Melissa Rogerson has been playing games all her life. Her parents
owned a small independent games shop in the late 1970s and 1980s, and
her father ran one of Melbourne’s older private Bridge clubs.
Melissa is the adult in the center...
In 1996, Melissa and her brotherDave represented Victoria in the
Australian Youth Bridge Championships. This was fun for them but
possibly not such a great thing for Victoria.
Melissa is married to another Opinionated Gamer, Fraser McHarg, and
they have two fabulous (and similarly opinionated) gamer daughters who
will turn 8 and 13 in 2011.
In September 2006, their collection was one of the Melbourne Museum’s
featured “Community Collections”, with many of their games displayed
and demonstrated there during the month. Melissa has a keen interest
in games promotion and in using games in education, and has pioneered
the introduction of annual Family Game Nights at local schools as well
as a hands-on, peer-mentored boardgames program. She has appeared on
ABC radio Melbourne and regional radio discussing boardgames.
When she is not gaming, Melissa works as a consultant in information
management and online strategy. She also translates some of the
articles for the English edition of spielbox magazine (look for the
mjr after the author’s name) and has translated a number of
boardgames, mostly for Lookout Games and Z-Man.
Melissa coined the term OMGESSEN! when she first visited OMGESSEN! in
2008 – she took the family back in 2009. Her ambition is to be
independently wealthy so she can game to her heart’s content. And go
to OMGESSEN! every year.
Melissa is a co-chair of Boardgames Australia.
