EA and DICE on new IP risk

Gamezine: Releasing a new intellectual property comes with a significant amount of risk management. After Mirror's Edge didn't get the reception DICE might have hoped for, the developer and their publisher EA discuss whether it's worth taking the risk again.

Lars Gustavsson, DICE's creative director, spoke of balancing execution and innovation at the 2009 DICE summit.

Perfectly executing previous concepts can result in excellent games and excellent sales; just look at the Call of Duty series. But there also needs to be innovation for the games industry to stay fresh.

DICE's latest video game, Mirror's Edge, took a huge risk by introducing the platforming genre to the first-person view in addition to presenting a fresh art direction. Gustavsson personally thinks that the game's innovation won out over risk management, but he does admit that in this economic climate the developer's priorities might need to change.