Australian games studios record jobs growth

Stan Beer
Sunday, 30 April 2006 16:25

IT People - Enterprise

The Game Developers’ Association of Australia (GDAA), the governing body for the Australian electronic game industry has in the lead-up to the world's leading games event E3 that Australia’s biggest independent game studios had increased their hires by almost 50%. this year.

New hires at the top five companies are up from 335 developers this time last year, to 483 currently.

Evelyn Richardson, GDAA President and CEO, said this reflected the health of the industry which had been aggressively recruiting over the past 12 months and now employed well over 1,000 game developers, plus staff in the growing affiliated game service sector.

“This is great news as a record number of Australian companies head to E3 to win deals and tempt publishers with a great range of product across all platforms,” said Richardson.

Richardson said the 50% increase in hires was an excellent figure from our biggest five companies, Krome Studios, IR Gurus, Team Bondi, Auran Games, and Torus Games.

“This is the best indication yet that the Australian industry is successfully competing in a tough global game market,” she said. However she warned that: “we still have considerable challenges ahead, making Government support in the form of investment attraction and growing our skills base absolutely critical."

Richardson said it was particularly encouraging to have such strong government support at E3 from Austrade, City of Melbourne, Invest Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, ScreenACT, South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia. 

“We have smart Government sponsorship backing these companies, both financially, and in hands-on facilitation for deal brokering and networking,” said Richardson.

Richardson said publishers at E3 looking to outsource the development of certain aspects of their games - or even entire games, will find that the quality of games developed in Australia is seen worldwide to be on par with US development.

“Indeed, eight of the largest games publishers have their Asia Pacific Regional Headquarters in Australia, including Activision, Atari, Eidos, Electronic Arts, Sony Computer Entertainment, THQ, Take 2 Interactive and Ubisoft.

“We want publishers to know that when they want unparalleled regional knowledge and world-class original IP, Australia delivers,” said Richardson. 

Nine companies are showing game product at the Australia Pavilion:

Auran Games (online)
Big Ant (console, handheld)
Firemint (mobile)
IR Gurus (console)
Iron Monkey (mobile and PS2)
Tru Blu Entertainment (multi platform)
Torus Games (console, handheld)
Wicked Witch (mobile, PC)
Wontom (mobile)
 

For more information about titles coming out of Australia at the 2006 E3 show, see www.gdaa.com.au/e3_2006/index.html