A Few Words from Joseph Olin

Joseph Olin

Kaila Colbin reports from AnimfxNZ.

Joseph Olin is the President of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Just like that Other Academy, on which it's modeled, the AIAS exists to recognize and reward outstanding accomplishments in video games. The Academy is 12 years old, has 15,000 members, and acknowledges the best of the gaming best every year through the Interactive Achievement Awards.

Last year, the Game of the Year award went to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which also received awards for Console Game of the Year, Action Game of the Year, and Outstanding Achievement in Online Game Play. The public obviously agrees: at any given moment, approximately two million people are online playing CoD4 through Xbox Live.

And, just like that Other Academy, the AIAs does more than just awards. They're affiliated with the International Game Developers Association. They run Into the Pixel [1], an exhibition, exploration, and celebration of the art of the video game.

Joseph is feeling pretty positive about the games industry these days. Business is booming. The 'retail games' industry is running at about $19 billion annually, nearly twice as much as the $10 billion theater industry.

The women's segment is growing, thanks in no small part to the Nintendo Wii. Interestingly, the kids' segment is also pretty significant. After all, as Joseph says, we need the kids' games to legitimize needing a new rig for our homes.

Kaila Colbin, the founder of Missing Link [2], is a frequent contributor to a variety of magazines.