As you’ve probably heard me ramble before, there are going to have to be some changes in the way Make Games is run and organised. This is mostly out of the fact that as a community and an organisation we have grown far quicker, and covered more ground than I initially thought we would (yay us!).
With this in mind one of the principal changes that needs to happen is that MGSA will need to change its legal form from an Association of people to a Non-Profit Company. I’ve already started this process and hopefully it will be done in time for the AGM.
Tied with this, we will need to start charging membership fees if you want to be a “member” of the Association. The charging of fees is primarily so that we can actually register for tax (SARS is kicking up a fuss that we can’t be an industry association and NOT charge membership fees). Although the fees will also be useful to cover things like hosting and contributing to events and such.
The fees mooted so far is R500 per annum for “professionals” and R100 per annum for “students”. To qualify for the student rate you need to present a valid student card or be under the age of 18. The fees will not be discounted in a pro-rata basis (so if membership runs from Jan to Dec and you join in Dec you still need to pay the full fees). I’ve opened another post to discuss the benefits of membership (see here: (coming soon)) but in summary: Voting rights, discounts to workshops and events that MGSA runs and as well as access to any government funding or initiatives that MGSA enables.
The committee has decided that since we need to charge membership fees, it makes sense that the voting at the next AGM should only be available to those who are registered members of the association. Starting from today you can join the association by paying your membership fee. Details for payment and the process to joining are found here: (coming soon)
The AGM will be run in the last week of June, this gives people roughly a month to decide if they’d like to join, along with nominate candidates for the new committee. This process will be outlined in a post soon.
Probably the most important change to come though is the “split” of the community and the association. The MGSA community is primarily represented by these forums. The Association will still host them, but they will no longer be the landing page of the associations’ website. Further access and joining the forums will remain free, as will the monthly meet-ups (I see these as “community” events and not association ones, though the Association may look into “sponsoring” the events). I want to stress this point, being a member of the Association does not require you to join the forum, and similarly you don’t need to join the forum to be a member of the association.
However since the association will be hosting the forums (and therefore will be held liable for anything posted on it) we will be implementing quite stringent forum rules and appointing moderators.
It’s been a great 3 years, lets hope we can continue with the momentum and take MGSA and Game Dev in the country to the next level :)
Nick
With this in mind one of the principal changes that needs to happen is that MGSA will need to change its legal form from an Association of people to a Non-Profit Company. I’ve already started this process and hopefully it will be done in time for the AGM.
Tied with this, we will need to start charging membership fees if you want to be a “member” of the Association. The charging of fees is primarily so that we can actually register for tax (SARS is kicking up a fuss that we can’t be an industry association and NOT charge membership fees). Although the fees will also be useful to cover things like hosting and contributing to events and such.
The fees mooted so far is R500 per annum for “professionals” and R100 per annum for “students”. To qualify for the student rate you need to present a valid student card or be under the age of 18. The fees will not be discounted in a pro-rata basis (so if membership runs from Jan to Dec and you join in Dec you still need to pay the full fees). I’ve opened another post to discuss the benefits of membership (see here: (coming soon)) but in summary: Voting rights, discounts to workshops and events that MGSA runs and as well as access to any government funding or initiatives that MGSA enables.
The committee has decided that since we need to charge membership fees, it makes sense that the voting at the next AGM should only be available to those who are registered members of the association. Starting from today you can join the association by paying your membership fee. Details for payment and the process to joining are found here: (coming soon)
The AGM will be run in the last week of June, this gives people roughly a month to decide if they’d like to join, along with nominate candidates for the new committee. This process will be outlined in a post soon.
Probably the most important change to come though is the “split” of the community and the association. The MGSA community is primarily represented by these forums. The Association will still host them, but they will no longer be the landing page of the associations’ website. Further access and joining the forums will remain free, as will the monthly meet-ups (I see these as “community” events and not association ones, though the Association may look into “sponsoring” the events). I want to stress this point, being a member of the Association does not require you to join the forum, and similarly you don’t need to join the forum to be a member of the association.
However since the association will be hosting the forums (and therefore will be held liable for anything posted on it) we will be implementing quite stringent forum rules and appointing moderators.
It’s been a great 3 years, lets hope we can continue with the momentum and take MGSA and Game Dev in the country to the next level :)
Nick
Comments
im 100% behind you guys!!!!
where do i sign?
it will also help us to be more professional,
and other businesses will also trust each business whom part of the association more,
thus it will improve all things.
