As mentioned in my earlier article ‘Australian Government to Cease Interactive Games Fund from July 2014‘, the Australian federal government has slashed all ten million dollars of funding in the 2014-15 budget for the Interactive Games Fund in order to not directly support other elements of the growing video game industry but to repair the budget and fund unspecified policy priorities. This has caused much disappointment with smaller developers around the country, who stand to lose big from what could be considered a tiny sliver of the annual budget. For more information on the program and its benefits that I wrote up last year, including the thoughts of Professor Jeff Brand from Bond University, check out my earlier article: “Australian Indie Development Scene and Screen Australia’s Interactive Games Fund – Beneficial, Limited or a Waste of Money?“
John De Margheriti, a veteran of the Australian video game industry who established the prominent Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE), has this morning weighted in on his own thoughts on the cutting of the AIGF and how AIE is helping support their students.
It’s unfortunate that this funding has been cut, but it won’t have a significant impact on the future of the Australian Games Industry.
The scope of the AIGF was limited; it didn’t support new developers or larger studios working on big projects. Consider that the $20 million spread over three years falls well short of the average development budget for a current generation game of between US$30-100 million. A larger studio would be better off getting access to the 40 percent Producer Offset, currently only available for film production.
These cuts won’t impact on the opportunities available for graduates coming out of AIE. The AIGF was not intended to support new developers without published titles. That’s why we created the Incubator Program which makes a range of funding available to these developers, even up to three years after they’ve graduated.
I’m excited about the future of the games industry in Australia. If we want a bigger slice of the US$70 billion global games industry, there needs to be a range of funding and investment options for developers at all levels. There’s a huge amount of talent and great ideas currently in development that I’m committed to supporting
In 2014, over AU$400,000 of grants and project funding will be awarded to teams in the Incubator. Next week, AIE will be announcing the first recipients of the AU$150,000 Post-Incubator Development Grant for teams that have graduated in 2012 and 2013. AIE’s Incubator Program mentors graduates through the process of creating their own studios and supports them to create new companies, innovative digital content and original IP. It might not be the twenty million dollars Screen Australia had to offer over three years, which could fund many smaller studios,… but at least there are still some funding opportunities in the market.
