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OZeCulture Conference held Wednesday 13th June Presenter: Mr. Adam Lancman Good afternoon everyone, my name is Adam Lancman and I am the Managing Director of Infogrames Melbourne House, (IMH), and the President of the Game Developers Association of Australia, (GDAA). I am here today to talk about the changes I have seen over the past 20 years in the games development industry both globally and within Australia. I will relate how I see IMH's participation within the Australian development community and will discuss strategies which I feel are necessary for dealing with the ever-changing global industry we are a part of. IMH has been in existence developing games since 1980, when the games industry was just starting. In those days, computers you worked on had 1K bytes of memory and the teams were one programmer and maybe another programmer who was a bit better at artwork than the first. Today we are working with megabytes of memory, huge amounts of hard disk space and processing power unheard of even 5 years ago, with teams upwards of 25 people. Development teams are now made up of specialists in a number of areas. Not only do we have programmers, but also programmers are divided into physics experts, AI experts, UI, general systems, tools programmers. We have Art teams now who can be divided into animators, background artists, texture artists, and model builders. We have designers who not only flesh out the concepts but also are involved in designing the levels to ensure the game play is as enjoyable as it can be. We have musicians creating background themes, and sound engineers who write code to create environmental sound effects resulting in enormously rich soundscapes. We have project managers who are responsible to coordinate the teams and help them to stay on track, and QA staff to provide essential feedback as to quality and gameplay. All these are essential ingredients of the development teams of today who are building world-class products for the high-end consumer systems. Quite a difference today to what we were doing then. This change in the size of teams has meant also a change in the budgets that we are working with. Typical budgets for projects on PC and next generation consoles have climbed into the millions of dollars. There aren't that many independent developers who can afford these sorts of budgets or have the resources to support the demands of projects with these sorts of budgets. That's why we've seen a consolidation of development across the world with many of the once independent developers becoming part of much larger organizations. Where does the Australian Games Development Industry fit into the scheme of things? Demand for content is never ending. Publishers are finding it difficult to source enough new content to meet their needs. Experienced independent developers are becoming scarce. US developers are pricing themselves out of the market. Publishers are finally seeing that Australia is not that far away. We have a well-educated workforce, we have a multicultural society combining the best parts of European, Asian and American culture, we're well connected to the web and we play lots of games. All these features, when factored together, mean that we understand not only how to make games, but how to make games that are enjoyable to play. Australia represents an untapped market for such game development talent. Publishers from overseas are now looking to Australia for new creative talent with a reasonable cost base. This is what prompted Infogrames to look into Australia in the first instance. The Australian games industry has grown substantially since Melbourne House started in 1980. There is now something like 40 development companies spread across Australia, not only in Melbourne, but also Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Western Australia. Many of these developers have products released overseas. Some are still striving to get their first publishing agreement. It is this proliferation of talent in Australia that has attracted the major international publishers to us. It is great to see that we now have the developer conference, as this is a sign of the maturity of our industry and, now that we have started up our own Game Developers Association to represent us, we will be able to develop our status within the international games industry, and, promote ourselves to the Australian community in general. I see the GDAA as an essential component in ensuring the continued growth of our industry. One of the challenges that I've found over the years is to be able to hire staff that already have the skills that we need at their fingertips before they start working at IMH. A great byproduct of the growth we have experienced in our industry in Australia is that it is becoming easier to find talented, experienced people locally. We don't have to look overseas every time when we are recruiting. However, there is still a need today, and there will continue to be a need, to encourage talented students to aim for a career in games development. Until now not many people were aware of the existence of our industry in Australia, one of the principal aims of the GDAA will be able to deal with this problem. We also, as an industry, need to work with our educational institutions to better educate and train programmers and artists in the skills required for game development. Unlike the movie industry, where they don't need to build a camera from scratch each time they start a new movie, or the music industry, where they don't have to design a new guitar every time they produce a new album, we in the games development industry are continually reinventing ourselves. How many different platforms have you had to master? I can identify at least 20 specific platforms IMH has developed product for. It is almost guaranteed that when you get to the point of mastering a particular platform a new one comes along that means you have to start all over again. Continued technology development is one of the essential ingredients in ensuring that Australian developers stay in demand. To this end one of the strategies that IMH and the GDAA is adopting is to form strategic alliances with a number of universities and colleges around the country, providing them with direction and recommendations for course content, internships and other incentives so that their students have access to the specific skills that we are looking for. We've also seen the creation of private organizations like the Academy of Interactive Entertainment in Canberra and the more recent QUANTUM in Queensland; providing specialized courses in game development. Such initiatives need to be encouraged. Our relationships with the various hardware and software companies are also very important in ensuring we have access to the most up-to-date and detailed information possible on developments within our industry. Developments in PC technology, consoles, digital video decoders and mobile phones will lead to a level of interactivity and connectivity which is awesome to imagine. I believe that the Australian Games Industry is poised to become a highly competitive global player. We are at a critical point in the development of our industry here in Australia. The establishment of the Conference and the GDAA is only a start. We all need to work together to make ensure our future. IMH is committed to support the industry as much as it can, I invite you to do likewise. |