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FANDOM Launches Australian Edition
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Leading global entertainment media brand FANDOM, announces the launch of an Australian edition of its website, available now at fandom.com.au. MORE
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The Lizzies 2018
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David Milner took home Best Gaming Journalist with IGN grabbing Best Gaming Coverage at the ACS IT Journalism Awards. MORE
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Stake your claim at PAX Rising
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ReedPOP have announced booths within PAX Rising are now available for purchase. MORE
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Event applications for MIGW open
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MIGW is looking to fill its roster of conferences, events, exhibitions and more this year during its wee-klong celebration of video games. MORE
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Crossing paths at this year’s Freeplay Festival
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Australia’s largest independent games festival returns May 22nd announcing this year’s theme, Intersections. MORE
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High School League of Legends Australia & New Zealand
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The New Zealand League of Legends esports competition is opening its door to ACT, NSW and QLD High Schools, MORE
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Throwdown Esports celebrates record breaking weekend
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Leading esports brand and service provider Throwdown Esports sees 200,000 viewers on a single broadcast last weekend, the highest viewership the company have achieved. MORE
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Adelaide Football Club to kick start High School Esports
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The competition will be an ANZ Championship, playing League of Legends, the tournament is should attract thousands of young gamers, with any high school able to participate. MORE
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Youth focused online talent training course, Gen Z, to launch
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Brainchild of Jacqueline Garrett , mother of Orange Ocelot, the structured training course aims to help support the growth of other gaming streamers aged 8-14 globally. MORE
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Bajo Hits 2 Million views on Twitch
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Popular streamer and industry veteran, Steven ‘Bajo’ O’Donnell has hit 2 Million total views on his Twitch.tv channel. MORE
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The MCV Pacific Awards return for a sixth year
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The MCV Pacific Awards will return to Sydney's the Ivy on Thursday, May 31.
Ticket sales have opened with an ‘Early Bird’ ticket price of $335 + GST per head or $2,995 + GST for a table of ten will be offered up until May 1st.
Following May 1st tickets will be $365 + GST per head or $3,285 + GST for a table of ten.
Since the announcement of the event mid last week IGEA, Red Bull and Steelbook have all confirmed their support of the event.
The event is already over 50% sold out. You can download the ticket form here.
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Razer and Trade Media extend partnership
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Razer is the official hardware provider to Trade Media, continuing last year’s partnership.
The new Trade Media office has now been fitted out with the latest Razer laptops, mechanical keyboards, mice and the all new Core V.2.
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JOB SPOTLIGHT
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A few weeks ago I found myself sitting at a corner table in a Sydney café, waxing lyrically about the state of the Australian Games Industry, fighting back the urge to gush over Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC) President and CEO Jayson Hilchie. Here I was, sitting with one of the most senior representatives of video games in the world, discovering that many of my long-held views mirrored many of his.
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Hilchie was in Australia thanks to the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA), leveraging their global relations, a relationship that was forged with ESAC over the past five or so years. Jayson’s whirlwind tour had seen him spending the week speaking with media, mediating the IGEA 2018 strategic review, leading a shadow Federal Government roundtable and a host of other engagements.
Over the past 20-years Canada has built their games development industry into a global powerhouse. It supports companies of all sizes, with almost 22,000 full time employees who contribute 3.7-billion to the country’s GDP.
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It will come as no surprise that Jayson’s visit came off the back of the long-awaited, and I must say, dismal response by the Federal Government to the Environmental and Communications References Committee report, Game On: more than playing around. He wasn’t in Australia to dictate how the government should approach the industry, more so tell a story of what has not only worked, but excelled in Canada, a country like Australia, that features a relatively modest population, spread out over a very large land mass, with tradition of a GDP built off the back of a boom and bust prone resources industry.
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I’m the first to admit, that when it comes to the health of the industry and support for local developers, I tend to let my passion sometimes get the best of me. In the last two years, I have gone further down the rabbit hole, that is the thinking; we shouldn’t be seeking games funding from the arts and should be focusing other portfolios such as Trade and Investment. Hey, this way we aren’t having to convince a room full of, colloquially, ‘middle-aged white men’ that games are, as we all know, art. A P&L would be enough to prove we were worthy of their support. Stepping back to my gushing, Jayson shared the view that there was room for this thinking, but their industry had in fact seen great benefit from balance.
For too long I had believed that funding for the industry was reliant on the acceptance of telling stories, including the Australian one, through the medium of games and was intrinsically tied to the creation of jobs in the sector. What Canada’s industry teaches us, is again a balance of the two.
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In its total, 83% of Canadian studios are locally owned, but only account for 14% of total employees within the industry, meaning 86% of developers and staff work at the multi-national studios. So, the question then becomes are we as an industry looking to create jobs, where policies like tax incentives thrive, or are we looking to tell the Australian story? This is where the creation of an interactive fund shines. The answer, at least for me, is once again balance.
If you have ever heard Mighty Kingdom’s Founder and Director, Phillip Mayes speak of his visions for the industry, the Canadian success story is similar to his goals for the Australia – an active and robust industry that sees the promotion and cultivation of a mix of large development studios and independent developers. It creates a knowledge pool that drives the industry forward and flows downwards to develop the next generation of talent.
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Canada has seen the successful operation of both provincial (state) based tax incentives and a federally supported media fund, of which, the latter is only made available to Canadian owned companies and is regularly accessed, to great success, by local independent studios.
The ESAC has also spent the past six years campaigning the Federal Government to fast track the immigration process, allowing companies to now access required international talent inside of 4-weeks, feeding that games machine that has outgrown the available local talent and again adding to the knowledge pool.
As we as an industry continue to battle for government recognition and policy inclusion, for mind, the answer isn’t a singular pronged one, it is one of, say it with me – balance. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, Canada has already put in many of the hard yards, our question should be – what can we learn from it?
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