State of the industry in Australia?

    I'm looking for information on the state of the industry in Australia. I haven't really kept in touch with it since my arrival in Montreal ( I had looked into going down under at the time) and I was wondering how things are there.

    I know Pandemic closed down, and apparently Melbourne is considered by EA a cheaper (and interesting) place to develop games (along with Montreal, thanks to tax incentives). Also Atkinson has finally resigned and his successor is in favor of a 18+ rating for games down there.

    So what studios persist? What are the opportunities going forward, etc?

    This year I started a two year diploma in game development with an Art Major in Australia. To my understanding the industry is small here.

    I'm currently living in Sydney. I don't think there are many opportunities here at the moment. The dubious Team Bondi are situated opposite where I'm studying but other than them, there aren't many studios in Sydney that I know of. I've heard majority of studios are in Melbourne. Canberra and Brisbane also have a few studios.

    As far as lifestyle and culture go, Sydney and Melbourne are my two favorite cities. Perth is nice but isolated from the rest of the country. I've spent time in every major Australian city during my service in the Navy.

    A mate of mine returned to Australia only last month after working for a studio in Sweden for several years as a level designer. He had no problem finding work due to his experience.

    I like it here, I'm very family and friend oriented so ideally I'll work here but I'm prepared to go abroad to get a foot in the door once I've finished my studies.

    If any Mapcorians are ever over here, don't hesitate to get in touch. Especially if you're in Sydney.

    As m8nkey already stated the industry is fairly small down here. Especially here in Adelaide, it's pretty much non-existent!

    Lately though it's been going through a particularly dark patch with the closures of Transmission Games, Fuzzyeyes and Interzone Games all within the last six months. Their closure, while unfortunate for those involved, does no good for those who’ve been looking to get into the industry, as the competition in the already limited job market is pretty ridiculous.

    It's not all bad news though, some of the "smaller" developers such as Firemint, Halfbrick and IronMonkey have been doing pretty well for themselves lately. Redtribe, another semi-closed developer are now providing office space for small indie teams, giving them access to licensed software and the latest hardware to develop their games with, which is a pretty good opportunity if you ask me.

    If you're interested in what other studios exist, gamedevmap can help you out with that. Although, quite a few of the listed studios on there haven't been heard from in ages, so I'm not sure how helpful that is exactly.

    Hopefully with the release of Team Bondi's L.A. Noire and _maybe_ the introduction of an R18+ rating we'll see some more positive growth in our industry.

    Also, this site is a pretty good source of information regarding what's happening in our industry: Tsumea

    Bleh, I hope that's helpful!

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