Australia Place To Be For Games Development

Tom Crago, the new President of the Game Developers' Association of Australia (GDAA), the peak body for the Australian electronic game industry, recently announced on the back of a record growth year in 2006, that it plans to have Australia regarded as one of the best locations for making games on the planet!

Crago made the announcement as many Australian companies descended on GDC in San Francisco (March 5-9, 2007) for one of the most important games meetings of the year globally.

Crago said the Australian industry was already mixing it with the best developers internationally. "The great majority of our companies are primarily export oriented. Overall export revenues account for over 90% of total industry revenues," Crago said.

"Right now around Australia we have in development most genres of game on every major platform, from high-end MMOG, through PlayStation3, Wii, handheld and mobile," he said. "Our diversity is actually one of the reasons we're increasingly becoming recognized as a game development hub."

"There are close to 2000 people employed by game development studios in Australia at present, and most of us are hiring."

Crago said: "We've been doing this for a long time and 2007 will be an important year, with the first suite of Australian-developed titles coming out for the new generation consoles."

A recent study commissioned by the GDAA, the Queensland Government and Victorian Government shows the electronic game development industry is highly growth-oriented in outlook. Over 90% of companies expect to grow during the next three years. Central to this growth outlook is the expectation by over 70% of companies that they will increase their level of investment in intellectual property development over the next three years. The report shows the Australian electronic game industry now generates revenues of approximately $110 million per annum and directly employs over 1600 people; a 60% increase on 3 years ago.