Submission to Senate Committee Inquiry Into the Future of Video Game Industry in Australia

Submission to Senate Committee Inquiry into the Future of Video Game Industry in Australia Lachlan Kingsford 18 September 2015¤ Abstract Firstly, this submission posits that video games are and could be a powerful artistic medium, and examines the video game industry by ref- erence to government accommodations given to other artistic mediums such as film and television production Secondly, this submission discusses the state of game development more widely in Australia. Thirdly, this submission addresses some of the issues facing game development in Australia. The issues addressed are taxation issues related to crowdfunding, the effects of geographic remoteness and the effects of the so-called ’Australia Tax’. Fourthly, this submission addresses the investment and employment opportunities within the games industry. 1 Author Lachlan Kingsford is currently employed as a programmer for Cornerstone So- lutions Pty. Ltd. working on non-video games software and hardware. This submission does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Cornerstone Solutions. ¤Minor amendments made 21 September 2015. 1 Independent to his employment, he has completed and released two small, open source games under the banner of ’Nerdy Gentleman Games’ - being At- las Warriors (available as a pay-what-you-want game) and The Chase (available freely). Lachlan’s formal qualifications are a Bachelor of Laws and Finance from La Trobe University (completed 2012) and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice from Australian National University (completed 2013). Lachlan was admitted on 10 December 2013 as an Australian Lawyer and Officer of the Supreme Court of Victoria. 2 Video Games as Entertainment and Art 2.1 Demographics Over the past few years, video games have become as significant part of the lives of Australians. A study in 20141 by Bond University in association with the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (IGEA) revealed: • 65% of Australians play video games; • the average age of video gamers in Australia is 32; • 47% of Australian video gamers are female; and • 19% of Australian video gamers are over the age of 51. This demonstrates that video games have a wider demographic then is often considered, and form a significant form of entertainment alongside traditional forms of entertainment such as film and television. 2.2 Uniqueness of Video Games as an Artistic Medium Like film and television, video games provide a variety of experiences for players. Like some action movies, there are action games which provide fast paced action with only the thinnest of plots - for instance, Doom (ID Software, 1993). 1Jeffrey E. Brand, Pascaline Lorentz and Trishita Mathew, Digital Australia 2014 (2014) IGEA <http://igea.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Digital-Australia-2014-DA14.pdf>. Provided as Exhibit 1. 2 There are adventure comedies that are built entirely around visual and vocal gags - for instance, Tales from the Borderlands (Telltale Software, 2014). There are dramas designed to elicit an emotional response from the player - for instance, To The Moon (Freebird Games, 2011). Games such as these can work in a similar way to television or movies in eliciting a similar response or emotion - albeit, in a very different manner. Whilst it may be stating the obvious, video games are unique in offering players interaction which can be responded to by the medium. By virtue offering the player choices, the player can be made to feel emotions or cast a critical light on the real world. For example, Papers, Please (Lucas Pope, 2013) places the player in the position of being an immigration official at a fictional country in eastern Europe. The player makes decision as to whether people should be permitted to enter the country on the basis of a constantly changing set of rules given by that countries government, the documents presented by those people for inspection, and through interviews with those people. The player is frequently placed in the position of having to decide whether somebody who – strictly speaking – would not be permitted into a country by that countries laws should be admitted to the country by virtue of their obvious need (such as requiring political asylum) – despite creating risk for a player. Such experiences have the possibility of allowing players to examine points of view from a very different perspective to what would be examined by mere passive observation (as on TV or film). That same interactive component allows video games to provide unique education possibilities. By experiencing and influencing complex interactions in an interactive manner, players can learn difficult concepts that those same players would (or have) found difficult to comprehend. For instance, Kerbal Space Program (Squad, 2015) presents a scaled down solar system with a small race of little green men, and allows the player to build rockets and space-planes to explore that solar system. The rockets and space-planes are subject to real- istic (if scaled down) orbital mechanics and rocket mechanics. Players are presented with a sandbox where can recreate real missions2, or freely experiment with rockets and in the process discover why rockets are built the way they are. Mr Shamus Young presents an example of the experience of an average player: 2A tutorial recreating and explaining the Apollo 11 mission is available on <http://wiki. kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:_Apollo_11>. A video of a recreation Apollo 11 mission (with actual footage for comparison) is available on <https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=pw_EmpGACT4>. 