My IGDA Board Candidacy Statement

(It’s official — I have been nominated and will be running for IGDA Board. Elections open soon, and that means the candidate statements go up on the IGDA website soon. Since my statement is done and submitted, I figured I would post it here. It’s based off a post I made here some months ago.)

“How will the IGDA tangibly benefit me as a developer?”

Prospective members ask this question time and time again. Often, we struggle to answer. Sometimes we mention one of our excellent Special Interest Groups to convince a developer to join, or we use IGDA events like the Leadership Forum and the Global Game Jam to show what the IGDA does for its community. Unfortunately, sometimes these groups and events alone fail to persuade potential IGDA members, and we lose the opportunity to expand our organization.

As an IGDA Board member, my number one priority will be to strengthen local chapters worldwide by making them a vital part of their local game development scene.

I’ve been an organizer of the Boston IGDA Chapter since 2006, and I became its president in April 2009. I’ve worked to grow the chapter, turning it into a force in the local community. When local developers ask me to describe the benefits of IGDA membership, I can respond with a list of tangible benefits provided by our chapter:

• A place for networking, with 100-200 people at our monthly meetings, grown from 30 people in 2005
• A monthly speaker on game development topics
• A news feed for relevant local events
• An active job board
• Community coordination around large-scale events (discounts to local conferences, placing our members on panel discussions, etc.)
• Political coordination around issues of game censorship legislation, tax credits, net neutrality
• A sense of belonging to a real community of local game developers

If every IGDA chapter worldwide could provide their members with a similar list of services, individual developers would immediately see the benefits that the IGDA brings them. Furthermore, they would see opportunities to volunteer on a local level, which would lead to greater member engagement with the IGDA.

Member engagement and communication on a chapter level are the foundation of the IGDA’s ability to advocate for game developers. Imagine if all of our chapters were strong; the IGDA could respond to hot-button QoL issues as they are raised by recommending that all of its chapters participate in a theme month, where the topic of discussion would be issues surrounding QoL. We could take notes from all the meetings worldwide and compile them on the IGDA Wiki. Such notes would be of value to the IGDA’s ongoing QoL efforts, giving the IGDA a better handle on where developers stand on the issue, and the meetings themselves would almost certainly cause volunteers to step forward and join our QoL initiatives.

I believe in the future of the IGDA — I’ve been a member since 2003 and it is obvious that we are doing more as an organization today than ever before. Yet there is much room for improvement, not just on the chapter level, but on issues of transparency, budget, and election process and policy. I’ll end this statement by encouraging you as a member to research each and every candidate on this page: it’s in your hands to elect the Board you want, so don’t throw away this opportunity to make a real difference.

Volunteer contributions:

• President, IGDA Boston Chapter, AKA Boston Post Mortem (2009-present)
• Coordinator, IGDA Boston Chapter, AKA Boston Post Mortem (2006-2009)
• Technology Co-Officer, Game Education SIG (2007-present)
• Member, Special Member Meeting Task Force (August 2009)