Dear Opinionatedgamers readers, as you know I’m conducing from year a column about “Art of Design“, interviewing many designers about the relationship between art and game design.

I’m, of course, interested in the discussion between SAZ (Spiele-Autoren-Zunft) and Fachgruppe Spiel (Game Publisher Association in Germany) concerning the aknowledgement for the designers of the status of “Originators”.

I think publishers and designers are the two main actors in the game scene and I’m sure that we need good designers and good publishers to be sure to have our needed amount of good games!

With a legal opinion, an open letter, and a signature campaign, the Game Designer Association counteracts in April 2013 the refusal of the Fachgruppe Spiel  to acknowledge game designers the status as originators and to continue the discussions about contract matters with the SAZ as the game designers’ representation.

Of course we are just talking about German laws but in boardgames market we all know the role of German (SDJ, DSP, Essen Spiele, Nuremberg …) so I think this discussion is interesting for all the market.

My personal opionion, matured during my interviews to games designers, is that Designers are to be acknowledged as originators but the discussion between SAZ and Fachgruppe Spiel involve also the mutual roles/relatiships between the two associations.

Here you can get more infos about this topics with links to the documents and letters.

My hope is that SAZ and Fachgruppe Spiel can find an agreement because, as  just quoted above, I think we need good desginers and good publishers to have good games!

Good play

Liga