Dear DiGRA Australia members,
We are writing to share some important questions the Board would like to put to you, and to explain our thinking behind them.
Background
Over the past thirteen years, the Digital Games Research Association of Australia (DiGRAA) has gone from strength to strength. We’ve built a strong and active membership of nearly 200 researchers across Australia and New Zealand, and have the generous support of seven institutional members. Our annual conference has developed from a one-day symposium, to a two-day conference to what is now a three-day celebration of local games research, including practice-based work. We are proud to support our student, unsalaried and precariously employed members with travel bursaries to attend our conferences. DiGRAA Boards and members have worked hard over the years to create a welcoming, supportive environment for our diverse and vibrant community. We regularly contribute our voice to advocacy efforts related to government inquiries or national policy development, and we provide clear and visible leadership for games research in Australia and New Zealand.
The Board has started to question whether the organisation’s identity reflects these strengths. Since our incorporation in 2014 we have formally been a local chapter of the international Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). While we have been proud of our members’ contributions to DiGRA, and of our own hosting of the international DiGRA conference in 2017, in practice we’ve never really functioned as a chapter. We set our own direction, run our own events, and serve our own community in Australia and New Zealand. We have never taken money from DiGRA and there is no operational connection between our organisations beyond an annual chapters’ meeting at the DiGRA conference. The affiliation between DiGRA Australia and the international DiGRA has had little bearing on the work we actually do, or on our place in the global game studies community.
Our association’s current name also specifies digital games, while many of our members (and indeed, participants at our annual conferences) are engaged in research related to games and play in non-digital settings. Our name also carries with it an explicit focus on Australia as our community’s geographic grounding, despite the increasing presence of researchers from Aotearoa New Zealand among our community and at our annual conferences.
Events earlier this year have cast the disconnection from DiGRA, in particular, in stark relief for us as a Board. In May, DiGRA’s Chapter Officer informed all chapters that an updated Chapters Policy had been adopted by DiGRA to provide clearer guidelines for both existing and prospective chapters. This is a policy redeveloped without any consultation with chapters and, concerningly, contains a clause that requires all members of a chapter such as ours to also hold active membership of DiGRA international (at an annual cost of €40 / AUD$65). A requirement for DiGRA international membership disproportionately impacts student, unsalaried and part-time members. While we in DiGRA Australia have tried hard to keep individual membership costs low, or even free, this requirement would mean in effect that members who pay nothing to be part of DiGRAA would have to pay DiGRA. This, combined with the reality that DiGRA Australia members receive no material benefit from our relationship with DiGRA international, means we consider this updated policy completely untenable. DiGRA Australia, alongside a number of other chapters, pushed back on this policy update firmly and expressed dismay at the lack of a consultative process. The situation is currently unresolved – we were advised that chapters would be updated on the future of this policy after a DiGRA Executive Board meeting on July 10. We are yet to receive this information but will update you when we do.
Our questions
This recent policy issue brought the question of our organisation’s functional autonomy, as well as aspects of our name and identity, into sharp focus for the Board. The Board would like to gauge members’ views on three things: becoming a fully independent association (i.e. formalising our autonomy and self-direction), being more inclusive of non-digital games research in our identity and being more inclusive of our colleagues in Aotearoa New Zealand. The questions that we have for you as members, then, are:
- Should DiGRA Australia become a fully independent research association (i.e. drop our affiliation with DiGRA)?
- Should DiGRA Australia rename itself in order to be more inclusive of game studies research beyond the ‘digital’?
- Should DiGRA Australia rename itself in order to be more inclusive of our members and colleagues based in Aotearoa New Zealand?
Asking these questions is, we think, a natural next step for an organisation that has grown so much in size and stature over the past twelve years.
In practical terms any changes we ultimately make would mean two things: updating our constitution and changing our name. Everything else stays exactly the same, including your membership, the way our conferences work, the nature of our community and the work this organisation does for game studies across Australia and New Zealand. Your own relationship with DiGRA and its annual international conference also remains unchanged – our status as a chapter, and your membership of DiGRA Australia have no bearing on your ability to submit to or attend the DiGRA international conference or participate in DiGRA as an organisation in other ways.
To be clear, no decisions have been made. As a Board we don’t have a clear understanding of how the community feels about the questions we have raised above, and we would not be able to make any decisions without your input. These are not our decisions to make as a Board – this is your association, and the choice is yours as members. Thinking about our identity as an organisation is a significant and complex matter, and we want to be guided by the organisation’s membership every step of the way.
Here’s how we are proposing we explore these questions:
- A dedicated feedback channel is now open on the DiGRAA Discord server for you to ask questions, or to share your own thoughts about what we’re seeking guidance on.
- A steering poll will be sent out to all members on August 24, asking the three questions above. This poll will be open for two weeks.
- If there’s a mandate for change, we’ll draft specific changes and consult with you on these.
- Any final decision would be taken to a formal vote at our Annual General Meeting (AGM) in March 2027.
Important information
This is a process open to registered members of DiGRA Australia – you will need to be a member to vote in the steering poll, and to vote in the AGM if any proposal reaches that stage.
If you are not a member, details on how to sign up are available here. The membership fee is AUD$50 per annum for applicants in full time employment. This fee is pro-rated for those in part-time employment and is waived entirely for unsalaried and student applicants.
If you are unsure if you have an active individual membership, please get in touch with Jacqueline Burgess (jburgess@usc.edu.au), Stephanie Harkin (stephanie.harkin@rmit.edu.au) or Larry May (l.may@auckland.ac.nz) (or all three of us) to check.
If you are working or studying at one of our seven institutional members you are automatically covered for membership, but you must be recorded on our membership list by the person who locally coordinates your institution’s membership.
If you are unsure if you are currently accounted for by an institutional membership, please get in touch with the person who coordinates this in your institution. If you are unsure who that person is, contact Jacqueline Burgess (jburgess@usc.edu.au), Stephanie Harkin (stephanie.harkin@rmit.edu.au) or Larry May (l.may@auckland.ac.nz) (or all three of us), or ask on the DiGRA Discord server and we’ll let you know.
If you coordinate an institutional membership and you need to add or remove members from your list, please get in touch with Jacqueline Burgess (jburgess@usc.edu.au) or Stephanie Harkin (stephanie.harkin@rmit.edu.au).
Thank you
Thank you for taking the time to consider these questions and we hope you will engage with this feedback process. It is an important decision, and it must be driven by our membership. We warmly welcome your thoughts, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us – the newly created feedback channel on the DiGRAA Discord server is the best place to start, or you are welcome to email the DiGRAA President, Larry May, directly (l.may@auckland.ac.nz).
Ngā mihi nui,
The DiGRA Australia Board (Larry May, Erin Maclean, Stephanie Harkin, Jacqueline Burgess, Cass Barkman, Heather Blakey, Tom Byers, Taylor Hardwick, James Manning and Nellie Seale)