French board game designers’ union SAJ adopts new name to better represent women, non-binary people

French board game designer association SAJ has renamed itself to make its title more inclusive to women and non-binary people, as well as to better underscore its status as a union.

The Société des Auteurs de Jeux – which translates as society of game designers – was formed in 2017 through the merger of three separate groups, and currently represents more than 800 individual designers.

The organisation has now been rebranded as the Syndicat des Auteurices de Jeux – the Union of Game Designers – following a vote at its annual general meeting at the Festival International des Jeux in Cannes.

SAJ president Audrey Bondurand told BoardGameWire, “We wanted to change this name for two reasons: first, we have officially been a union for several years now, and we wanted our name to reflect that.

“Second, in French, ‘auteur’ is not a gender-neutral word, but a masculine one. ‘Auteurice’ is a contraction of ‘auteur’ and ‘autrice’ (the feminine form). We chose this neologism to include women and non-binary people.”

Bondurand, who worked in a board game cafe and in distribution before publishing her first game, Draky, said part of SAJ’s remit was advocating for the recognition of board games as cultural works, something which is “unfortunately still not the case today in France or in Europe”.

The organisation also offers contract reviews, mediation, accounting advice sessions and general support for designers in the industry, much like its US-based peer the Tabletop Game Designers Association and Germany’s SAZ.

Bondurand added, “Regarding the use of AI, we openly support the position of the CIL (our illustrator colleagues) in opposing generative AI in our published games.”

SAJ said a new website featuring its rebranded title is currently under construction, with the organisation’s existing email addresses currently operating as normal.