Trails Blaze - Freeplay launches landmark games and interactivity strategy

Freeplay has launched Trails Blaze: Towards a games and interactive art strategy for Australia, a new report canvassing what Australia’s games sector needs to weather economic headwinds and compete in a more challenging global games market.

The landmark report calls for three big changes:

• Develop a coherent and nationally-consistent definition of games so gamemakers have certainty about whether they can even access different federal, state and territory programs
• Catch games up on a decade of underinvestment by matching public games funding up to at 10% of film production’s total public investment
• Set up a dedicated national agency — Games Australia — so gamemakers design games programs, assess games funding and promote games here and abroad, supported by a practitioner-led Australian Games Council

Games are one of Australia’s largest and most vibrant arts sectors — with up to 10,000 creative workers in our sector, 82% of Australians playing games every month (nearly as many who watch television) and some of Australia’s independent games titles reaching larger global audiences than some of our best-selling films.

Despite that, games get very little public support. Games programs receive just 0.5% of national cultural funding — significantly less than what dance, design or opera receive, and just 3% of what film production gets. Outside of Victoria, few if any programs support games workers with upskilling, mentorship or business development. Games are excluded from export, audience and market development programs that film, television, music and literature get access to.

By global standards, Australia’s invests very little in our successful games sector — just $0.42 per person, compared to New Zealand’s $0.85 per person, Canada’s $1.49 per person and Germany’s $2.43 per person, all of whom have launched their sectors to global success in the last few years.

To develop the report, Freeplay convened a new national games and play working group to bring together voices from across games — from solo developers to big hitmakers.

Freeplay’s calls have been echoed by other major games organisations: the Digital Games Research Association of Australia, the Digital Media Research Centre, the International Game Developers Association, Serenade, Tasmanian Game Makers, and Waypoint.

View the report here: Trails Blaze: Towards a games and interactive art strategy for Australia.