Overview

IGEA’s Vision

A world-class video games industry in Australia and New Zealand that is creative, inclusive and economically powerful.

IGEA’s Mission

To advocate for, strengthen and drive the Australian and New Zealand video games industry forward by shaping policy, delivering insights, and building a sustainable ecosystem where creativity and culture can thrive.

What Does IGEA Do?

IGEA represents and advances the interests of the Australian and New Zealand video games and interactive entertainment industry. As the sector’s unified voice, IGEA engages with all levels of government, regulators, and policymakers to advance policy settings that support sustainable industry growth, innovation, and global competitiveness. This includes advocacy on regulatory, classification, trade, funding, child safety, and digital policy issues that directly affect video game developers, publishers, platforms, and retailers

Research, Data & Industry Insights

IGEA produces trusted, evidence‑based research on the video games sector, including who plays games, who makes them, and the economic and social impact of interactive entertainment. These insights underpin IGEA’s advocacy work, inform public debate, and provide members with consistent and reliable data to support business decisions, investment, and policy engagement.

Government & Stakeholder Relations

IGEA works closely with government agencies, Ministerial offices, departments, the media, educators, and international trade bodies to strengthen understanding of the games industry’s value and cultural importance. As a central point of engagement, IGEA aims to ensure the sector is accurately represented in public discussions and policy development.

Member Services & Industry Support

IGEA’s role is to help members more effectively create, distribute, and commercialise interactive games, entertainment content, and related hardware. IGEA’s members inform and guide advocacy across a range of issues, both formally and informally.

IGEA provides tailored support to its members, which may include regulatory and policy guidance, industry briefings, direct member communications, connections, and the creation of resources.

Industry Promotion & Communications

Through strategic communications, media engagement, and public-facing initiatives, IGEA actively promotes the video games industry locally and internationally. This work helps build recognition of the sector as a creative, innovative, and economically significant part of the digital economy. IGEA highlights the power of playing video games and the benefits games have across the community, including cultural, health, educational, and general wellbeing.

Events, Networking & Community Building

IGEA delivers events and programs that bring the industry together, foster collaboration, and support professional growth. These include industry briefings, social and networking events, diversity initiatives, and structured programs that promote knowledge sharing and connection across the ecosystem.

GCAP

IGEA owns and delivers GCAP, Australia’s premier game development conference, held annually as part of Melbourne International Games Week. GCAP brings together developers, publishers, investors, educators, and international industry leaders to support skills development, business growth, global engagement, and the expansion of professional networks.

For more information, visit: www.gcap.com.au

The AGDAs

IGEA runs the AGDAs, Australia’s national awards program recognising and celebrating excellence in game development and individual achievement. The awards celebrate the creativity and technical excellence of Australian game makers and elevate local talent on national and international stages.

For more information, visit: www.agdas.com.au

The IGEA Team

Ron Curry

CEO

Since joining IGEA in 2008, Ron has played an instrumental role in tackling the emerging issues surrounding interactive entertainment, and demonstrating the positive influence of computer and video games in the broader community particularly within the education and health sector.

Ron often appears in the media or fronting government to discuss the power of games to connect, empower, educate and inspire. Issues which he supports passionately include trade and export, funding, child safety, health, diversity and education.

Ron has sat on many working groups, boards and roundtables including an Advisory Committee Member on the ALRC’s Classification Review and holds a seat on the government’s Consultative Working Group on Cyber Safety.

More recently, Ron took the lead in the merger between the GDAA and IGEA in 2020, which saw the two associations coming together, ensuring that there was a single unified voice representing the video games industry.

Prior to joining IGEA, Ron spent 15 years in the interactive entertainment business working for platform holders, publishers and distributors in areas as varied as sales, marketing, operations and general management.  In this time Ron was also one of the founding Directors of IGEA, which was then IEAA.

Raelene Knowles

COO

Raelene joined IGEA in 2009 after working for many years in various Marketing, PR and Sales roles for first and third party publishers for video games in the ANZ marketplace.

Raelene is responsible for managing IGEA’s communication, events and research projects.  She also is responsible for membership services, running internal and external events and programs for members.  These range from quarterly member meetings through to women’s workshops, trivia nights and the famous IGEA Football Tournament.

