In my family, we talk about feeling “happysad”: the conflicting, simultaneous emotions of joy and sadness we often have. This description feels particularly apt today, since I’m heading into my last week as the IGDA and IGDA Foundation’s Executive Director.  

Almost two years ago, I was given one of the biggest opportunities of my career-to lead the IGDA through developing and implementing a new mission and renewing its commitment to the global game development community.  Over the past year and a half, with the support of the IGDA’s Board of Directors, our dedicated staff, and volunteers around the world, we’ve expanded to 111 Chapters on six continents, with 53 Studio Affiliates, and 36 Special Interest Groups, all more than at any other time in the IGDA’s history.

Most important to me, however, has been the opportunity to support game developers at every stage in their career through the introduction of new and improved IGDA member benefits, whether it’s equipment discounts from Dell, research from the leading game intelligence provider, or more than $5,000 in discounts on events and services.  

So while I’m proud of everything we’ve accomplished, I’m also happysad.  I have a new opportunity to help game developers in a different way that I simply can’t pass up, so I’m stepping down as the IGDA’s Executive Director, effective 14 April.  I’ll be taking a one-year Board of Directors role with the IGDA to assist in a smooth transition, and Lucien Parsons, the IGDA’s Chairperson, will act as the interim Executive Director until the role is filled.  I’m looking forward to helping the new Executive Director build on the successes of the past year and support the global game development community even more, and I’m confident that with the guidance of the IGDA’s Board, its Staff, and our volunteer leaders, the new Executive Director will lead the IGDA through its twenty-fifth year and into a very bright future.

I’m also excited to share that our new Board member, Marta Daglow, is leading the search for a new Executive Director for the IGDA.  You can read more about the role here, and submit yourself for consideration (or ask questions about the role) at EDsearch@igda.org.

To the IGDA’s members, volunteer leaders, affiliates, partners, and sponsors around the world, and to the global game development community, thank you for an amazing experience.  I wish you all the very best, and look forward to working with you in the future.

Earlier this week, the United States Federal Trade Commission agreed to investigate loot box monetization and its potential impact on children.  This announcement, which follows Belgium’s investigation and restrictions in the Netherlands on the use of loot boxes, should be a clear wakeup call to the game development industry that we must address how we use loot boxes, especially when they’re in games played by children.

Random loot drops are a well-established game mechanic, and a way to vary rewards and keep players interested and engaged.  But when a player makes a real-money purchase of an unknown item-a loot box-we run the risk of triggering gambling laws. Those regulations are not always clear, and many people have noted that loot boxes are simply digital versions of collectible card games, but we cannot ignore the fact that video games face increased scrutiny, concern, and regulation because of their immersive nature.

We have a blueprint for taking action as a community, and industry, in how we established clear, easy-to-understand game ratings and content descriptions so that consumers, and especially parents, understand what’s in the games they or their children play.  As an industry and community, we should take the following steps immediately:

• Affirm an industry commitment to not market loot boxes to children

• Clearly disclose the odds of different rewards when purchasing loot boxes (as many games already do to comply with Chinese law)

• Launch a coordinated education campaign that boosts awareness of the parental controls that are available to appropriately limit how players engage with games

By not taking significant action as an industry and global game developer community to self-regulate how loot boxes are used, we run the very real risk that governments around the world will take that action for us, and perhaps create significantly restrictive laws that could impact any random reward elements in games.  I offer my strongest advice to game developers and interactive entertainment businesses on this matter: addressing how loot boxes are used is both the right thing, and the smart thing, for the global game development industry to do.

IGDA’s LGBTQ+ SIG acts as a gathering point for LGBTQ+ developers and allies and also speaks on issues important to LGBTQ+ developers.  Our partnership with Queerly Represent Me includes new leadership for the SIG, with Alayna Cole and Jessica Zammit as co-chairs and Dakoda Barker as treasurer, and helps the SIG become a more effective community by providing leadership and guidance from established LGBTQ+ activists in game development while also taking advantage of the financial, promotional, and networking resources the IGDA provides its SIGs.  

