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Board of Director Elections - 2009

The votes have been tallied and the results are in! Gordon Bellamy, Tim Langdell and Jamil Moledina will be joining the IGDA's Board of Directors on March 1st for the start of the next term. And, Tobi Saulnier has been re-elected to the board for another term. A hearty congratulations to each of them! (Their candidacy statements are still listed below.)

Board members who will remain on the board for the next year consist of the following individuals: Bob Bates, Brenda Brathwaite, Tom Buscaglia, Mark DeLoura, Jennifer MacLean, Coray Seifert and Tim Train. This year, we will also say goodbye to Mitzi McGilvray, Mike Capps and Chris Crowell, who have given countless hours of their time to the IGDA over the past three years.

A formal press release to announce the new board members and results of officer appointments (ie, chair, secretary, treasurer) will be posted in early March. View the IGDA Election Policies and Procedures Manual (134kb - pdf) for complete details on the IGDA election process.

 

Statements of Candidacy

Gordon Bellamy ( gbellamy at gmail dot com )
Business Development, Image Metrics

 Gordon Bellamy

In these challenging times for us, the IGDA has a great opportunity and obligation to be a resource to its members locally through strong focus on the chapters and globally through its support of the SIGs.

My focus will be on enabling and gathering the best practices of the existing local chapters and propagating them through the community, with a special focus on career development and entrepreneurship.

In our community there is a lot of critical information, peer support and mentorship on how one can get jobs, keep jobs and thrive in careers as an artist, engineer, producer or salesperson that we can aggregate and share more effectively.

The IGDA community can also be a resource in bringing together people with complementary talents who want to overcome the obstacles of the current economy and execute new self-owned ventures.

I will be accessible and actively listen to the strong network of volunteers and members and focus the resources of the IGDA on supporting their local efforts in the community and then using our online resources to share the best practices and successes.

I am a lifer. I got my first job as an EA tester by cold-calling the people in the credits for NHL '93 from my dorm room in Boston. I have had the opportunity and privilege to work as a developer, publisher, outsourcer, game media guy, academy leader and outsourcer again. I would value the opportunity to leverage my experience to serve the IGDA and its members.

If you would like to share your input on how the IGDA can do more for you individually, please e-mail me at gbellamy at gmail dot com or on Facebook.

Thank you for your consideration.

Biography: At Image Metrics, a technology-based facial animation services company, Gordon is responsible for developing partnerships. As an executive consultant for MTV, Bellamy provided creative guidance on the content, direction and strategic marketing partnerships for the annual Spike TV Video Game Awards show. Previously, he was Executive Director of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Bellamy has also played key business and product development roles at Electronic Arts, where he was named the company's Rookie of the Year for his work on the best-selling Madden Football franchise, THQ, and Activision subsidiary Z-Axis. He earned a BA degree from Harvard College in engineering, where he was also a John Harvard scholar and AT&T/Bell Labs Engineering scholar.

Greg Boyd ( gboyd at dglaw dot com )
Attorney, Davis & Gilbert LLP

 Greg Boyd

Greg Boyd is editor of the popular textbook Business and Legal Primer for Game Development as well as an attorney and law professor in New York. He has been an invited speaker on the game industry at Harvard Business School, Columbia Law School, GDC, State of Play, and many other conferences and institutions. His commentary on the game industry has appeared in publications including Fortune, Forbes, CNN, and Gamasutra. He obtained degrees in medicine and law from UNC-Chapel Hill.

I will focus my efforts on growing our membership numbers, opening communication between the game industry and government, and improving the image and respect for our medium. Membership growth is a key requirement for all our goals, especially making any changes on an international policy or perception level. The game industry is at a critical period. Sales growth, creativity, and technical sophistication are well ahead of the industry's perceived worth to many policy makers. The public and governmental image of games is deeply different than the realities of the game industry. Protecting the industry's freedom of expression, intellectual property rights, and autonomy are all related to this. The IGDA can be a force for good in achieving improvement in these areas. For these and other reasons, the IGDA would benefit from growing its membership to reach more of the people involved in game development. This growth would have benefits of broader member input and a more substantive voice with policy makers. Larger numbers, organized through the IGDA could help to change those mistaken societal perceptions and achieve other goals through our collective and focused efforts.

