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Business Committee

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The video game industry is growing rapidly. Revenues are projected to grow exponentially in the next decade, and to remain competitive in the face of ballooning development budgets many developers are being tempted to grow their studios by increasing their team sizes, or even to move from single teams to multiple teams. This rapid growth is bringing increasing challenges for new and more experienced developers alike. Too many developers run into difficulties - both operational and financial - or even fail outright - because of a lack of knowledge about the industry and/or a lack of knowledge of business in general.

To combat this and provide a respite from the increasingly challenging world of the video games business, developers need to approach their companies as businesses, whether or not they are large or small companies.

The Business Committee’s mandate is to empower the development community with business knowledge and in the process allow developers to make better games.

Goals

The goals of the Business Committee are as follows:

  • Enable developers to build stronger, more successful companies
  • Provide knowledge and business support resources
  • Increase the perception of game development as a credible business and raise the profile of game developers as viable companies
  • Improve the publisher/developer relationship
  • Improve the retailer/developer relationship

Activities and Deliverable

The Business Committee is currently working on following main projects:

  • Game Submission Standards
  • Contract Walkthrough - second edition
  • Game Developer Business Resource and Assistance Listing
  • Retail White Paper
  • GDC Business Summit

All of the details and results from these endeavors will be made available from the "Take Action - Business & Legal" section of the IGDA web site.

Business Committee Members

Co-Chairs

  • Ray Muzyka - BioWare Corp.
  • Kathy Schoback - Eidos Interactive

Committee Contributors

  • Dave Anderson
  • Dan Ayoub - Ubi Soft Montreal
  • Tom Buscaglia – T. H. Buscaglia and Associates
  • Jim Charne - Law Offices James I Charne
  • Lindsey Claydon - People Dynamics Ltd
  • Tom Crago - Tantalus
  • Warren Currell – Sherpa Games
  • Gregan Dunn - Strategy First
  • Trevor Fencott - Goodmans LLP
  • Laura Fryer - Xbox ATG
  • Jeff Hilbert
  • Jason Kay – Society Capital Group
  • Don Karl
  • Mark Kluchky - BioWare Corp.
  • Clarinda Merripen - Cyberlore Studios
  • Michael Murguia - New Pencil
  • Dan Offner
  • Kirk Owen – Octagon Entertainment
  • Eric Rees
  • David Rosenbaum
  • Leah Rubin - Radical Entertainment
  • Chacko Sonny - Savage Entertainment
  • Don Thornburgh
  • Feargus Urquhart