Ah, I seem to have missed this one. Last week, Gameindustry.biz put up an interview with GDAA president and Tantalus CEO, Tom Crago, on how Australia game developers are faring during the current economic slowdown. His opinion? We're doing better than expected, compared to our overseas counterparts anyway. From Gameindustry.biz...
Tom Crago: We've been relatively resilient - certainly we've felt the effects of the downturn, and I'm sure most Australian companies are finding it more difficult to procure pay-for-service work than in the past. But we're weathering the storm - with the exception of Pandemic closing, there have been no casualties in the Australian market.
From the perspective of a lot of companies I know it's been an opportunity to fine-tune their sales processes as they've had to become more competitive, in order to win the types of jobs that they've become accustomed to.
So absolutely a tougher time, but ultimately we're hanging in there.
It's been suggested that this interview took place a bit before some recent incidents concerning other local developers, but it's certain that many local developers are facing some trying times at the moment, many of which are tightening their belts and reducing the burn rate rather than expanding like we've been used to seeing in recent years.
In the second half of the interview, Tom discusses the strategies of Tantalus who are very much looking into the new digital distribution markets on the DS and PSP handhelds, as well as Playstation network and XBox Live Arcade...
Tom Crago: Well, it's the future, no doubt about it. The PSPgo is an important step along that road. There's not a great deal that can be done to turn that tide, and as a developer we're extremely excited to be able to get that one step closer to the consumer.It doesn't mean that retailers or publishers are going to go away, but it is the start of a new model.
Head on over to Gamesindustry.biz for the entire interview!
lol
"with the exception of Pandemic closing, there have been no casualties in the Australian market"
try knocking on fuzzyeyes' door and see if anyone answers
On the grapevine, three large
On the grapevine, three large developers have had recent large layoffs. The pain...
Blinkered view?
Does Mr Crago not know that as well as Pandemic, FuzzyEyes, Red Tribe and Transmission are collapsing?
To be clear, Fuzzyeyes has
To be clear, Fuzzyeyes has collapsed already, there are zero remaining employees. However Southpeak insist edge of twilight is releasing in 2010. What a twist!
Dunno how... southpeak never
Dunno how... southpeak never owned the ip
The small Melbourne studio
The small Melbourne studio Acheron Design is also not around any more.
They were pretty much gone
They were pretty much gone before the downturn.
Unless I am mistaken, they
Unless I am mistaken, they reached their peak earlier in the year with about 25 employees.
I don't know where you get your info from.
Absorbed in Monkey Island?
I thought they were bought out by Iron Monkey?
Most people did transfer
Most people did transfer over, yeah.
Blinkered View
I think everyone needs to look at who is not collapsing; MicroForte, Krome , BigAnt, Wicked Witch, Torus etc. Is it only half the industry that is feeling the economic downturn in the US or is it something to do with how they run their companies?.......
Thoughts?
Krome are about to lay off a
Krome are about to lay off a tonne of people and microforte haven't done anything since kwari bit the dust. don't be so confident... and who is Wicked Witch??
I wouldn't be trumpeting the
I wouldn't be trumpeting the situation of MicroForte and Krome.
I hear that they are a long way from beer and skittles at BigAnt too.
WTF
Microforte not collapsing? What do you call sacking 2/3 of the staff late last year? They have people answering the phone. Thats it.
agree
thorw in some recent Bigant redundancies...
Agree....
and Redtribe.
funny thing about the BigAnt
funny thing about the BigAnt "redundancies" is that they let three people go and hired five more in.... doesnt take a rocket surgeon to figure they wanted those guys gone.... there are a lot of good guys in the market and I think they are "upskilling"... this is going to happen more and more at the studios that survive.
Suddenly - business models everywhere
Just found it interesting how this last year has seen everyone look much more closely at how they're conducting business.
Everyone's "tightening their pockets" and looking at new business models. Digital Distribution is heavily on the rise, and more "independent avenues" are even being looked at by professional developers.
I'd be interested to see some sales data on games this year compared to last.
Under a killing moon ..!
"Under this killing moon,
Under this burning sky,
The fire's shining groom,
I hold my breath and close my eyes"
-- Killing Moon / Echo & the Bunnymen
Well, I guess everybody should have seen this coming an' certainly th' smarter developers have
dipped their toes into other avenues than th' big ticket cashcows afforded by their old mates in LA.
Australian developed games AFAIK just do not sell big numbers [ exeption: Firemint! ] an' even
stuff like Puzzle Quest an' De Blob sold under 500K from my information; feel free to correct me
on this ..
So effectively, most Australian companies are relying on th' good grace of publishers to back their
studios which oft times leaves them in th' lurch as with Brash, as with Red Mile, etc. Most of these
publishers are also now investing in Chinese / Taiwanese codeshops instead of their buddies down
under [ who are going under without their help.! ]. Even Japanese developers such as Okamoto's
Flagship are finding it tough to survive, an' th' calibre of their work is exceptional. What hope for
badly run studios staffed with inexperienced [ but hungry ] folks down here?
-
[ rant on ]
Perhaps th' GDAA could actually be a useful association for once an' try an' stimulate some trade
if not offer some kind of assistance for recently sacked staff. Apart from GCAP which seems to be
a completely commercial venture in it's own right an' keeping a grey haired old man in a job,
behind th' veil of representation I don't see much happening to address th' hurt that's going on
now. Methinks developers need to empower themselves, an' make a few hard decisions about how
to survive an' thrive in such a shifting climate -- where there are also opportunities abound.
Maybe you won't be able to spend all day exchanging YouTube links to each other with a nice
paycheck every fortnight to back it up. But just take a good look around an' smell th' coffee for
th' times are a changing an' somewhat in a good way. Th' words "agile", "small", "passionate",
"multi-disciplined" an' "committed" come to mind ..!
[ rant off ]
-- Chuan
In Tom's defence, this
In Tom's defence, this interview was quite old, before this months 100 or so people being made out of work in the industry (im not that in the loop myself, standard disclaminers apply)
Not the case of being out of touch, just a case of interview being out of date.
-dcoen
Two more studios shutting their doors this week?
...
Transmission Games apparently
Transmission Games apparently went into voluntary receivership today.
So 1 at least.
hmmm
hmmm
Retribe is gone, ACT3 is
Retribe is gone, ACT3 is gone, from what I heard from 2 government sources.
Also isnt Tantalus hinging on collapsing?
Red tribe is still in
Red tribe is still in running. They haven't closed down.
Red tribe still running?
By what definition are they 'still in running'? 99.9% of the staff are now unemployed or have new jobs. As far as I know all entitlements have been paid out now. The office is empty except for the few people who come in to work on their resumes and showreels. There are no contracts being worked on. The original IP project is sitting there without further development. I'm sad its gone and I'll miss all the great people I worked with. But by whose definition is it still be running?
"still running"
I guess they will run with just one employee -the CEO- until there is no more funding or they get another contract. It's sad that everyone is gone, hopefully everyone survived...the people really made it a great place to work.
Um
Tantalus is one of the companies hiring right now......
so?
You reckon that means something?
People will hire till the end if they need to have a position filled. Someone might hire a UI artist while they fire tons of other people.
I don't know about Tantalus' specific situation, but this is not an indication of stability.
SO?!?!
Well if you're not familiar with the specifics of their situation why even question their stability?