The game’s success shows great things can come from investing in small, independent teams.Ĭanada’s media strategy, where video games are an industry of focus, shows us what the right levels of support and financial investment can help to achieve.ĭue to the collaborative support of the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service and Canada Media Fund, Canada’s video game industry is booming. The popularity of Untitled Goose Game comes from a perfect confluence of factors: a stylistic and playful art style, slapstick humour, an adaptive soundtrack, logical puzzle solving, and the high level of accessibility and short learning curve due to the simplistic control scheme. However, reduced costs do not mean no costs: small-scale studios would benefit greatly from grants and funding schemes. Independent studios can now reach customers directly with reduced costs for production and distribution. The rise of the internet has enabled developers to use alternative, low-cost methods to develop, market and distribute their games. It hasn’t been uncommon for developers to be run into the ground.īut since 2012, independent video game development has been on the rise, and the game industry is now in an ‘indie game renaissance’. Publishing terms became progressively worse, with development studios having to sacrifice creative control and intellectual property to publishers. With quality control came additional costs, and many independent developers were unable to operate without a publisher. The NES introduced strict quality control measures and controlled what games were available on the system. Previous systems, such as Atari, gave unrestricted freedom to third-party developers. The industry started to recover following the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985. The market grew too fast, and became over-saturated with poor quality games. Publishers provided financial support to studios and took over the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of games. The closure of large studios has paved the way for a new era of development, reminiscent of the golden age of video game design.ĭuring the mid-1970s and early-1980s, game developers often funded and developed video games in their homes and distributed software independently.Īs the industry grew, it was increasingly dominated by corporations. Over the last decade, one-by-one the studios closed their doors due to excessive operating costs, the global financial crisis, and changes to production and distribution pathways. The global industry generated revenue of almost US$138 billion (A$205 billion) in 2018 and is estimated to reach US$180 billion (A$267 billion) by 2021.Īustralia was once home to several big studios, including 2K Australia, Blue Tongue, Pandemic, THQ Australia, and Team Bondi. In 2018, Australians spent in excess of A$4 billion on video games, and the income generated by Australian game development studios totalled A$118 million, 80% from overseas sales. The federal government’s Interactive Games Fund was axed in 2014. The same cannot be said for vast majority of independent game development studios across Australia, which continue to operate and succeed despite practically no recognition or support, and the discontinuation of many federal and state government support and funding schemes. These developers all received funding and backing from various government support programs. Untitled Goose Game is the latest in a long line of globally successful video games developed by small-team indie developers in Australia, joining the likes of HalfBrick’s Fruit Ninja, Hipster Whale’s Crossy Road, and Black Lab Games’ Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. Read: Social games to play while you wait for multiplayer ‘Untitled Goose Game’ A funded success
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