GDC, New Board Year, Minutes, Announcements and More – 31 March 2014

Hello IGDA members!

It’s the end of March. Elections are over, GDC has passed, and a new board year is about to start. So many great things are happening and so we wanted to give you a quick recap:

GDC:
IGDA had a great GDC week filled with 20th anniversary celebrations, roundtables, social gatherings, great talks, and more. Keep an eye out on our weekly IGDA Insider to hear some of the recaps and to learn more about our GDC Vault discount in case you weren’t able to attend or were there but missed some talks!

A huge thank you goes out to our staff and volunteers who make our presence at GDC possible – the org thanks you for all your hard work at pulling off a successful IGDA at GDC!

Election and Board Member Transitions:

We’d like to thank everyone who participated in our election and helped us to reach quorum! Two new board members were elected and a third one was appointed and they start their terms tomorrow! Read our elections recap post for more details.

Meeting Minutes:
Several meeting minutes have been posted and are available for review on our main IGDA site. Due to a technical issue we do not have any meeting minutes for December 2013, but a placeholder was put in the minutes section as we do have the pre-meeting updates available.

January and February 2014 meeting minutes are now live on the site and March’s meeting minutes will be up once they are approved in the April board meeting.

Board Talk:
Have you seen our new blog post series called Board Talk? You can check out Luke Dicken’s first post in the series here and Brian Robbins’ second post in March here. Outgoing Chair Dustin Clingman will be up next in April with his post.

Meeting Announcement and New Officers:
Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, 10 April where we’ll approve the March minutes, talk about the various projects, programs, and services the IGDA is working to create for you, and hold officer elections. Since a new board year is starting the elections for the Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer positions will be held. The election for the Vice Chair position is done 6 months after the start of the term. We will do a full release regarding the new board members and officer elections in late April/early May.

As always you can reach out to the board member working in your area of interest via email by using the contact info located on our About page – your questions, suggestions, and support are always welcome!

Yours in service,
IGDA Board of Directors

2014 IGDA Board Election Results – 24 March 2014

Another year has passed and another IGDA Board of Directors election has concluded. We are very happy to announce the results for the 2014 IGDA Board of Directors election.

Total Ballots Submitted: 787
Anne Toole – Total Votes: 592
Jon Grande – Total Votes: 259
Justin Berenbaum – Total Votes: 212

We met quorum!! Quorum this year was set at 594 ballots (10% of all voting eligible members) so we passed it and then some as this year saw an increase in the total number of ballots submitted. We want to thank all of our members who turned out to vote and got engaged with the organization.

Since we met quorum, the election was certified by the Board and Anne Toole and Jon Grande were confirmed as the two elected board members.

The Board of Directors is comprised of 6 elected seats with an additional 3 seats that can be appointed by the board at any time. With two seats appointed seats still unused the board also reviewed Justin Berenbaum’s background and skill set and made the decision to appoint Justin to one of the open seats and we’re happy to announce he has accepted the appointment.

This means that all three members will take their seats on 1 April and will serve a 3-year term. We’ll be updating the About the Board pages on our website and Blog shortly.

Please join us in congratulating Anne, Jon, and Justin as well as thanking our outgoing board member Brian Robbins and Dustin Clingman whose term is up, but as Chair will transition to the Chair Emeritus role and serve in a special ex-officio seat for one more year.

Yours in Service,
IGDA Board of Directors

Board Talk – Brian Robbins for March 2014

A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a hiring manager from a large company in the game industry when they started lamenting about the “privileged” kids that were applying for positions in games today. His main complaint was that almost all of them were asking questions about what quality of life was like at their studio, and trying to understand how much they crunched, and if it would be expected of them. Apparently most of them had heard it could be really bad and wanted to know if that was true. This manager hated that fact, and felt that everyone “needed to put in their time” before they started getting so full of themselves to think that they wouldn’t need to crunch. To him crunching was almost a rite of passage. He even went so far as to indicate that he wanted to hire people willing to work hard, not “babies” that were so concerned about the amount of hours they put in.

This, more than anything else I can think of, illuminated just how far this industry has come since I joined the IGDA board, and how far we still have to go. On the one hand, I think it’s awesome that young people just getting into the industry are paying attention and asking about quality of life. Awareness and education is a huge step in getting this industry to move away from that destructive practice.

On the other hand, it is obvious that we still have a long way to go when hiring managers think someone is “a baby” for asking about how many hours they will be expected to work and whether or not a studio crunches. It’s particularly appalling to me that not only are there still people who think crunch is okay but that they are offended when someone feels so “privileged” to ask about it as part of the interview process. While I personally believe (and have the data to back me up) that crunch does not enhance productivity and is bad for the studio, the individual and the final product, I still think that it’s up to each individual to decide what they are and are not willing to do. I don’t like studios that crunch, but the ones that try to hide it from prospective employees are doing an even greater disservice to themselves and showing a complete lack of respect for their potential employees.

When I joined the board 4 1/2 years ago I had plans to transform this industry into one that treated its workers with respect, and celebrated their lives in and outside of work. I hoped that we could make issues like crunch and quality of life a thing of the past. While we still have a long way to go the fact that even students are asking about it shows how far we have already come.

This is my final month on the Board of Directors and I’d like to close by thanking all of our members, volunteers, supporters and staff for everything you have done to push the mission, vision and values of the IGDA. The IGDA is truly a volunteer association, and it is all of you that make this organization what it is.

Thank you!

Brian Robbins
Board Member Oct 2009 – March 2014, Chair August 2010 – March 2012, IGDA Foundation Trustee 2010-2014.