Greg's volunteer contributions:

Alfredo Chaves ( achaves at bluelizardgames dot com )
CEO/President, Blue Lizard Games

 Alfredo Chaves

The gaming industry has been known and celebrated from its beginnings for its creativity and innovation. We are one of the newest and more exciting entertainment languages out there. However, in my opinion, we haven't used those qualities to think or rethink the business side of creating and selling games. Piracy and an unstable economic climate will probably have a huge impact on what we have been used to understand as a flourishing and maturing business.

As in the past, innovation has been coming from the fringe and probably that is the place where we should be looking for creative answers. Independent developers, as an example,  are showing that new ideas not only keep the artistic expression alive but also that in some cases it can even be a very viable economic endeavour. We as an industry have to support the creative cutting edge because our credibility and growth depend on it.

The IGDA has been making an awesome work on democratizing information and best practices in our industry, I think it is time to give more importance to what is happening around the world and in the different layers of the complex game development map.

Alfredo's volunteer contributions:

Jared W. Eden ( Jared dot Eden at buzzmonkey dot com )
Producer, Buzz Monkey Software

 Jared Eden

This is an incredible time for technology.  Not just incredible; exciting!  So much is happening in every tech sector, not only games, and our cultural influence continues to grow.  Movies to games, games to movies, stereoscopic monitors, holographic displays, haptic interfaces, brain interfaces, social networking, cloud computing, and more.

I have been in the professional game industry for more than a decade, starting in high school.  I'm young and I bring natural leadership, vision, and a voice for my generation to the IGDA board.  Having worked on a variety of games in various roles gives me perspective to understand the needs of game developers.  What is important to you is important to me.

After losing my job when Dynamix shut down in 2001, I started a couple businesses.  I know what unemployment means, I know how important it is to have stable income for myself and loved ones.

If elected to the IGDA board, I promise to focus my efforts on matters related to keeping you employed, connected, enabled to succeed, and tapped into the latest industry developments.  I will work to:

Vote for me not only because I bring a fresh perspective and understand your needs, but because I'm excited about doing it.  I'm excited about pushing the boundaries of the game industry, and I'm excited about what the future has in store for us.

Clinton Keith ( clinton dot keith at gmail dot com )
Scrum Trainer & agile coach

Clinton Keith

I am asking for your vote in this year's Board of Director Elections. My goal as a member of the board is to continue the great progress of the IGDA while working with a group of highly dedicated and talented people.

I've been in the games industry for 14 and a member of the IGDA since 2000, and co-founded the San Diego IGDA chapter in 2001. I have been active in various IGDA activities since.

I believe in the vision of the IGDA and I am excited about its potential. The IGDA has grown steadily in size and scope over the past decade. At the same time, our industry has grown. It has grown in market size. For game developers, the environment of making games has changed completely. From 100 developer teams to small indie developers, the landscape of development presents a wide range of opportunities and challenges. The IGDA is ideally suited, as the sole representative body for developers, to leverage these opportunities and address these challenges.

I want to see the IGDA explore and expand in the following areas:

The development community should identify and share our improved practices on how to make games competing only on the creativity of what we make. We are in a market with considerable growth. If we raise the quality and value of all our products, we will grow the market together. We need to do this because the increasing cost of creating games is far outstripping our what the market will pay. This has forced us to make games we would rather not make and work in environments that are not ideal. The IGDA can help change this and if elected I will help them do just that.

Clinton's volunteer contributions:

Tim Langdell ( tim at edgegames dot com )
Independent Game Designer & Developer / Lead Game Professor, National University

 Tim Langdell

This is going to be a tough year ahead -- never a greater need for the IGDA to serve its members even more fully, and if elected I will help.

I am passionate about the game industry and fortunate to have been part of it since the late 1970s when I founded EDGE Games. Having worked on over 200 games, from AAA games through to mobile games, I am currently designing several original console games, an MMO which I am really excited about, and an original TV-Series/game tie-in where I will also be producing the TV show as well as designing the game.

Since 1990 I have been doing all I can to “give back” to help build the game industry:

If elected to the board I would have three key goals:

  1. 2009 is going to be a rough year and I if elected I would urge the IGDA Board to help its members through these tough times.
  2. Further empower the IGDA special initiatives like Credits Standardization, Quality of Life and Games Curriculum – great progress, but we need to do more.
  3. Advocate equally for everyone in the game industry from indie developers to AAA studios.

