A more optimistic expedition

At the DICE Summit, I checked in with video game industry leaders about the state of things. And I handed my phone to two of the co-founders of Clair Obscur's Sandfall Interactive.. just for a moment.

Sandfall Interactive’s Guillaume Broche and Tom Guillermin at the DICE Summit. Photo by them, using Game File’s phone.

I’m going to start near the end of my three-day trip this week to Las Vegas, where I was reporting on and mingling with a who’s who of game designers, studio leaders, publishers, middleware makers, students and other industry figures.

On Thursday night, as the show came to a close with the annual DICE Awards, I was backstage in the green room and wound up with the photo you see above.

At DICE, as at the Game Developers Choice Awards each March, reporters like me can hang out in the green room and interview award-winners as they claim their trophies and walk off stage.

I usually have a gimmick for these backstage sessions. I play tic-tac-toe with each winner and discuss if it’s a good game. I roll the dice with each winner and have them describe their game in that many words. Last year, I let Game File readers ask each DICE Award winner a question.

This year, as you’ll see sprinkled across a few upcoming editions of Game File, I invited each winner to take the most interesting photo they could in the green room. Then we’d talk about it. I figured it might be illuminating. Maybe provide a glimpse of their process or sensibility.

As each winner came backstage, they answered actual interview questions from other reporters. Then, I handed them my phone and gave them their task. Some scanned the room for a while before taking a shot. Some snapped a photo quickly. No one refused this surprise art project, which was nice.

This wasn’t the easiest of tasks. The green room was a pretty standard conference room space. High ceilings. Simple carpet. Some minimalist art on patterned walls. Less of a green room than a gray-and-beige room.

Here, look:

The Green Room in the Aria Casino’s convention center. Photo: Game File

Last night, 10 award winners had taken me up on this photo challenge before it was my time to approach two of the co-founders of Sandfall Interactive, developers of 2025 hit and DICE Awards Game of the Year Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Up top you can see what they snapped.

I think the photo of them taking that shot, snapped by IGN’s Rebekah Valentine, is arguably even better.