Memorials/Guidelines

International Game Developers Association

This page lists the guidelines created for the initial work on the Memorials project and guide who should be included in it.

[edit] Game Developers Memorial Wiki – Game Developers Memorial SIG

This project is designed to recognize and remember the lives and work of deceased game developers, allowing people to comment on and contribute to each memorial, and concentrated in a centralized area for ease of access.

Currently the games industry does not have a memorial system to honor members who have passed on. In the past, deceased game developers were honored at the Game Developers Choice Awards, as is done in film awards ceremonies such as the Oscars, but we have since ceased this practice.

By publicly honoring the life and work of deceased game developers we will demonstrate our seriousness as an industry and an art form that cares about its individuals and their contribution to the medium, recognizing the game development community as a continuous line of individuals, stretching from the past and into the future rather than existing solely in the present as the latest game titles on the wall. In addition, we believe such a project will help bring together the international game developers community by recognizing the life and work of game developers from all over the world and informing the international game development community about the passing of people they may have known while celebrating their life's work. As such, the wiki will allow individuals to post comments and eulogies about the game developers remembered.

Such a memorial will not focus merely on the most well-known of the industry or those who contributed the most but also of the soldiers in the trenches, the everyday developers who help make each game a reality. It will also contain eulogies for well-known individuals who, while not strictly game developers, were instrumental in influencing and inspiring the development of the medium.

[edit] Categories

This section outlines several professions one can have within or related to the industry. The International Game Developers Association includes individuals who are not part of game development proper, and there are also some individuals influential to game development are not part of the IGDA to begin with or were deceased before it was established.

Makers ('Core' Game Development)

• Artist
• Audio (music, SFX, voice recording)
• Director
• Producer
• Programmer
• Writer

This first category is usually what we think of when we think 'game developer.' The game developer is someone who physically worked on a game, who wrote the code, designed the play structure, wrote the script, composed the music, or made the art. These are the categories we honor at the Game Developers Choice Awards and are perhaps the easiest to identify.

'Auxillary' Game Development

• Q/A Testers
• Actors (voice and video)
• Publishing
• Marketing

This list below contains individuals we normally ignore when we talk about game development, or at least don't award at the Game Developers Choice Awards. For instance, there is no award for 'best Q/A testing' or 'best voice actor' or 'best game ad.' While essential to getting the game from the studio to the player's hands, the more individuals we add to the process, the more complex things become, suggesting that we include only the most influential of this group in regards to game development.

'Influencers' (Individuals who had an impact on games)

• Academics
• Journalists
• Lawyers (I.e. Howard Lincoln, not Jack Thompson)
• Famous Players
• Artists

The Game Developers Choice Awards also awards individuals who don't make games but have been influential to the community and the medium. 'Influencers' best describes this category. These individuals are important to games even though they may not actually make them. Influencers demonstrates the scope of the game development community and the importance an individual can be to that community without being considered what we normally call a 'game developer' as suggested above.

[edit] Key Questions to address

How much work in games does an individual need to be considered part of the project?

Example: Michael Crichton wrote the complete script for an old computer game, Amazon. His work on Timeline aside (which he directed and designed), would this be enough to put him into the memorials project? (This was a problem associated with Arthur C. Clarke's work with Rama). There are many people out there who may have worked on only one published game in a core development position and then quit the industry. Should these individuals be considered 'game developers' ('honorary' or otherwise) even though they think of themselves first and foremost as something else?

How deeply should we be involved with memorials for developers of paper-based games such as card games and board games?

It seems to me that the International Game Developers Association is about games of all kinds, not simply videogames. We tend to privilege the digital over the physical through medium capabilities, industry buzz, cultural impact, and market value while ignoring the contributions of paper-based games to digital games and to the medium of games as a whole. I have always felt that the IGDA should embrace paper-based games. We are the IGDA not the IVDA and we need to demonstrate that paper-based games have a place and importance in our community and that the IGDA is not just about digital games.

Influencers: Should they be included in a case-by-case basis or are there guidelines or systems we can develop for better deciding who belongs?

Obviously early precedent will influence future decisions. As such, I find it important that we consider if there are certain criteria we can identify to determine the influence of an individual on the games industry who was not a game developer. Including influencers seems to me a very important part of the wiki as it helps us expand the community and say 'individuals important to game development are not just the people who make the things'. If a guideline or system to help identify influential individuals can be developed, this would more formalize the process.