Feel free to check out a more in-depth bio here.

Tim's volunteer contributions:

Michael Lubker ( snowballz dot game at gmail dot com )
Software Business and Technical Development Manager, ADC

 Michael Lubker

The IGDA is a great organization and I hope to help guide it on its mission to develop and advocate the game industry.

If I am elected, I'll continue my Indie-SIG-based priorities to push forward improving communications between indie developers and larger companies and to help indies with access to the resources they need to succeed. The last year has seen a major shift in the industry toward smaller development (Flash, Web2.0, Wii, iPhone, the "New" Generation) and I'd like to focus on the needs of companies both large and small in adjusting to the New Generation and economic issues which impact studios adversely.

I've also been involved in forming the Design SIG and hope to see it come forward with whitepapers and columns to improve the state of game design, keep designers' minds fresh, and ask the important question "what is next for the industry" - so much can be done with the motion, touch, and video based technologies now available to us.

I've also been involved in IGDA events - the Leadership Forum and the Global Game Jam. I'm really enjoying these and hope to bring these to more locations.

Last but not least I would like to figure out how to help chapters fulfill having plenty of meetings every year, whether that is through more IGDA special events or through more partnerships with local studios, we need to make sure chapters don't die, and that they keep their studio listings up to date.

My vision is to improve dialogue everywhere possible and keep minds on the cutting edge, and have the best events possible. I am constantly in contact with new people to help them improve and/or learn about getting into the industry if they are looking into it. And I have helped produce both open source projects and real-life events so I qualify as a producer who can oversee efforts to improve the industry.

I am currently an indie developer working at a startup hardware company working to bring 3D control to the PC, as well as on several of my own independent projects. I am also heavily involved with the IGDA and have been involved with David Perry's community MMO project. I've shipped a title on PC and one on 360 and look forward to shipping more.

Michael's volunteer contributions:

Adam Martin ( adam dot m dot s dot martin at googlemail dot com )
independent developer

 Adam Martin

The juicy bit: Most game developers are not members of the IGDA; most don't understand why they should be, or feel it isn't worth the small effort it takes to join.

Even more so, most development studios are not members of the IGDA; studios have to pay a lot more than a member to join, and arguably they receive a lot less in return (practically nothing).

The IGDA does many awesome things (I've been part of some of them, and seen it first hand), but we're currently selling ourselves short: too few people know what we do. Too many potential volunteers give up on volunteering before even trying it out. Too many people who could benefit from the IGDA never get the chance to.

I want to change that.

Who am I?: I'm neither famous nor well-known, but I've been in the game industry for almost 10 years. I've been a tester, a programmer, a lead programmer, a studio director, and a CTO. I've worked at several startups (and co-founded a couple), and several massive corporates (including one of the big international publishers), but mostly I've been a developer.

I recently worked out that I've played over a thousand different games over the years. Working in the industry is awesome ... it legitimises my obsession :).

IGDA involvement - do I know what I'm getting into?: I've been involved on the volunteer side of IGDA for a few years - I founded one of the IGDA SIG's in 2005, which I still co-run, and I've edited one of the IGDA whitepapers.

Outside IGDA, I've been a committee member or chairman for many non-profits, everything from funding new businesses, to judging game development competitions,  to organizing conferences. I've got a pretty good idea how non-profits work (short description: absolutely nothing like a commercial organization, with lots of good bits, and lots of bad bits)

Why vote for me?: Because it's good to have a mix of different people on the board.

Adam's volunteer contributions:

Marc Mencher ( marc at gamerecruiter dot com )
President and CEO, GameRecruiter.com

 Marc Mencher

I have worked in our industry for over 27 years, starting out as a game programmer, bringing to market several games, the latest being Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals . Working in game development, I became an expert at staffing, and before long, I transitioned into a game industry recruiting specialist. Today, I'm the CEO and co-founder of GameRecruiter, a company known for integrity and representing strategically important employment opportunities.

