Mike Bantick
Monday, 08 September 2008 18:18
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
The insider’s dismissal of this goal was somewhat cold. “The problem with the games industry in this country,” the insider said “is that it is full of many small studios that should be left on their own to see who survives”.
The result, according to the film industry insider, would be that only the strong would survive, leaving a much more robust, leaner game industry, able to survive on its own two feet.
The GDAA has plenty to work on with the local industry – topics such as the
push for a local R18+ rating for interactive entertainment take up time for folks such as GDAA president Tom Crago. Still Crago was able to find time to address the comments.
Wouldn’t an industry of merged larger game development companies provide a more stable environment for growth? Would there be more benefits of resource scalability both intellectual and financial?
“Video game development in Australia has always been driven by entrepreneurs. Often people will leave a bigger company to start a smaller one. Certainly, in Melbourne a whole lot of companies, including Tantalus, were spawned by Beam Software. The ultimate objective will be different for everyone.” Crago said. “For some, unquestionably, that objective will be to sell to a larger player. To others, it will be to stay small. Every company, and every entrepreneur, has their own take on the ingredients for success. It has to be said, though, that consolidation is inevitable in the Australian industry. But that doesn't necessarily mean a decline in either quality or creativity. I can envisage a number of companies existing together as a group, but maintaining that spirit of entrepreneurship and independence that made them successful in the first place”
Admirable, but surely in the cutthroat business world, there would be benefits of size ranging from sharing of resources all the way up to marketing and distribution of the final product?
“As developers, our responsibilities tend to end once the game has been completed. We love to get involved in marketing and promotion, but as a rule that's left to the Publishers. So for the most part, cooperation among Australian developers is limited to the development process itself. And it's true, we do help one another out where we can. We are a very close knit community, which is rare in any industry, and pretty unique to Australia in terms of game development.” Crago said.
So what of this film industry insiders comment? On to Page 3
