Victoria’s growing digital games sector has received a welcome boost with more support for new locally made games projects.
Minister for Creative Industries Danny Pearson has announced $550,000 for ten games projects through Film Victoria’s Assigned Production Investment – Games program.
“We’re proud to back our local games studios, businesses and talent to take advantage of the breadth of Victorian expertise in the sector,” said Minister Pearson. “The global games market is booming and this latest investment will help games businesses scale up and support more local creators.”
The projects will create highly skilled jobs for Victorian 3D artists, programmers, animators, composers, sound designers more. Supported projects include Trash by 15 Minutes of Game and Site Unseen by Alexander Muscat, as well as Little Ruin, the first project by Lucernal, a Melbourne-based architectural visualisation studio that will use the team’s wealth of architectural animation and 3D modelling experience to expand into games.
The digital games industry is the world’s fastest growing entertainment sector. Jobs in Victoria’s games industry grew by 56 per cent between 2015 and 2019 to more than 850, according to research by Deloitte.
Globally, the industry proved its resilience in 2020 with studios and developers able to continue working from home and demand for games skyrocketing as people turned to games for entertainment and social connection during the pandemic.
“Victoria is the digital games capital of Australia and while our games industry has powered on through the last 12 months, we are now focused on upskilling the next generation of home-grown games talent,” said Film Victoria CEO Caroline Pitcher. “This is part of our work to ensure a strong pipeline of projects that will take the industry to a new level in the year ahead.”
In addition to investing in new games, the Victorian Government is supporting rising talent through a digital games internship that will see an emerging Victorian games practitioner undertake a 12-month paid placement working with Film Victoria and globally successful Melbourne game studios, League of Geeks and Samurai Punk.
The Games Development Internship program aims to grow diversity in the sector, bringing new perspectives and ideas into Victoria’s games industry workforce. It is open to people who are trans and gender diverse, from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, are First Peoples of Australia and/or are living with disability.
Applications for the Games Development Internship are now open and close on 25 March 2021. For more information on the program and Film Victoria’s support for games, visit: www.film.vic.gov.au
Image: Little Ruin – courtesy of Lucernal