The Australian games industry is a textbook case in creative destruction. Australian developers have adaptively engaged with the rapidly transforming and uncertain conditions of the global videogames industry. Some developers celebrate the creative freedom they experienced with a shift towards original intellectual property games for mobile platforms, while others caution about the design and craft compromises associated with the in-app monetisation mechanics. The turmoil and rapidly transforming Australian videogames industry over the past few years is certainly characterised by precarious labour. But it also includes experimentation in studio culture and associated changes in professional developer identity so as to continue the craft of making videogames in the midst of this uncertainty. This diversity is also characterised by differences among the production cultures of Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney that are indicators of the cultural roots that sustain developer identity and business models.
BanksJCunninghamS (2013) Games and entertainment software. In: TowseRHandkeC (eds) Handbook on the Digital Creative Economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 416–427.
6.
BanksJCunninghamS (2016) Games production in Australia: adapting to precariousness. In: CurtinMSansonK (eds) Precarious Creativity Precarious Creativity: Global Media, Local Labor. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, pp. 186–199.
7.
BrandJLorentzPMatthewT (2014) DA14: Digital Australia. Gold Coast, QLD, Australia: Bond University.
8.
CunninghamSFlewTSwiftA (2015) Media Economics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
HintonS (2009) Gaming nation: the Australian game development industry. In: HjorthLChanD (eds) Gaming Cultures and Place in Asia Pacific. New York: Routledge, pp. 39–57.
11.
HjorthL (2014) Games: mobile, locative and social. In: CunninghamSTurnbullS (eds) The Media and Communications in Australia, 4th edn.Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, pp. 271–275.
12.
KeoghB (2015) Between Triple-A, Indie, Casual, and DIY: sites of tension in the videogames cultural industries. In: OakleyKO’ConnorJ (eds) The Routledge Companion to the Cultural Industries. New York: Routledge, pp. 152–162.
13.
League of Geeks (2014) Armello Press Kit. Available at: http://press.armello.com/ (accessed 6 June 2016).
14.
MillerT (2016) Cybertarian flexibility: when prosumers join the cognitariat, all that is scholarship melts into air. In: CurtinMSansonK (eds) Precarious Creativity Precarious Creativity: Global Media, Local Labor. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, pp. 19–32.
O’DonnellC (2014) Developer’s Dilemma: The Secret World of Videogame Creators. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
17.
ParkerRCoxSThompsonP (2014) How technological change affects power relations in global markets: remote developers in the console and mobile games industry. Environment and Planning A46: 168–185.
18.
SchumpeterJ (1942) Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper Books.
SouriP (2011) THQ Studio Australia and Blue Tongue Entertainment to close this week. Tsumea, 10August. Available at: http://tsumea.com/comment/47944 (accessed 6 June 2016).
SwalwellM (2009) Toward the preservation of local computer game software: challenges, strategies, reflections. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies15(3): 263–279.
24.
SwalwellM (2012a) Questions about the usefulness of microcomputers in 1980s Australia. Media International Australia143: 63–77.
25.
SwalwellM (2012b) The early micro user: games, writing, hardware hacking and the will to mod. In: Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2012 conference: local and global – games in culture and society.
VanderhoefJCurtinM (2015) The crunch heard round the world: the global era of digital game labor. In: ConorBBanksMMayerV (eds) Production Studies: The Sequel. New York: Routledge, pp. 196–209.
