The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has announced today the creation of a Special Interest Group focusing on Game Credits and associated issues. The group’s goal is to create guidelines for the crediting of everyone involved in the process of game development and standard best practices that ensure nobody is left uncredited. They also intend to help game developers create credits that can be more easily updated and amended over time.
Among the games industry’s many controversies over the past couple of years, crediting came up. Developers, be they on-the-ground coders, designers, QA, or support staff across community and PR departments, had many stories of being excluded from credits despite significant contributions to a game. Sometimes this was seen as an oversight, while others believe it has to do with leaving the company in question, or other perceived slights.
Whatever the reason, the IGDA is now targeting these problems as a fixable situation. “Policy for game credits can vary significantly from team to team which can be difficult to navigate, often with some contributors struggling for inclusion in credits, or being credited inconsistently,” reads the announcement. “The IGDA Game Credits SIG will help teams proactively develop fair and inclusive credit policies, drawing on industry best practices to help streamline the process and make it one everyone can understand and rely on.”
Today they have also launched a Twitter hashtag – #MyFirstGameCredit – encouraging developers to share the stories of their first time in the long scroll and what it meant to them. Speaking from experience, it does feel significant, and being jipped out of it is painful. IGDA’s goal here is to “paint a broad picture illustrating why credits are too important to be left as an afterthought, and how impactful they can be to the people making the games we love.”
IGDA also mention a recent GDC roundtable which served as the inspiration for the hashtag and where they received significant feedback. We’ll see how much success they can have tackling this long-standing problem.
Written by Ben Barrett on behalf of GLHF.
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