Brandon Boyer

Brandon Boyer is the current chairman of the IGF. His history includes editor at Gamasutra, contributor to Edge Magazine, and contributor to the BoingBoing Network. Boyer was an important member of GameJournoPros and helped give access to exclusive E3 events to fellow GameJournoPros members. Boyer has also been accused of helping a friend win the 2011 Fantastic Arcade Best in Show award for "Faraway" over games such as Fez (which won audience award), Skulls of the Shogun, Radical Fishing, and Octodad.

Ben Esposito
Three favourable articles were published about IGF 2014 and 2015 finalist Ben Esposito and his games, respectively on 11 August 2014 22 December 2014. None of three articles include a disclosure about a personal relationship between the two, as shown in various tweets.

Kyle Reimergartin
Boyer wrote a favourable about Kyle Reimergarten's game Banana Chalice, which was published on 11 October 2014 Another favourable article about one of Reimergarten's games, Fjords, was published on 22 December 2014. A collection of tweets show the two to have a personal relationship, which was disclosed in neither of the two articles.

Nina Freeman
Brandon Boyer wrote about How Do You Do It in a BoingBoing article that was published on 22 December 2014, a game developed by IGF 2015 finalist Nina Freeman. A collection of tweets show a personal relationship between the two, which was not disclosed in the article.

Ricky Haggett
Boyer published a number of favourable articles about IGF 2011 finalist Ricky Haggett and his games. Three articles were written for Venus Patrol, on 16 October 2012, 11 December 2012 and 19 June 2013. Another article was published for BoingBoing on 22 December 2014. A number of Twitter conversations demonstrate a close personal relationship between the two, which Boyer failed to disclose in all four articles.

Die Gute Fabrik
On 19 November 2011, an statement was published by Douglas Wilson on the company website of Die Gute Fabrik:

"Our friend Brandon Boyer recently ran a Kickstarter drive for his new website, Venus Patrol. To help support the drive, we agreed to contribute a special pre-release demo build of Johann Sebastian Joust, for donors at the $25 level or above."

Boyer's opinion about JS Joust is also featured as a promotional quote on the company website of Die Gute Fabrik: "Joust [is] something truly special, a new way to think about how we use this traditional videogame technology in radically new ways."

Boyer wrote a series of articles promoting the company of IGF 2012 finalist and Fantastic Arcade 2012 selectee Douglas Wilson. The first one was published on 8 November 2012. Although Boyer disclosed a financial conflict of interest regarding a financial involvement in the Venus Patrol Kickstarter, the personal relationship between Boyer and Wilson was not disclosed. Two more promotional articles about Sportfriend's Kickstarter were published on 7 December 2012, both without disclosure. Another article about Sportsfriends was published on OffWorld on 22 December 2014, also lacking disclosure.

5 favourable articles were written about Die Gute Fabrik for OffWorld in 2009. Although it is unclear if Wilson and Boyer were already friends in 2009, as Wilson joined Twitter in 2011, Boyer did seem to be friends with him at the time. Boyer also aided in the testing of JS Joust in 2011.

Steph Thirion
Brandon Boyer was discovered to have engaged in a conflict of interest with Steph Thirion, writing a total of 8 of articles for Boing Boing and Offworld promoting him, without disclosing that they are personal friends. This conflict was noticed after an interview with Allistair Pinsof. In the interview, Pinsof claimed to have had a conversation with Tiff Chow, Thirion's girlfriend, in 2011, in which she bragged that Thirion would win Fantastic Arcade's Best Game Award because of his friendship with Boyer (which he did ). In a statement to Kotaku she denied that this conversation had ever occured. However, both the Boing Boing and OffWorld articles and the social media records demonstrate that they were friends over the same period of time as the articles were published.