Raelene enjoys providing evidence, facts and stories around who plays games, who makes games and the potential games and game development have for society.  IGEA’s research provides the foundation for all advocacy and policy work.

Charles Hoang

Director of Public Policy and Government Relations

Charles Hoang is Director of Public Policy & Government Relations at IGEA. More recently, Charles was Director, Government Relations & Policy Advocacy at Stone & Chalk Group, representing Australia’s largest innovation community.

Prior to that, he was Lead Adviser – Industry Development & Defence Industry Policy at the Australian Industry Group, focusing on digital and emerging tech industry policy. His diverse experience includes roles at the Australian Energy Market Commission and Free TV Australia.

He holds qualifications in technology and law, with an Honours Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Queensland, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Technology Sydney.

Lucy Lu

Policy Manager

Lucy is a Policy Manager supporting IGEA’s work in public policy, government relations, and policy communications. She is the lead for IGEA’s policy activities in New Zealand.

Previously, Lucy worked at Twitter as a Global Public Policy Fellow, and she also served as a Policy Associate at the Permanent Mission of New Zealand to the United Nations in New York.

Lucy is a graduate of The University of Sydney, where she completed a Master of International Security, specialising in American Foreign Policy, and a Bachelor of Political, Economic and Social Sciences.

Jens Schroeder

Director of Industry and Member Relations

Jens joined IGEA in 2019 after working in various leadership roles in game-related education, including manager of the SAE Sydney campus and Associate Dean (Design Vertical) for Torrens University.

Combining his experience in games, business, academia, management and leadership, Jens is responsible for representing and growing the IGEA’s development members by providing them with a voice to government and industry, acting as the interface between the Australian video game development industry and IGEA and work close with state, territory and commonwealth departments and agencies to the benefit of the industry.

In this capacity, he, among other things, organised Australia’s first unified presence at Gamescom, instigated the IGEA mentorship program and was the driving force behind IGEA’s producer course.

Jens is based on the Gold Coast and is always more than happy to catch up for a coffee (when is not busy looking after his two kids and rescue dog).

Sav Wolfe

Manager of Events, Content and Communications

As so many event managers do, Sav embodies the ‘Jack of all Trades’ title and can frequently be found in several spreadsheets at once. He can lay claim to helping with content, communication, media, graphic design, and lifting heavy things for the team.

Sav is head of content and operations for one of IGEA’s major events, GCAP, an internationally recognised and respected game developer conference that takes place as part of Melbourne International Games Week. He also assists operationally with The AGDAs, a renowned award night celebrating Australian game development talent.

He previously helped manage the operation and community of The Arcade Melbourne, a renowned game development coworking space that housed over 35 of Australia’s games studios.

Sav Emmett Wolfe joined IGEA early in 2020, after the GDAA and IGEA merger and has continued to grow and flourish with the company.

Diversity and inclusion has always been a firm focus of his, and informs all of the decisions he makes, in order to ensure the Australian games industry continues to grow together, with no one left behind.

Prior to joining IGEA, Sav worked across narrative design, having won awards both locally and internationally for his games.

Molly Campbell

Events Manager

Molly joined IGEA in August 2021, starting as Executive Assistant to CEO Ron Curry. Since then, she’s dived into the world of events, helping to bring to life some of the games industry’s most important gatherings, like Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) and the Australian Game Developer Awards (AGDAs). Molly also works on a range of IGEA social events that bring members together, from webinars to in-person meetups.

Her role focuses on ensuring everything behind the scenes runs smoothly, from logistics and coordination to member communications. She’s all about creating opportunities for people in the games industry to connect, learn, and grow together through events that feel as enjoyable as they are valuable.

Before joining IGEA, Molly’s career in performance theatre took her across the UK, USA, and Asia, both on stage as an actor and backstage in stage management and directing. She also spent six years as Co-Chair of the Swindon Fringe Festival, where she ran a 10-day festival that gave emerging artists a platform and brought creative experiences to the local community.

Originally from Hong Kong, Molly has always loved discovering new cultures, food, and people. She’s all about embracing new experiences that push her to learn and see things from fresh perspectives, whether in her personal life or work with IGEA.