Victoria's growing digital games sector has received a welcome boost with more support for new locally made games projects.
Minister for Creative Industries Danny Pearson today announced $550,000 for ten games projects through Film Victoria's Assigned Production Investment – Games program.
The projects will create highly skilled jobs for Victorian 3D artists, programmers, animators, composers, sound designers more.
Supported projects include Trash by 15 Minutes of Game and Site Unseen by Alexander Muscat, as well as Little Ruin, the first project by Lucernal, a Melbourne-based architectural visualisation studio that will use the team's wealth of architectural animation and 3D modelling experience to expand into games.
The digital games industry is the world's fastest growing entertainment sector. Jobs in Victoria's games industry grew by 56 per cent between 2015 and 2019 to more than 850, according to research by Deloitte.
Globally, the industry proved its resilience in 2020 with studios and developers able to continue working from home and demand for games skyrocketing as people turned to games for entertainment and social connection during the pandemic.
In addition to investing in new games, the Andrews Labor Government is supporting rising talent through a digital games internship that will see an emerging Victorian games practitioner undertake a 12-month paid placement working with Film Victoria and globally successful Melbourne game studios, League of Geeks and Samurai Punk.
The Games Development Internship program aims to grow diversity in the sector, bringing new perspectives and ideas into Victoria's games industry workforce. It is open to people who are trans and gender diverse, from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, are First Peoples of Australia and/or are living with disability.
Applications for the Games Development Internship close on 25 March 2021.