Thanks for all your efforts,
it always amazes me how we this organisation is doing and that it has the ear of the government even!
This organisation and forum is truly the gateway to games (and app) development in Africa.
Membership fees are a good way to cover some basic expenses.
Suggestions:
1) Do not limit voting to registered members at the next AGM.
Only limit it at the AGM after the next one.
R500/R100 may not seem like much, but for some devs it may be difficult to obtain before the next AGM, or an expense simply not planned for.
2) Consider removing the Jan to Dec membership period.
Rather have membership run for 12 months from the date the money has been paid.
(Apple does the same for iOS dev accounts, and they send out reminders a month before it expires.)
This means more admin for MGSA, but will encourage people to join any time.
(Although, "more admin" could simply mean a "paid date" in a database.)
looking forward to the big boy pants :P
1. When will the banking details become available?
2. How does this affect the actual structure of the committee? I remember some time back a mention of a massive reduction in committee members?
3. If the AGM is happening end of June, what's happening with nominations for committee etc?
4. Do we need to show someone our student card or how exactly is that process going to be managed?
Also, a question on mods vs committee members - is there a separation between these functions? Or does becoming a committee member make you a mod, for example? Just something I'm curious about. Who actually are our mods around here?
I think this lessens the work load of the committee members so that they can focus more on one thing. And I also think it distributes the perceived power a bit.
Anyone else feel like this is a good idea ?
I hope that a member won't be allowed to be on both the association and community management at the same time. Because otherwise what's the point of separating them.
I also agree that a thread listing the areas where extra hands (or eyeballs, or whichever other body part) are needed would be a good idea as more people would be willing to help out if they see a need for their particular skill set.
I'll keep an eye out for that list of benefits you mentioned. I've never belonged to an association before, and have pretty much no idea what the point of such a thing is. The company I work for belongs to one, but that's largely just to put the logo on the bottom of our letterhead.
/5 cents from a newbie
Anyway, there's this thread which shows the voting from the last AGM: http://www.makegamessa.com/discussion/1929/event-annual-general-meeting-2014-30-april-2014/p2 Though, I believe Hanli stepped down from her role... I think that basically leaves Fengol, Danny, Nick, Ben and Travis?
Also, while we're on this topic, can I please remind the committee about my concerns over how the voting was held last year so that we do not have a repeat of this.
I know this doesn't quite yet address everyone's concerns and I'm sure more people will have more of a say. This also doesn't necessarily represent what I think. I'm passing on someone's thoughts.
Finally, we're still waiting on what's happening with payments and when the AGM might happen. This is information I don't have.
If there's any confusion, when I say some points might upset people, I am specifically referring to the points regarding the forum and how they are currently a liability.
In terms of the size of the committee and its ability to efficiently function, I think this direction is a good direction to move in, and one should always remember that if it doesn't work things can always be adjusted down the line.
Paid members would also get access to Workshops run by Make Games SA at a discounted rate (or free)
Access to Co-Working space (again at a discounted rate)
If we ever manage to get a trade mission going, that would only be available to paid members
Preference to events that we organise (like EGE or rAge)
My lawfirm will give a discount to Make Games SA members for any legal work we do.
I'm hoping to get other partnerships and benefits to add more to the value of membership to the organisation as time goes on
I hope this will change.
p.s. I know I am late to the party ... but I seldom come and visit.
(I don't expect that's actually the hold up, but if it helps we're offering)
Some forums do this and I think it's a good idea. Make sub-boards for game dev, comps, and then one that's a "hot zone", where people talk about potentially heated topics like social justice.
Then make the game dev forums open to new accounts, but the hot zone you need either to wait a month or have X good-faith posts in the game dev boards before you can post in it.
That would help prevent wandering trolls with burner accounts from setting fire to things. You gotta show good faith before you jump into contentious threads.
Rather think of it as the "circle of trust". If you've demonstrated yourself as acting in good faith and invested in the community, you gain entry to the circle of trust. Some issues will be difficult for a community to wrestle with, and bad faith actors have the potential to do damage.
It also forces those who are new to spend some time simply reading. Observe the arguments, learn about the community culture and what the generally accepted views on the matter are, before leaping in with a potentially ill-considered opinion.
Such a separation ideally means that when people engage in those discussions, they do so knowing that they are likely to feel strongly about the topic and should think twice before submitting there post. They are ideally more aware of their state of mind when adding to the conversation.