As part of the partnership, we’ll also be promoting the great work done by Queerly Represent Me to our global game development community, including their resources on building inclusive teams and games, their consulting services that help create more diverse and accessible content, and their articles on diversity and inclusion in games for Trade Media.

The global game development community is stronger and more creative when we include, and reflect, the diverse voices of our developers and players, and we’re excited and proud to partner with Queerly Represent Me to help make the IGDA LGBTQ+ SIG a leading voice in that conversation.  Join the LGBTQ+ SIG on Facebook and Twitter.

It’s been a brutal month for game developers around the world, and like so many people in our community, the IGDA team wants to help the game developers impacted by layoffs and studio closures get back on their feet.

We run IGDA Mentor Cafés, ways for game developers to engage in short bursts of learning within their community, at leading events around the world, and we’re announcing our first virtual IGDA Mentor Café today, with the explicit goal of helping game developers who have been laid off in the past 60 days get help as quickly as possible.

The Virtual Mentor Café is open to everyone, regardless of discipline, career level, or geography.  You don’t have to be an IGDA member to participate. Fill out a short form that lets us know about the advice you need or can offer, agree that we can share your information with your chosen match, and commit to a 30-minute conversation by 15 October; we do the rest.

If you’ve been impacted by a layoff in the past 60 days, please sign up as a mentee here.

If you’d like to help other members of the global game development community with your knowledge, connections, and time, please sign up as a mentor here.

As part of those initiatives, I’m proud to announce a new IGDA partnership with IEP, a game development management and leadership training provider, to offer four webinars exclusively to IGDA members. The webinars, which include Financial Fundamentals, Working with Contracts, Business Continuity Planning, and Managing Your Brand and Reputation topics, are a great learning resource for game developers around the world, and represent the continued evolution of our focus on giving members the information they need for sustainable, fulfilling careers.

My only regret about the Leadership Summit this year is that travel expense makes it impossible to bring everyone to the event-I'm so proud of the hard work the Speaker Selection Committee, event team, speakers, and other supporters did to make this event a reality. We're recording all of the talks, and we look forward to making them available to IGDA members later this year so that everyone has the chance to benefit from the wisdom of our speakers regardless of where they live. And I'm excited to continue to improve and enhance our membership benefits through partnerships with leading companies like IEP and other resources for game developers to reach their personal and professional goals.

Game jams are one of the best experiences in game development.  As a condensed development cycle, they allow participants to try new ideas, experiment, learn new things, make new friends (and potentially future colleagues) and explore the outer limits of creativity in one of the most supportive community environments possible. 

The Summer #ue4jam announces the theme of the game jam on August 16, and the jam concludes on August 21. Epic makes it easy for individuals to find teams or start their own, and there are special licenses and services available for participants.

Want more information on how to participate? Visit the event page here.

IGDA Chapter Spotlight: NYC

By Jess Haskins, IGDA NYC Co-Chair

Fashion, finance, media, entertainment, tech...and video games? New York City is renowned for a lot of things, but it's not always first to mind as one of the great centers of the game industry. In fact, NYC is a creative hotbed that's home to a host of talented game developers, from solo indies to AAA studios and everything in between, and the IGDA NYC chapter is spreading the word that #NYMakesGames.

On August 11–12, we are curating an exclusive series of "Powered by IGDA NYC" talks and content for Play NYC, New York’s premier dedicated game convention for creators and players alike. Now in its second year, the show is moving to a new home in the historic Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center. With 4 floors of playable content, exclusive installations and game debuts, a live-streaming set, and over 100 exhibitors, many hailing from the local community, Play NYC is an unparalleled showcase of NYC's vibrant games scene. (IGDA members get 20% off Dev and Pro passes and 10% off general admission passes, so check the member benefits page for details!)

The IGDA NYC chapter goes a long way back, but let's start in 2015: that's the year we rebooted the chapter, with a fresh leadership team and a renewed sense of purpose. We adopted a threefold mission: to foster connections in the community, to support members' career and professional development, and to celebrate and advocate for local developers.

