2K Australia in Canberra closes its doors
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http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/04/2k-australia-in-canberra-closes-its-doors/
My wishes go out to those who've lost their jobs. This is the last AAA company in Australia to have been standing.
My wishes go out to those who've lost their jobs. This is the last AAA company in Australia to have been standing.
Replies
At this point, we've really only got start ups, maybe a few indie teams and a few solid mobile studios here, huh? Not an inherently negative thing, but it does make the future job search just that extra bit more difficult.
Here's a document that's going around at the moment with available positions in Australia and Internationally -- 2k Aus Jobs Doc
It's a shame a majority of the studios are mobile-based. But I guess that's where the money is.
Shit, we didn't get that memo. @___@
Seriously sucks to see so many talented people out of work, good luck to all caught up in this.
Australia used to be a hot house for the games industry, the government has never supported it, in fact I find them quite hostile to the industry. I hope they turn things around and support it in the future.
"Last week it was revealed The Australian Interactive Games Fund (AIGF) had been completely axed."
"It is concerning that the decision to end the Australian Interactive Games Fund was made with absolutely no consultation with industry."
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/05/19/australian-government-aputs-no-valuea-on-games-industry
But instead we are having no money invested in infrastructure, nor are we having any govt support.
Luckily we do have a ton of indies popping up and actually doing cool things.
Ironically that was the excuse used to cut funding to the manufacturing industry which caused the complete collapse of our automotive industry as well as various other factories closing down. Tens of thousands of jobs lost but thats ok because Australia is meant to be moving away from manufacturing and into science/engineering/technology, you know the smart country and all that spin.
But where is the investment in these "smart" industries. Oh thats right they gave a few million dollars to that unlimited detail con-artist so he could spend 10 years writing a basic sparse voxel octree renderer. Money well spent.
The money is there. But it's going to the wrong places. it's financing scammy colleges, and lining the pockets of the short term greedy. That sort of money has a habit of disappearing without contributing back to the economy.
That's really good to hear. Committees are the key to keeping little communities bonded together. Whether it's a corporate shindig or just in causal meeting in a pub it really does not take much money for little meetings to happen. I am on the board of a couple of committees and its not so much the money that's splashed around that can spark great ideas but the shared ideology that can really help the games industry as a whole, specialized skills, geographical location and so on.
Games Eden is an example "Games Eden is committed to promoting, supporting and raising the profile of the computer development sector within Cambridgeshire and the East of England as a whole."
http://www.gameseden.net/
As another example, The Soho film industry in London have a healthy bond of sharing recruiting between the different companies, if a project is about to finish rather then letting the talent move away from the area the recruitment departments all openly talk to each other (normally in a pub or Friday lunch club) to help keep the talent within Soho.
Off Topic: Nice to see you guys here - great game, from what I've tested up until now!
I remember when Team Bondi closed it's doors along with a few other studios, a lot of people said Australia would recover in a few years, given how fast the games industry has grown and how much money it produced.
Guess not, still have Indie and Mobile at least though. I guess at this point you just have to be small enough to dodge the costs that major studios are hit with.
All the new companies have their heads down working. They won't grow until they start to actually release product.