Screen Play has a brief interview with the Victorian minister for Information and Communication Technology, Tim Holding, about the Victorian governments support of the Australian game development industry?s push for the same tax breaks, and Federal government funding schemes that the Australian film industry currently enjoys.
In the interview, Tim expresses his amazement at the Federal governments inability to grasp the huge opportunity they are missing out on by not promoting growth in an industry worth over $200 million to the Australian economy, which is predicted to grow to $500 million in the next five years.
Mr Holding says the film industry's argument that preferential treatment for films was appropriate because of their cultural value was "rubbish on a number of levels"."The fight shouldn't be between the film industry and the interactive industry, that's a false demarcation. We're not saying the film industry isn't worthy of support. We're saying that this industry is also worthy of support if you apply the same criteria.
"You've obviously got games here which represent Australian sports, but not every film made in Australia has to showcase Australian culture, and they don't necessarily do so. Just as every game made here doesn't just cover Australian content.