Della Rocca reveals "apology" to the dev community
Outgoing IGDA exec sad not to have overcome membership's "apathy and laziness"
Outgoing IGDA executive director, Jason Della Rocca, has posted a general apology to the development community on his personal blog based on his notes from the Rant Session at this year's GDC event.
In his parting shot speech he noted a number of challenges that he's been unable to overcome in the past nine years, such as a negative and lazy membership, and while the post isn't without an element of tongue-in-cheek humour, it raises several serious points.
"Serving the IGDA for the past nine years has been extremely rewarding and challenging," Della Rocca began. "I helped to get a lot done, but somehow feel that I failed the community.
"Sorry for being too focused on the nuts and bolts, with my head down in execution. I just didn't spend enough time on the big picture vision stuff. It’s scary, and easy to avoid when you're just "busy" doing stuff.
His main criticisms seem to be based around a general lack of participation on the part of the membership, however, as well as the "snipers" on the sidelines.
"Sorry for not having the leadership skills to beat the barriers of participation inequality," he continued. "Less than 1 per cent of the IGDA membership are truly active in driving the organisation forward. Sorry for not doing a better job building up a strong pipeline of community leaders and volunteers. Sorry for not overcoming your general apathy and laziness.
"Sorry for not doing a better job of roping in all the snipers from the sidelines. Turns out you are all pretty damn good at bitching and complaining and being critical. But then you don't actually do anything about it and you don't get involved. Sorry for not bringing critics under the tent and getting them to work at improving things."
He then went on to briefly mention professionalism, before noting that the industry was "having a massive impact on society," before signing the Rant Session off with: "Oh well, f*** you, it's not my job anymore!"
During Della Rocca's tenure at IGDA the membership grew by roughly 30 times. A replacement for the executive director post has yet to be announced.