At the October chapter meeting, we announced a whole bunch of things; so much that we felt a need to recap them here because it’s a lot to take in over a few minutes at the start of a chapter meeting. So without further ado, here’s what’s been happening in IGDA Scotland lately.
Sold Out!
Our meeting in Edinburgh attracted a great crowd and was fully sold-out. This is by far the biggest event we’ve had since we moved to the TechCube, and if this keeps up, we may have to look for a bigger home in future! Thanks to everyone who came out, and the volunteers who made it happen!
A New Look for IGDA.org
After years of struggling with a badly implemented and increasingly dilapidated website, we’ve had a complete facelift. There’s a lot more functionality still to come but I really hope you will visit and check it out!
GDC Vault Discount for Members
IGDA members are now eligible for a 10% discount off the price of a subscription to the GDC Vault. The Vault is one of the premier resources, where talks from GDC events going back to 1996 are housed. For the past few years, every talk at every event has been recorded, and the only way to access all of them is on the Vault. For those who can afford it, a subscription to the GDC Vault can be the single best resource available, and with the discount available to IGDA members, you can immediately get the price of your membership back with this one discount. Members can find the discount code here.
Announcing Partnership with WhoActually.com
A new partner for the IGDA, WhoActually is a UK company dedicated to the notion of ensuring that the creatives who make the products we all enjoy get proper recognition. WhoActually.com allows you to create a profile – which, as an IGDA member will carry a special badge to highlight your membership – and then add your credits. “Works” are the term they use for the products, so you can look up your favourite games, films and other things to find out who contributed to them, what their role was and hopefully some insight into what they actually did as part of the team. WhoActually is all about making sure that we get the credit we deserve!
Rift-Share – A New Reality for Developers
One thing that we realised in the run-up to our Edinburgh meeting is that although there are only so many Oculus Rift devices in the community, there is a lot more enthusiasm for them. We also recognise that beyond debug and testing, a lot of development can actually be done without constant access to the Rift hardware. Rift-Share is a program we launched last night to empower developers to work on the hardware by offering testing and time on the devices that would otherwise be sat idle. We’ll have more info on this program very shortly, but we’re very excited about it!
Jobs@IGDA Scotland
We’ve also found lately that a lot people are wanting to advertise their positions through the IGDA chapter. That’s an excellent thing for the community, but it can lead to a lot of clutter on the Facebook group, so before the end of the month we’ll be rolling out a jobs board, so that the community can advertise positions vacant within Scotland, and you can all see where and how to apply – and best of all, this will be a free resource, run by the community, for the community. Again, we’ll be getting more information out about this very shortly!
Launch Conference and the Launch Awards
Our friends down in Birmingham at the Launch Conference have asked us to highlight both their event, which will be taking place 21st and 22nd November as well as their Awards. They specifically asked us to invite members of our community to apply for the awards, and where necessary they are open to pitches over Skype rather than in person! Please make sure to check out the event.
Volunteers
As always, we are desperately in need of volunteers to make things happen. We are a 100% volunteer driven organsiation, and without people helping out, very little would be accomplished. We regularly ask the volunteers for help with aspects of the organisation that we need assistance with, but increasingly, we are asking the volunteers what it is they would like to do, and then empowering them to do it. Find out more here!
Next Events
The AGM will be taking place in Glasgow on the 13th November in the Admiral Bar. It will be a great way to end the year by recapping all of the hard work done by the chapter in 2013 and welcoming the new board members to the group.
On 4th December, University of West of Scotland and West College Scotland, in association with IGDA Scotland, will be hosting an event called “GamesWest – Get into GameDev” targeting students in Further and Higher Education. A more detailed post about this will be coming soon.
Finally, we will be again collaborating with organisations and institutions around the country to deliver an amazing Global Game Jam experience for you all again this January, so make sure to save the dates: 24th – 26th January