Chapter/Guide/Best Practices/ATTENDANCE
International Game Developers Association
III. Attendance
Chapter meetings are open to anyone interested in game development in order to foster community. IGDA membership is not required to attend chapter meetings, but we ask that you actively promote IGDA membership at every meeting (access our IGDA_Chapter_Opening_Speech_Guidlines.doc: http://www.igda.org/chapters/admin.php).
While we encourage open and free admission, please keep in mind that your chapter’s main purpose is to serve professional game developers. People from related fields (hardware, tools, media, academia) are welcome, but your organizing committee should focus activities on the needs of local game developers.
Often, chapters fail because game developers are overwhelmed with students seeking advice, tools companies seeking leads, and other non‐developers monopolizing time. If this happens too often, developers will stop coming to meetings and the chapter will fail. We do not want you to restrict access, but it is crucial that you plan and promote meetings with professional game developers in mind to maintain a balanced attendee base.
A. Common Ways of Improving Meeting Attendance
- Door prizes
- Rotating presentation topics (e.g., technical, art, business, panel discussions)
- Suggest student chapter development if there are more students than professionals (refer to the IGDA’s Student Clubs Guide at http://www.igda.org/clubs/)
- Find studio champions to promote meetings internally at their respective studios
- Ask advisory board members for advice/promotional support
- Conduct surveys for meeting feedback (e.g., paper questionnaires, online, forum, email polls)
- If your organizing committee, advisory board, and local contacts are unable to provide you with leads for potential speakers, please contact the IGDA for additional assistance. We will try our best to provide coordinators with recommendations if requests are received in a timely manner.
