Working in Australia's Digital Games Industry

Working in Australia’s Games Industry report released

shaukka — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:11:20 +0000

MAJOR REPORT RELEASED

The Working in Australia’s Digital Games Industry: A Consolidation Report is the outcome of a comprehensive study on the games industry in Australia by Dr Sandra Haukka from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) based at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. The study responds to concerns that Australia’s games industry would not reach its full potential due to a lack of local, highly skilled staff, and a lack of appropriately trained graduates with the necessary knowledge and skills.

This is the first of two reports produced with the support of the Games Developers’ Association of Australia. Over coming months researchers will develop a future skills strategy report for the industry, influenced by the results of a scenario planning exercise. Together, these reports will help to assess current and future skills needs and gaps in Australia’s digital games industry in order to identify occupations and skills sets that require employment and training focus. The future skills strategy will include short-term and long-term solutions to address workforce development priorities and issues for three to four industry scenarios of the state of the industry in 2015.

This first report involved drawing together literature, studies, policies, programs, statistical data, and other sources in three main areas: the evolution, characteristics and performance of Australia’s games industry; the international games environment; and the skilling of games workers.

Click HERE to view the report.

THIS SITE IS NO LONGER ACTIVELY MANAGED

Hi everyone

As I have left Queensland University of Technology, I am no longer managing this site on a regular basis. However, I am still able to help people who want to add relevant content to the site. See an example below. Thank you to all of you for viewing and/or contributing to this site. Send your requests to me at shaukka@gmail.com

Kind regards

Sandra Haukka

NEW RESOURCE

Click HERE to view the Online Gaming, Mobile Entertainment and the Land of Opportunity in Video Game Design article and site. Contact Alanna Hardy at ardyalanna@gmail.com for more information.

SWOT analysis (see polls below)

shaukka — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:24:36 +0000

As part of the Scenario Planning exercise for the Games Industry Skills Project, we have started a SWOT exercise to identify critical success factors for the Australian games industry. The exercise involves identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the games industry. We have a lot of good information about industry weaknesses, threats and opportunities but very little information on the strengths of the Australian games industry. If you would like to help us to identify critical success and strengths, please complete one or more of the below polls and/or provide us with comments about strengths of Australian games developers.

Weaknesses of Australian games developers

shaukka — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:15:02 +0000

Threats facing Australian games developers

shaukka — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 07:16:13 +0000

Opportunities for Australian games developers

shaukka — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:00:45 +0000

I had a poll running on opportunities for Australian games developers. Only three (3) responses, maybe because we didn’t identify enough responses or it was difficult to choose the top three. Anyway, here they are. Any others?

1) Shift from hard core to family gamers
2) Growth of the casual games market using many existing and new platforms
3) Growth of the serious games market i.e. health, education, defence, construction
4) Digital distribution allowing developers and publishers to develop original IP at lower cost
5) Greater opportunities to work in virtual teams

Strengths of Australian games developers

shaukka — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:17:27 +0000

Although somewhat old, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Digital Games Development Services, Australia 2006/2007 show an industry that is small in terms of number of developers (45) but turning over $136.9 million a year (or $3 million per developer). Nearly 80% of this income came from overseas sources. It would be great to hear from developers who are experiencing good performance about the strengths of their organisation.

Right now, are there skills shortages in Australia’s digital games industry?

shaukka — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:48:09 +0000

What are the key issues, challenges and drivers affecting workers now and in the near future?

shaukka — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:46:05 +0000

Games education and training

shaukka — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:00:50 +0000

What will the games industry be like in 2015?

shaukka — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:45:56 +0000