The current state of the Australian games industry appears to be improving over the years which is promising for me as a prospective game developer nearing the completion of my degree. From an economic standpoint digital sale in Australia on video games reached $2.85billion only last year (Brand, 2019) this according to the digital Australia report for 2020. With this trend increasing steadily and a majority of households and individuals owning and using a device for gaming the industry doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.
Australia itself has had a history for producing strong game development talent and well performing studios that played a hand in some of the most revered titles in the last decade my favourite example being 2K Australia and their hand in creating some of the Bioshock games. More and more though it seems that there’s less of these Australian branches of big AAA studios as over time they’ve been shut down for one reason or another. I don’t bring up this point to pine over what once was, but rather to note that the Australian games industry has moved away from. The Australian games industry is alive and well according to Kotaku it’s perhaps bigger than most people thought (Walker, 2018).
The change that has occurred however is a focus more on small independent studios to create more unique experiences for the console and PC platforms, whereas now it seems that the larger games studios in Australia have a focus on mobile development instead. According to industry statistics some of the biggest players in the Australian games industry both in terms of economic performance and the number of staff they employ tend to either be mobile focused or have a strong mobile component to their business (Harrison, 2018).
What does this mean for me? As I draw closer to the date of my graduation and eventual entry into the workforce, I have to seriously consider how I plan to slot into the games industry. More so I have to think about my needs and requirements for starting work. What skills do I have and what skills do I lack in order to begin my career? The list of skills I lack is much longer than the skills I currently have, but that’s okay because that’s not the point, I can’t possibly have every skill required to make me a great game developer right now. The point is that I focus my efforts to round out my skills as they are currently to fit the area of the games industry that I wish to enter when I leave university.
For me this is where mobile games appeal, upon graduating I will have some things to consider about what jobs I can and will apply for. The first major consideration for me is an inability to mover from Brisbane for at least the first year after my graduation, for one reason or another I am limited in this regard but that’s manageable. Mobile development seems to solve this problem for me first, because two major mobile developers are located in Brisbane; Half-Brick and the Brisbane branch of Gameloft. Second, because of the nature of mobile development it seems that it is most likely to hire freelancers remotely (Harrison, 2018) a hopefully simple solution to my problems. However, I’m more than likely not the only one with a preference to stay local and work in Brisbane as it’s a competitive industry and I’ll have to stand out somehow.
In terms of standing out this is where my portfolio comes into play, so far, I’m proud of the work I’ve done over the years, however I still have time to refine it and further round out my set of displayed skills. A majority of my portfolio is design work or incomplete prototypes developed at University, I have been able to develop a wide set of skills in design, programming and some art but with limited finished published works under my belt I think this is the perfect place to start a small project that is cohesive and complete. Additionally, when becoming a mobile developer it is apparently important to be able to draw upon skills in multiple disciplines such as design, software and art as developers often have to cover multiple bases (Kahn, 2019).
This is why for my IGB400 project I propose developing and publishing a small but polished and complete mobile game for the Google-Play store. The game itself will be a small RPG-like dungeon diver game inspired by games like the original Legend of Zelda and newer titles like Crypt of the Necrodancer developed by Brace Yourselves Games. Mechanically the game should be simple to understand and play and my intention is to have a short-tailored experience for the game rather than a roguelike however this concept may change slightly. The basic concept of the game remains simple however with the player entering simple top down 2d dungeons to defeat monsters and gain loot.
The aim of this project is to round out my skills as a developer in terms of programming, design and even asset to create a small but polished product that showcases my ability. Furthermore, by publishing on an official storefront I gain important experience that developers like Adric Polkinghorne claim is essential to starting your career as it shows that you can conceptualise and follow through with a project in its entirety. Additionally, the project also has some potential for me to add in my skills as a marketeer in terms of promotion of the game which may be a handy extra skill to have on my resume.
I’m looking forward to starting on this project and most importantly I’m looking forward to completing it. I expect to learn a lot a from this experience both about how far I’ve come as a developer but also how more I have yet to learn.
References
Alex Walker. (2018, September 27). The Australian Gaming Industry Is Much Bigger Than We Thought. Retrieved August 23, 2019, from Kotaku Australia website: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/09/the-australian-gaming-industry-is-much-bigger-than-we-thought/
Harrison. (2018). IBISWorld Australia—Mobile app developers Australia. Retrieved August 23, 2019, from http://clients1.ibisworld.com.au.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/reports/au/industry/default.aspx?entid=5150
Jeffrey E. Brand, Jan Jervis, Patrice M. Huggins, & Tyler W. Wilson. (n.d.). DA20 Report. Retrieved from Bond University website: https://igea.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/DA20-Report-FINAL-Aug19.pdf
Khan, N. (2019, May 28). Getting Started with a Career in Mobile Game Development. Retrieved August 23, 2019, from Medium website: https://medium.com/swlh/getting-started-with-a-career-in-mobile-game-development-10a57b184918
Tom Hawkins 