GAMA Has A New Board

The Game Manufacters Association has held its annual elections, which have resulted in a few new board members.

• Vice President: Chris Spivey (Darker Hue Studios)
• Treasurer: Gary Alaka (Gap Closer Games)
• Director-at-Large: Jeff Pinsker (Amigo Games) and Julie Ahern (Greenbriar Games)

In the financial results, the organization lost $100K in 2019 (which was less than the expected expenditure for that year). With the cancellation of Origins Game Fair and Origins Online, they expect to lose twice that amount this year.

 

[Von Ether]

Congrats to the new members!

 

[M.T. Black]

Congratulations to the new board, it looks excellent!

Who is the President of GAMA? Is that position elected?

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Assuming Gary Alaka also a POC, based on his Linkedin profile. Encouraged by the direction GAMA board is taking.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Congratulations to the new board, it looks excellent!

Who is the President of GAMA? Is that position elected?

Stephen Brissaud, and yes it's elected. Some controversy at GenCon 2018.

Brissaud Statement on Gen Con Incident

'I Would Like to Publicly Apologize'

icv2.com

 

[dragoner]

Chris is cool, knows his whisky too, good luck to him, though I am not sure what GAMA does?

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Chris is cool, knows his whisky too, good luck to him, though I am not sure what GAMA does?

They put on 2 annual shows - Origins and GAMA Trade Show (for the hobby gaming industry).

They provide some services for independent game publishers like health care options, credit card services, and more.

They provide a lot education for new folks in the industry. When I owned my game store, they provided a network of other retailers across the country I could bounce ideas and rant about the industry with.

 

[dragoner]

Ah, thanks.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

If you are member of the boardgaming industry and you LOST money in 2019....that doesn't look good for your overall success. We are on year 8+ of a steamrolling boardgaming golden age, conditions aren't going to get any better than they are now and have been for almost the past 10 years.

Best of luck to them in 2021.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Chris Spivey is voted Vice President. A token of appreciation to Black Lives Matter by the voters, I guess. Nice.

I'll assume you're just not very adept in the subtleties of English. Maybe it's not your first language. And that you meant to say, something like:

"Chris Spivey is voted Vice President! In addition to being a wonderful game designer, I appreciate Black Lives Matter, and so I feel this is a fitting move all around. Very nice!"

 

[Deset Gled]

If you are member of the boardgaming industry and you LOST money in 2019....that doesn't look good for your overall success. We are on year 8+ of a steamrolling boardgaming golden age, conditions aren't going to get any better than they are now and have been for almost the past 10 years.

Best of luck to them in 2021.

First off, GAMA doesn't make board games. They're a trade organization.

Second, as a trade organization, a lot of their fiscal activity is based around trade shows. I believe their fiscal year ends in June. This means that their 2019 fiscal year included the GAMA Expo in March of this year. This show was a huge loss, and it's 100% not their fault. February and March of this year were terrible for trade shows. It was exactly the wrong time in the COVID19 pandemic that people stopped traveling, but the government hadn't called for any official closings yet. That means that GAMA was still on the hook to pay ALL the bills for the GAMA Expo, but it generated almost no revenue at all.

You're right that conditions aren't getting any better. One of the shows that I do yearly in February has already cancelled their 2021 meeting.