After several developers have said they were uncredited for work on recent projects, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has updated its game crediting policy.
As spotted by Eurogamer, the organization's Game Credits Special Interest Group (SIG) has updated its game crediting policy as of March 2023. The IGDA website features two recently updated guidelines, one of which simply states: "When in doubt, give credit," which should help to include more developers in the credits of the games they work on.
Some other key points in the new guidelines say that staff members should still be listed in the credits even if they leave the company before the project launches. Credits should include all contract and full-time studio employees (as long as they've been employed for a minimum of 30 days), and ports, remasters, remakes, and re-releases must retain the original names of the people that worked on the game. Additionally, original credits should come first and should be specified with an 'Original Team Credits' header.
- Nintendo says it believes in "giving proper credit" as it gets called out for failing to give proper credit to the original devs behind Donkey Kong Country Returns
- "One in 10" game developers were laid off in the past year, GDC survey of 3,000+ devs finds: "We set impossible goals and then fire everyone if they prove to be impossible"
The guidelines also state that credits must appear in the game - so can't be locked behind content or hidden anywhere in the game - and that players should be given a point of access to review the credits even if they haven't completed the game yet. There's also some points in the new guidelines about how people should be named in the credits of games, leaving no room for anyone to be left out anymore.
Some recent examples of developers being left out of their games' credits include the multiple individuals that worked on The Callisto Protocol and the original Metroid Prime devs that were left out of the remaster. It's not just limited to games either, as one of the co-directors of The Last of Us was also left out of the HBO adaptation's credits.
Wondering what we've got to look forward to in the near future? Take a look at our new games 2023 list.