I feel privileged that my career has taken a path that lets me shape and form game companies! The successes of their products are a direct result of the quality staffing that my company performs. We help thousands of people obtain their fantasy jobs. We strategize on career growth and have brought many individuals from QA to CEO. As a trusted advisor, I coach and support professionals in many ways, including my monthly Gamasutra series, “Becoming a Stellar Game Industry Manager”.

I have supported the growth of IGDA since its early days. Initially pushing membership drives, I helped negotiate the transition of the International Game Developers Network (IGDN) into IGDA. I've recruited coordinators and established several IGDA chapters, plus I speak to students and industry professionals about IGDA. I've led IGDA roundtables at GDC and The Leadership Forum, and my firm provides sponsorship to IGDA events.

I serve on the national advisory boards for 37 campuses of The Art Institutes and 10 campuses of Westwood College, where I have helped to establish Game Programming, Art and Design curriculum for both schools. I also speak at Keiser University, Full Sail University, UCLA and have helped students at schools like Carnegie Mellon University, Devry, DigiPen, Guildhall at SMU, MIT, International Academy of Design, USC and Savannah College of Art & Design.

The constant desire to teach, motivate, inspire and support new industry and existing professional talent is what motivates me to be involved in IGDA. My goals for the IGDA are:

  1. Develop and conduct an aggressive and comprehensive membership drive.
  2. Build more appealing membership benefits.
  3. Increase of cohesion between individual IGDA chapters.
  4. Foster open problem -solving and communication between career specialties to increase skills and effectiveness on the job. 
  5. Increase financial strength of IGDA so it can provide more services to its membership and grow.
  6. Provide training and development tools for members to expand their abilities and further the industry.

Marc's volunteer contributions:

Jamil Moledina ( jamil at ea dot com )
Outreach Director, EA Partners, Electronic Arts

 Jamil Moledina

I've always loved games and admired the people who make them. So much so that partway through a conventional career, I decided to turn my life upside down and realign my work in service of the individuals and art of games.

I began my career in games at Game Developer magazine. As Editor-in-Chief, I redesigned the publication, but quickly learned that the publication redesigned me as well. I emerged with a deeper, inside-out understanding of a game's magical blend of science, expression, and trust.

As the director of the Game Developers Conference, I had an even more dramatic opportunity to get in touch with the men and women who fuel the industry. At GDC we gave developers a platform to celebrate victories, air grievances, and share ideas. I worked daily with speakers, attendees, vendors, employees, and volunteers and was proud to leave the show an open and robust marketplace of ideas, and an experience that validates our life choices as much as it enlightens our work decisions.

More recently, an opportunity to serve developers arose with Electronic Arts. EA Partners presented an extraordinary confluence of massive publishing capability and deep respect for independent development. Now my role is to empower brilliant developers to bring their breakthrough visions not just to other game developers at a conference, but to all the gamers in the world.

One principle in this journey that resonates for me is the need to reach out to everyone in the industry. As our industry becomes increasingly politicized by non-gamers, it becomes ever more critical to have active and open discussions as a community – which can then present a unified voice to the world. But perhaps more immediately, the business of game development and the careers of developers are now experiencing significant obstacles and uncertainty. Yet this presents us an unexpected opportunity for entrepreneurship and creativity.

The IGDA is especially well-positioned to serve both a policy-oriented role and a proactive support role. By joining the board of directors, I intend to apply what I've learned from listening to developers at Game Developer, GDC, and EA. I intend to promote policies that validate and support the contribution each developer makes to our art, and the contribution we as an industry provide to human culture.

I plan to do a lot for us; I would greatly appreciate your vote to make it happen.

Aaron Murray ( aaron at tandemgames dot com )
Technical Director / Founder, Tandem Games

 Aaron Murray

Since my earliest memories of trying to master Circus on Atari and hanging out in arcades I've been a student of video games and have enjoyed the positive impact they've had on my life. A decade ago I made a difficult choice to not enter the Game Industry due quality of life concerns and the crazy desire to own a home close to work. Over the years my desire to play and create games never ceased, so I came back and jumped headlong into the Industry the hard way: by self funding a start-up.

Because I spent my days at companies like Toyota instead of Nintendo, I don't have decades of come-and-gone company names and titles to list, but I have been devouring all that Corporate America has to offer a programmer and entrepreneur.

