I just came across this article, I'm sure most who work in the GameDev industry in Australia are already aware but figured I would post anyway. Good to know governments are fairly consistent in their uselessness the world over...
http://www.innovationaus.com/2018/01/Govt-misses-own-games-deadline
I feel bad for the studios left hanging though.
Yeah, it's pretty fun™.
Long story short: a conservative government was elected in 2013, who immediately passed an "austerity" budget (and ate an onion), which was the style at the time. Part of that budget involved scrapping a $10M federal fund that invested in games industry projects and actually banned the federal film funding agency from ever investing in gavedev whatsoever... despite the fact that this project was actually turning a profit, making money for the taxpayer, making jobs for the local economy, and helping the industry rebuild after the GFC had destroyed 1500 gamedev jobs a few years prior.
Fun side note - it wasn't actually an austerity budget because despite cutting billions of dollars from public projects, they then spent all of their savings and more on new policy, like making sure every school has a chaplain.
Predictably, the industry wrote a strongly worded letter to the government. A minority party set up a senate inquiry to formally investigate this 'WTF' moment. That investigation recommended putting the $10M back in place and lifting the ban, because money and jobs and growth... and then, predictably, the govt ignored it. But they're obligated to publish some kind of response, hence the deadline mentioned in that article, which, predictably, has again been ignored.
None of us are really holding our breath. The conservatives love to repeat "jobs and growth!" and "infrastructure!" and "innovation!", but we all know it's hot air. Over the same period they decided to cancel our national gigabit fiber-optic internet infrastructure project and instead opt to spend the same amount of money just buying back the past-shelf-life, decrepit, failing national copper network that they privatized in the 90's, and then pretend that 20mbps DSL is enough speed that anyone will ever need. That's the forward-thinking, innovative souls that we're dealing with here.
Thankfully, the state govt's are not quite as insane, and a few of them have really stepped up to help the industry rebuild, which completely offsets the attempts of the federal govt to sabotage us.
Well if it was working and making a profit, clearly there was something wrong there. I currently work for the federal government in Canada, but my job is being phased out so it can be privatized. Apparently spending 20 million more a year will save the taxpayers on my retirement salary (there is less than 10 of us). Because the 20-30 of us pull in a million a year or something. And that 20 million is only a guesstimate, in other provinces it was double the original estimate from the company.
Governments tend to be great at fumbling things like this. Dream to the century, plan for the decades, actually do stuff on a 2-4 year basis.
On 1/15/2018 at 2:37 PM, Mike2343 said:Well if it was working and making a profit, clearly there was something wrong there. I currently work for the federal government in Canada, but my job is being phased out so it can be privatized. Apparently spending 20 million more a year will save the taxpayers on my retirement salary (there is less than 10 of us). Because the 20-30 of us pull in a million a year or something. And that 20 million is only a guesstimate, in other provinces it was double the original estimate from the company.
I was denied a permanent part time position with a federal agency back in my university days. Due to the work they still required done, and the lack of people who had clearance and experience for the project, I kept getting brought back on with temporary super short term contracts as a consultant... I put in half the hours and got paid four to ten times what I would have as an employee depending on what was going on.
