A group of IGDA industry professionals and attorneys gathered yesterday at GDC to formalize the new Business and Legal SIG. The meeting was moderated by Dan Rosenthal; approximately 20-30 IGDA members and industry professionals were in attendance. Topics included goals for the new SIG, events and organizational structure. In addition to informational white papers related to business and legal issues in the games industry, the members proposed increased political involvement in addition to a greater focus on globalization/international issues for the SIG.

Members were particularly interested in seeing specific case studies for "freemium", free-to-play, and pay-to-play business models. Additional proposals included a one day business start-up summit and an entrepreneur track for future IGDA events to address the business and legal issues developers face when starting new projects and new studios. The Business and Legal SIG hopes to provide a wide variety of resources for industry professionals, including member-managed information compilation for regional and country tax credit incentives for studios and publishers.

Specifically, the new SIG discussed the possibility of creating a Business and Legal Wiki or other resource management tool that will tie into IGDA's Educational SIG. SIG members also proposed educational outreach in addition to resource compilation. Many members expressed the concern that valuable information doesn't reach academic programs related to game development.

Approximately six IGDA members volunteered to head the SIG's steering committee. If you would like to learn more about the new SIG, visit http://www.igda.org and sign up to join the mailing list.