I'm going to assume that anyone reading this loves creating games - what I bring to the table as a volunteer of the IGDA is a passion for creating and maintaining a work environment that is both good for business, and healthy for the people making games.

I want to see the industry grow out of contract-to-contract model and provide its employees with steady, long-term positions that pay enough to support a family and don't require insane hours or sacrifices. We can't realistically expect to retain mature professionals and run profitable companies if the best we can do is burn people out in three years, close the company, and do it all over again.

Surely most, if not all, of my running mates are excellent choices for Board Membership, and I'm not claiming that I'll be able to change the industry overnight to make all of our lives better, but I'll fight for it.

Brian Robbins ( brobbins at dubane dot com )
Studio Head, Fuel Games Denver

 Brian Robbins

I have always believed that the IGDA is the organization that is singularly positioned to effect positive change on behalf of developers world-wide. With our growing membership, active volunteers, and the tireless efforts of our leaders, we have accomplished a lot. However there is more that we could, and should, be doing. Over the past 8 years I have contributed to nearly every aspect of the IGDA from writing white papers, organizing Special Interest Groups, helping to establish and run local chapters and even mentoring IGDA scholarship winners at GDC. Through this I have seen first hand how great the IGDA can be, and I have felt the pains of wanting to do more, but not having the time, resources or support to do what needs to be done.

I believe that local chapters are the lifeblood of the IGDA. For many people they are the only touch point to the game industry at large and we must continue to support these groups in every way we can. The pending chapter formalization will help immensely, but it is just the beginning. As an organization we have to ensure that we continue to grow these groups, as the local communities are the single most valuable resource that we have.

Our advocacy issues like Quality of Life and Crediting Standards have made great strides, but their missions are not yet accomplished. Anyone who is still forced to work "Death March" crunch time knows this, as do the developers who aren't able to document their years of work and experience due to lax, inadequate, or at it's worst, downright deceitful crediting practices.

Similarly our SIGs have achieved amazing things and provided unmatched resources to the community, yet they often lack the support or leadership to do everything they would like to do.

If elected to the Board of Directors, my goal would be to work with the board to push the IGDA further along in our goals. We are a community of volunteers and I will make sure we continue to find new ways to enable each of them to be even more successful. I'll make sure that our local chapters around the world receive the resources and tools necessary to help them succeed. Finally, I will constantly look at what we as an organization should be doing to better the lives of all developers.

Brian's volunteer contributions:

Tobi Saulnier ( tobi at 1stplayable dot com )
Founder and CEO, 1st Playable Productions

 Tobi Saulnier

As your current IGDA Treasurer I'm running for the Board again for one primary purpose: to continue to improve our financial processes and systems until they can be handed off to the next treasurer. We have been transitioning from the cash-based system that many small startups use, to an accrual system that can provide better prediction and support for strategic planning, Solid financial systems are critical for the organization to have the information it needs to innovate and improve our programs and services each year.

Beyond the love of numbers that typecasts me in the role of treasurer, I do bring other experience that is beneficial to the role. I have served on other nonprofit boards, including a private school, and currently a science museum, which share some of the same challenges of member value, mission delivery, and board effectiveness. I also have been a member of two much older professional organizations in other industries since college – the IEEE and ACM. These also provide great examples of what to do and not do, as IGDA follows a similar growth path. As a young electrical engineer, IEEE was a source of role models, knowledge, inspiration and community, and allowed me to transition from a learner to a leader in the field I had chosen in college. My positive early experiences as an IEEE member inform much of my vision and appreciation for IGDA.

I am continually inspired by the vision and energy of the volunteers that themselves create this organization. People who somehow find time in their very busy game development schedules to put together programs and services that we all benefit from. I enjoy working with these people to help accomplish those goals, even when my contribution is sometimes the not very glamorous task of making sure the numbers add up.

Tobi's volunteer contributions:

Ian Schreiber ( ai864 at yahoo dot com )
independent developer

 Ian Schreiber

As a life-long player and creator of games, I seek a position on the Board of the International Game Developers Association, an organization that I'm already quite active in.