On the other hand I suppose you'd like to have it that this is the case across the entire forum and people might take the existence of such a section as an excuse for behaviour elsewhere ("Arguing goes in the other section so dont give me any counter-points here at all")
I'm also curious how putting these rather rare discussions (there really aren't more than 1 every few months) into their own forum area doesn't serve to move them into a category reserved for "discussion of the other". Rational, friendly discussion of these sorts of topic is what we should aim for. What about new users that want to participate in those discussions in positive ways? You're totally assuming that the only way a new user would sign up to post is with anger/negativity - or at least, if you're not assuming that, then you're not valuing the positive contributions of people like @Jelligeth. I'd rather have more like her at the cost of one or two short-lived troll posts.
And again, the warning system seems to be structured well enough to catch and prevent the type of negative behavior you're worried about - across the whole forum, with no need for a special area that would mark the topics placed in it as other to the status-quo (which is obviously not the correct message to send at all). And yes, there really should be an usher pointing out good behavior (or at least, a link to the rules, working on that).
There is no way for someone to have earned trust without having posted (except for a member-referral system, which is problematic in other ways).
I didn't. I emphasized the words that highlighted how we were talking about two different things. Whether you're comfortable labeling a thing "a potentially heated topic" is a different thing to whether that thing is potentially heated. One is what something is, the other is your personal feelings about calling it that.
Your comfort level doesn't change the fact that these conversations are often difficult.
I don't actually know which arguments were the ones that caused overseas investment to flee. I presume at least one of those arguments was an argument about engines. Which neither better moderation, nor some kind of "hot-topic" zone is actually going to solve. This is something I'm concerned about, which is why I'd like a disassociation between the forums and Make Games SA the association.
Though I know not everyone here is as concerned about the Make Games SA brand. (And is more concerned about the spirit of the forums themselves, which is also important, or not concerned I guess)
Irregardless of whether this forum is rebranded (or recontextualized) I totally agree that a positive culture here is something we should strive for. (Which is what folks here are making suggestions for). If we can improve the moderation we should. If we can structure the forum in a better way we should.
But this thread is getting close to proving the point about hostility already :(
You're also right that such a zone doesn't solve those discussions becoming hostile either. I do feel that a well implemented warning system can at least prevent arguing while upset with each other from turning into bad faith shouting matches though, so that is a thing I'd chalk up as a positive side to a solid forum-wide moderation policy/system. I dunno, I felt like the urine-enriched coffee thing was at least a reasonably good joke ;)
So far most of the pressure on the forum to look good can be dealt with better and more positively by having an actual MGSA site.
I think having Jobs and Events be quite visible are also positive things, both for me personally, and for strangers or investors looking to get the gist of the community. There are many other things the community offers (like answering peoples' questions about getting into game dev), but in terms of the "face" that I think should be shown to the stranger, I think Projects, Jobs and Events are the most important and show us in the most positive light.
In graphic/web design, one of the core principles is deciding what is important to be shown, either in terms of user action or in terms of information being conveyed. There's a hierarchy of information that you decide, and this can greatly affect how people use your website. It also helps to focus your message so that you're not trying to please 100 different people, but rather making sure you're really good at conveying the core of what your content should say about your organisation.
Perhaps visiting the forum shows the Projects category and stickied Events by default, as an example. Or perhaps next to my nick at the top of my posts it'd say "Elyaradine - Latest project: HACK". I dunno, there are probably loads of possibilities in terms of emphasising projects, jobs and events, without having to put in the development that creates something like Artstation, itch.io or GameJolt. I'm hesitant about suggesting software-based changes given how difficult those are to implement with everyone being super busy, but I do think that they can be really effective, because they push for certain behaviours before a visitor has even gotten the chance to have to be immersed in the rest of the community culture. (I've personally redesigned the MGSA home page and forum a couple of times over the years, but never actually followed through because of getting other work that takes priority and then forgetting and not finishing.)
There are also proactive things we can do as individuals, like "I will download, install and play and give feedback on at least one game a week", but I dunno, it's hard (for me) to keep stuff like that up unless there are direct, short-term benefits, because there are unfortunately always more important things to do. (But that's maybe a personal problem of my over-committing.)
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edit: I think the same kind of thinking applies to MGSA as an industry organisation. What does MGSA do? What are the benefits of membership and how do people sign up? What do we want to show that's attractive to press/investors? I think those are the core things that the MGSA home page should address. Everything else (that I can think of right now) is less important, and the visual hierarchy should reflect that.