There was a time when Queensland became a serious contender against Melbourne for the title of 'epicentre' of the games industry in Australia, with their big studios consisting of Auran, Pandemic Studios, Creative Assembly Australia, THQ Studio Australia, and, of course, Krome Studios. The Brisbane games development landscape has changed a whole lot since then, so what happened?
In a Creative Instinct feature on ABC Radio, Michael Rhee interviews the Starks, the family-run indie developer outfit behind the iOS game Run, Fatty, Run, as well as various Brisbane indie developers during a games night at the Mana Bar, on what happened to the Brisbane games industry, and why they still love making games, despite some of the hardships involved.
The high Aussie dollar, the global financial crisis, the bottom falling out of console development for non triple-A titles, and the shift towards mobile games contributed to the huge changes for the local games industry, but from the fallout of studios closures, a vibrant indie games community has sprung up in its place.
The Stark's are one of many who had no choice but to move towards indie games development, and they tell their story from working over a decade on huge games with million dollar budgets to producing independent games on their own. Jason and Nicole Stark describe how Run Fatty Run, their first indie game that went from 6 weeks to 18 months to complete, came to be and their initial hopes for the game once it was finally released on the App Store. From the Creative Instinct feature...
(Jason Stark) "We were pretty optimistic, so we were getting ready for the money to roll in and then the game released, it didn't really sell at all and it didn't earn us any money at all, it didn't even pay for the cost of software licenses. It shattered our self confidence. That was the thing that hurt the most."
Fortunately, it was a television appearance that turned things around for the Stark family. A TV special on their game not only pushed Run Fatty Run into the top 100 charts, the game eventually climbed to the number #1 iPad app in Australia.
Games lecturer, Matthew Ford, has a positive outlook for the games industry, despite the big studio closures his state has seen over the years...
I think that Brisbane has got a huge future for independent games, even though the big studios melt down, I think it's a great time to be making games in Brisbane, definitely
You can listen to the Creative Instinct feature on the ABC Radio website, just follow the link below!