I have a diverse background, including programming, game design and higher education. I've worked on five published entertainment games, two serious game projects, and even some enterprise software outside of the industry. As a professor, I've developed and taught dozens of classes on game development at the university level, co-authored a textbook on game design, and shipped hundreds of students. Through all of this, I have seen not just the differences between companies, disciplines and individuals, but more importantly, I have seen the common threads that pull us together as developers. I presently am active in the Education SIG, the Sex and Games SIG, and the Columbus IGDA Chapter, and I regularly support local student organizations. It's fair to say that I'm hoping to level up.

I know from experience that it's easy to feel like the people in other fields don't understand what you do. However, I have found that if you take the time to try to understand the other fields, you will discover a number of similarities. We all feel there is an art and a craft to our work. We all have some tasks that involve deconstructing a complex entity into simpler parts, whether those parts be algorithms, polygons, mechanics, measures, schedule tasks, or bug repro steps. And we all love making games enough that it is our career.

Since we all face many of the same challenges, my goal for the IGDA is to work towards tighter integration between individuals, SIGs and chapters. I would like the IGDA to represent a unified global community of game developers, not just a loose collection of disparate groups. My agenda as an IGDA board member includes:

Ian's volunteer contributions:

Dylan Tredrea ( dylan at creoludus dot com )
Executive Producer, Creo Ludus Entertainment

 Dylan Tredrea

Considering the IGDA, it's potential, and role in our industry I believe it's important to remember Stan Lee's guiding words:  with great power comes great responsibility. More than a superhero axiom, Mr. Lee poignantly reminds us as much as we celebrate the opportunities-- we should respect the threats of our success as well.

The IGDA has grown into the definitive voice of the game developer. As a result of this success, the IGDA and the development community face new fiscal, organizational, and procedural threats. The IGDA is in a position to provide solutions, though leadership will have to work even harder to maintain and effectively utilize the organization.

If elected as a board member, I will bring my experience as a sales director and executive producer to strengthen the IGDA's operations and outreach. 

Specifically I seek to substantially contribute to:

Brief Biography: Dylan Tredrea is the Managing Director of Creo Ludus Entertainment (CLE), a serious game developer for clients such as Pearson Education. In addition, CLE develops innovative solutions for visually impaired gamers. Dylan has held a variety of posts inside and outside the games industry, from Marketing Intern and QA lead at an online game studio to Director of Sales at a motion capture company. A longtime contributor and frequently lecturer for the IGDA's New Jersey chapter, he also has had several articles published, including a chapter on mod development in the upcoming Business and Production Guide for Games: A GameDev.net Collection . He is fluent in Russian, holds a BA from USC and will totally rock you at Mario Kart 64. For more information visit www.creoludus.com

Dylan's volunteer contributions:

Ben Wibberley ( ben dot wibberley at babelmedia dot com )
VP North America, Babel Media

 Ben Wibberley

I am one of the co-founders of Babel Media, one of the original dedicated service companies for games. With over 12 years in games, I have the experience of working with almost every games publisher, along with the top developers in Europe and North America, through my job I have gained a wide-ranging knowledge of all internal and outsourced development/production models and structures.

Having started out as a tester in development and worked up, then having taken Babel from its conception through to what it is today, I believe that I have a different perspective from one of pure development, production or publishing. I have a very strong belief in maintaining quality of life through proper planning on development schedules but also not forgetting all of the other aspects around development which are crucial to ship a title too. Those which rely on the schedule being adhered too, however twinned with the realities of creating a game and the issues that may impact deadlines throughout development are sometimes unavoidable.

I am strongly anti-censorship and believe in freedom of speech within reasonable bounds. I think that as an industry we should continue to look at ways of using technology, automation, online and online communities to help us work smarter not harder. I also believe that we should look and learn from other entertainment industries such as movies, music, TV, books, comics and sport to show us alternative production, publishing and revenue models.

As an industry we need to look historically and avoid the mistakes that these more established industries may have made. In many ways though games are way ahead of them in thinking and in many are not, through looking and learning from other industries I believe that we may start to understand who we are and in turn could start to change the way that those outside of our industry perceive us.

I have not yet met anyone in the industry who does not work tirelessly so it is not lightly and without thought that I put myself forward for the Board of Directors candidacy. If elected I would work to make sure I push forward on the aspects I have discussed above and the direction of the IGDA in general on the issues that affect us all. Thank you for your consideration.

Ben's volunteer contributions: