The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) celebrates its 25th anniversary under a new board of directors. As part of its mission to help game developers worldwide accelerate their growth and prevent a career downturn in a hit-driven industry, the IGDA has established new chapters and SIGs while improving its member benefits over the past year.
Starting April 1, Lucien Parsons, elected to the board in 2017, will step into the role of chair of the board of directors. Emily Greer will continue as vice chair and current board member Hans ten Cate will step into the role of treasurer while Renee Gittins continues her elected term as secretary. Newly elected to the board is Sylvia Cristina Amaya, a former community manager for games including League of Legends and Pokemon Go. Zoe Bell has been re-appointed for a three-year term alongside new appointee Marta Daglow.
Lucien Parsons has eight years of game development and 18 years of technical project management and production experience. He was a founder of the MMO studio at ZeniMax and worked alongside Rockstar Games co-founders as head of operations at 4mm Games.
Emily Greer co-founded Kongregate and took over as CEO in 2014. She guided the company’s rise as a free-to-play web portal and its expansion to PC, console, and mobile game publishing.
Hans ten Cate was a NASA consultant who transitioned to game development. Now 17 years in, his experience includes games publishing and startups, as well as work at Sony PlayStation and producer credits on several EA franchises including The Sims.
Renee Gittins, CEO of Stumbling Cat, began her career with the design and development of cognitive evaluation mini-games and health management systems for X2 Biosystems before joining the games industry and working at companies including Microsoft.
Sylvia Cristina Amaya is CEO of PlayedOut Productions and has experience in multiple roles including community management on games including League of Legends and Pokemon Go, event production, and art production.
Zoe Bell is a lead producer at Big Huge Games, a subsidiary of Nexon. She entered the video game industry working on Zynga's early hit FrontierVille. Other titles Bell has worked on include AdVenture Capitalist, The Trail, and BattleHand.
Marta Daglow is the founder of Daglow Consulting Group, a recruiting and HR firm. She has placed hundreds of professionals in technology and games companies including Activision, Playstudios, Grove Collaborative, Limbic, Marqueta, Ready at Dawn, and Valve.
The IGDA established five new chapters in 2018, including in Pakistan, Istanbul, Kenya and Brazil (Fortaleza). Additionally, the IGDA has founded several new Special Interest Groups (SIGs) on topics such as Games for Health / Mental Health, Human Resources, Latinx Game Developers, and Muslim Game Developers.
“Over the past year, the IGDA has acted on its goal to support developers from all walks of life by extending its reach into new parts of the world and creating communities where they can discuss issues that are important to them and our players,” said Jen MacLean, executive director, IGDA. “Our new board of directors will carry that mission forward throughout 2019 as we expand on 25 years serving game developers from all around the globe.”
For more information about the IGDA, please visit its updated website or follow the IGDA on Twitter and Facebook.