We cultivate community through our online forums, a public community calendar, and events like the Feedback Forum, roundtables, and family-friendly Coffee and Ice Cream Socials. To help developers bolster their skills and advance their careers, we offer resources like a monthly newsletter, a job board, internship and education listings, one-on-one Career Clinics, and an annual career fair. And we take an active role in local affairs, promoting the #NYMakesGames hashtag to highlight our members' achievements and publicly advocating for initiatives like tax credits to attract more game development jobs to the state. We also offer a platform to raise issues of concern to developers, like working conditions, crunch time, and fair compensation for freelancers under New York's groundbreaking "Freelance Isn't Free" Act. We have recently begun to invite conversation on the topic of unionization, with a multi-industry roundtable on unions and the game industry in the works for September, just in time for Labor Day.

There's so much going on in New York that the problem isn't finding something to do or somewhere to go—it's coping with information overload when there's too much to keep up with. So rather than trying to do it all, we act as a bridge between diverse groups and communities, boosting signals and serving as a kind of clearinghouse for all the city has to offer. NYC is a great place to make games, and we're proud to serve this exciting community.

Curious about what we're up to next? You can connect with the IGDA NYC chapter on Facebook, on Twitter at @IGDANYC, or on the web at http://igda.nyc.

A few weeks ago, we posted work done by the community on questions developers and studios should answer about their use of social media.  This work also highlighted a serious gap in IGDA’s operations; we didn’t have any policy or guidelines for our official social media accounts, or for the use of social media by our volunteers, staff, or board members.

We investigated best practices in social media, including reviewing policies from the National Labor Relations Board, the Society for Human Resource Management, and game development studios like Kitfox who have made their policies public. We reviewed the IGDA Code of Ethics, which offers guidance on professional behavior in general. We also solicited impact from our volunteer leaders, which is particularly important for any policy the IGDA implements.

As the final output of this process, we’ve finalized these social media guidelines for official IGDA accounts, as well as volunteer leaders, staff, and board members.  The guidelines are based on a number of key principles:

• Our people-including our volunteer leaders, our staff, and our community members-are our most important consideration, and they deserve protection from harassment and safe spaces to interact online.

• Official IGDA accounts have very specific, defined purposes, and should be used in accordance with those functions.

• Social media guidelines should be as transparent as possible; everyone should know what is, and is not, acceptable.  As a corollary, official IGDA social media use should also be done in as transparent a way as possible while still protecting the safety of the people involved and our community.

• IGDA staff and board members are held to significantly higher standards than our volunteers; as the people who are fundamentally responsible for the strategy and direction of the organization, similar to the officers of a company, our board and staff members should be mindful of their professional obligations towards the IGDA.

• Freedom of speech is an important value of our industry, and deserves to be protected, but does not, and cannot, extend to speech that is deliberately harmful to other people.

You can read the IGDA’s Social Media policies in our Resources section here.

Renee shares her story below:

Just before Oculus Rift's launch, a developer and I were talking about the press' reactions to his competitive virtual reality game. He mentioned a reporter had been demoing the game when she heard a voice. She asked the developers if that was the voice of her opponent, and they confirmed that it was. What she said next shocked the development team: "That's nice, but I wouldn't use that feature myself."

The development team had not considered that players might not want to hear or talk with their opponents. They had not included the ability to disable the functionality or mute opponents.

With only two weeks before the launch of the Oculus Rift and their game, the team rushed to add that functionality, adjust the user interfaces, and get the new build through certification.  Rushing to add last minute features is a situation that no developer or publisher enjoys.

Since the launch of VR gaming and experiences, there have been countless incidents of harassment in virtual reality. Many of these incidents have been in virtual reality experiences with advanced and sophisticated interaction systems and game design, but which lack moderation tools and pipelines to prevent and handle abusive incidents. Wonderful virtual experiences are plagued with toxic communities and negative press due to being released without systems in place to discourage and stop harassment.

Today, the IGDA is releasing a set of guidelines created by Renee to help developers avoid similar incidents. These guidelines cover a wide array of approaches and tools to help prevent abuse in virtual reality. There benefits and risks of each approach, and their applicability varies greatly per project, but these best practices will help game creators consider potential risks and solutions when developing social virtual reality experiences. Read the guidelines here.