3 My introduction to the game was the most educational hour of videogaming I’ve ever played. I learned why, in real rocket launches, they do a vertical burn that gradually curves east, then they do noth- ing for a while before doing another burn parallel with the equator. I’d always wondered about that. I mean, I could have looked it up, but I never got around to it. Then suddenly I had game mechanics that nudged me into this understanding though simple experience and experimentation. Along the way I got a sense of how geosyn- chronous satellites work and why we have so much junk in space.3 2.3 Over-representation of International Video Games in Aus- tralia IGEA compiles lists of the best selling games during a year. Such a list for 2014 (including a compiled list of the most successful games each week) was published to http://www.igea.net/2015/01/best-selling-games-2014/. Both lists reveal that Australia has a major under-representation of involve- ment in the production of the games that Australians purchase. Indeed, the only game that had any significant Australian cultural influence or emphasis on production mentioned on either the top 10 lists or most successful games per week was Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! (2K Games, 2014) (Borderlands). Borderlands represents Australian culture and humour in a way that was nearly unprecedented in the gaming medium – despite being set on a fictional moon. Borderlands was created by the now defunct 2K Australia. This international over representation - at least at the AAA4 market stands in stark contrast to the other Australian media and arts markets where significant amounts of Australian fare are found at every level of production value. In television, the weekly top 10 shows are consistently filled with Australian pro- ductions, regularly with assistance from government agencies such as Screen Australia and Film Victoria. Movies like ’The Castle’(Working Dog, 1999) have been supported and have not only exhibited but become part of the Australian 3Shamus Young, Kerbal Space Program: Something Different (15 April 2013) Twenty Sided <http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=19396>. 4Video games tend to be split along budgetary lines. ’AAA games’ generally refer to games with very significant budgets - for instance, in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. ’Indie Games’ can broadly be produced by anybody from a single developer working part time from home to medium sized teams. There are some games and studios that fall in the mid-tier budgets. 4 culture. Popular music is consistently dominated by Australian musicians. As the youngest of these media, video games are yet to have an opportunity to permeate the Australian culture in such a manner. The lack of Australian games in the AAA space means that many younger Australians have no opportunity to explore Australian culture in their preferred medium, instead being entirely dominated by media from other countries. It should be noted that this absolute dominance does not completely extend to every market. 3 The State of Video Games in Australia 3.1 AAA Games At the time of writing, there are no AAA game studios currently operating in Australia. 2K Australia (who created Borderlands as discussed above) were Australia’s last operating AAA studio. 2K Australia ceased production during 2015.5 2K Australia’s owner, 2K Games made statements to the effect that the cost of development and remoteness were chief causes for the cessation of activities.6 Team Bondi is another example of a successful Australian AAA studio which went defunct. Team Bondi was responsible for creating the critically acclaimed and extremely well sold LA Noire (Rockstar Games, 2011). LA Noire used unique facial capture technology to allow actors to portray their characters – in a similar manner to how feature films use CGI. The technology, rather then a mere gimmick, was integral to the gameplay allowing players to determine in the role of a detective as to whether suspects and witnesses were being honest. As a third party studio who happened to be published rather then owned by another company, Team Bondi apparently collapsed by an inability to find a publisher for their next game. On collapse, Team Bondi attributed that the lack of government support was detrimental to the industry in Australia, with CEO Brian Macnamara stating that ’[w]e have to compete with places like Canada where 40 5Mark Serrells, 2K Australia In Canberra Closes Its Doors (16 April 2015) <http://www.

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