Jason Della Rocca, director of the International Game Developers Association, has written an article entitled "Salvation vs. Condemnation: The Two Faces of Government." He discusses the hypocrisy of Governments around the world that embrace and support the profitable games industry in one hand, and yet set out to limit and censor it in another. Australia, of course, gets first mention...
"For example, the Australian state of Victoria has extremely robust support for the economic well being of the indigenous game development sector. Among other perks, the state provides local developers with Sony and Microsoft sanctioned developer kits, they fly developers over to Los Angeles for E3 to show off their latest games at a dedicated booth, they sponsor a large-scale developers conference in Melbourne annually and so forth.And yet, the Australian market is crippled by the fact that the Office of Film and Literature Classification (the government controlled content ratings board) will not allow any rating categories above "MA15+" to be assigned to a game. That is to say, any game not suitable for a 15 year old is outright banned from the country and cannot be legally purchased by anyone in Australia! This, despite the existence of "R18+" and "X18+" rating categories for films. From a cultural standpoint, it might seem Australian officials are unable to let go of the antiquated notion that games are toys for children and nothing more.
State Labor MP Paul Gibson gets a mention in the article for his comments on Project Gotham Racing 2, and also the current push to ban Mark Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure...
I was only thinking about this recently in regards to the Australian games industry. The hypocrisy is astounding. Same goes for film.
The Escapist is a fantastic read. I recommend everyone check it out, as well as the previous issues (it's weekly by the way).
I just want information on government perks!