Australia needs to start taking game developers seriously, or risk getting left behind
Australia's gaming talent is heading overseas to find work, all because our businesses are not realising the potential these developers have at their fingertips, writes The Pulse's Phil Sullivan.
Believe it or not, video gaming is vital to the future of marketing.
This isn’t another piece on the virtues of ‘gamification’, and I’m not going to tell you about adopting a gaming theory for your business; both have been done to death.
Instead, I’ll put it simply. Australian business is losing out on the most significant talent pool of this generation, a group of people developing the technology that is crucial for the future of how businesses communicate across the world.
Through a combination of short-sightedness and slow-moving policy change, those with the skills required to build stunning, immersive and interactive content and the technologies behind them are leaving in search of work. But while we can point fingers at missed government promises and failures in funding, it is businesses that will miss out.
Real-time 3D content is everywhere; from consumer-facing products like Snapchat or Instagram filters through to industrial applications. Add in emerging technologies, such as AR and VR, and the ways businesses and brands connect with people, influence behaviour and even deliver fundamental training have completely changed.
The core skills of generating the right emotional reactions are still the same, whether creating compelling narratives, designing interactive environments, programming or sound design. These are also the skills of game development.
It is no coincidence that most VR and AR applications are written on gaming platforms. The creative and technical skill necessary to develop video games is essential in making digital experiences beyond gaming.
The current skills shortage is not for a lack of talent, but a lack of opportunities. There are plenty of schools producing graduates who are capable of creating this stuff, but far too few are getting the chances to develop their skills in the real world.
The gaming industry isn’t being adequately supported on a federal level, and with some rare exceptions, most of our high end talent is forced to head overseas to find work. In the void left by government indecision and inaction, business can genuinely benefit by stepping up.
Whilst the architecture and entertainment industries have been on these technologies for a while, broader business seems to be beginning to realise their potential, as well as the implications of these technologies across the whole economy.
Paramedics or surgeons can be trained risk-free with VR programmes; augmented reality is changing the way we market and sell products; digital experiences can now be broadcast to hundreds of markets across the world simultaneously.
The talent that drives all of this innovation is being produced in Australia, but not yet given the chance to fulfil its potential. Game developers are an extremely valuable resource for a company to have access to – it is the skill set of the future.
If we invest in this talent and increase opportunities across all sectors of the economy, we will not only help companies to be successful in new mediums, but we also keep world-class talent in Australia. If we don’t, we will not remain competitive as we enter the next industrial revolution.
Phil Sullivan is chief technology officer at Specialist Agency, The Pulse.
There are plenty of (indie) game developers in Australia, but not many AR and VR developers. Why? Because AR and VR titles are still generally tech demos at best, exceptionally niche nausea-inducing interests at worst.
A lot of game developers are starting to avoid VR development after the hype has slowed and the sales of VR titles have stagnated. AR can be defined very broadly but generally (outside of perhaps Pokemon Go / Ingress) hasn’t really taken off in the gaming space either.
Meanwhile, most large publishers / developers no longer have game development arms in Australia because development costs are much higher here than locations such as China. Internationally-backed game studios were here – when there was no significant government funding but a low $AU – but they’ve generally exited now.
So the calls for government funding into such areas always strike me as a request to prop up an industry that wouldn’t be able to support itself without them and have a high likelihood of failure.
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