heroes. They made the decision last year to join up with Zenimax - and these guys used to be the model of independence to me... so I'm excited about the investment and the partnership, and I can't wait to see what comes from it, but it's also a reflection of how the industry is changing and how consolidation sometimes affects people.

And in 2009 our industry saw an unprecedented move when Bungie, one of the best and most respected studios on Earth, regained its independence. The fact that such a thing is possible demonstrates how much importance and leverage talent can have in our business.

For our part we focus on our dreams and mission, and the objectives of our games, and we have the resources and partners and passion to do what we need to do - so honestly, the economy didn't affect us in terms of the management and operation of our studio too greatly, but I can imagine if we were in-between things and looking to develop business, that it could have been a big challenge.