Perhaps now would be a good time to shed a little light on and do some analysis of the evil triad that is the local game development studios, the AIE and the GDAA.
Let’s start with the insanely expensive and ultimately useless educational institution that is called the AIE (Academy of Interactive Entertainment).
For those not familiar with this rip off institution, they have set themselves up as the go to place for training for all of those naive young people who desperately want a career in the local Australian games industry.
They will happily take ‘full fee paying’ students, cram them into classes and try to teach them the skills that Australian game developers have told them they currently require.
What they don’t tell these poor kids is that not only will they waste thousands of dollars in sub standard training and development, but upon completion of there ‘dream coarse’ most will have a snow balls chance in hell of gaining employment in the games industry and no hope of getting a job of any type in IT or design.
These kids have been duped and would have been much better off attending a proper University instead of this con factory.
This brings us to the GDAA (Game Developers Association of Australia), an organization which is the mouth piece of the local games industry.
These people attempt to convince the local industry that they are there to support them. The fact that many of them are CEO’s of most of the local games companies should be warning enough.
They set up over priced conferences with guest speakers who might have been top of there game 10 years ago, but are not worth listening to for free, let alone paying to hear there self indulgent ramblings.
They will suck every last dollar out of the people they are there to support and then complain about how the local industry needs funding from the government to keep there useless organization going.
Who's Next?
So who will be next?
With the local games industry desperately trying to con new unsuspecting slaves to work for them, I thought it might be useful to do a rundown on what has happened in the local games community in the last year and who could be next.
AURAN began by boasting how they were going to change the world with there latest project, only to sack most of there staff in one foul swoop, and to finally close down completely a few months later … good job guys.
PANDEMIC high on the success of the first Destroy All Humans game, thought they could create an open world game based on a movie title ( how original of them ) only to discover how useless they actually were. They started by sacking most of there staff, keeping there ‘best’ ( cough .. cough), only to completely close down a few short months later.. next big thing my ass guys.
TRANSMISSION GAMES having recently lost the right to create the Sin City game … hardly surprising considering how ineptly that company is run, only to later have the Heroes Over Europe game also disappear and finding themselves in SERIOUS financial trouble (hence there desperate attempt to contract Flashman Studios for help)… lets see how much longer they last.
RED TRIBE … the company responsible for the dreadful Jumper and Space Chimps games lost many of its staff over 12 months ago and have been desperately trying to stay above water since. With the CEO not even confident enough in his own company to stay in the country, one has to wonder how much longer they will exist. … be afraid guys... be very afraid..
KROME … well with studios in three states in Australia, and with the dreadful track record of rubbish movie licenses this company puts out, only the brave at heart would think they can keep all those development costs under control and people in employment for too much longer in all three states… look for job cuts there as well.
BLUE TONGUE having jumped in bed with THQ are now heading towards a train wreck. With one dev team in Brisbane already let go it is only a matter of time before the rot sets in and no amount of De Blob game sales is going to save them.
While I could go on, ( TEAM BONDI, I am looking at you ) I will stop there for the moment.
With the local games industry desperately trying to con new unsuspecting slaves to work for them, I thought it might be useful to do a rundown on what has happened in the local games community in the last year and who could be next.
AURAN began by boasting how they were going to change the world with there latest project, only to sack most of there staff in one foul swoop, and to finally close down completely a few months later … good job guys.
PANDEMIC high on the success of the first Destroy All Humans game, thought they could create an open world game based on a movie title ( how original of them ) only to discover how useless they actually were. They started by sacking most of there staff, keeping there ‘best’ ( cough .. cough), only to completely close down a few short months later.. next big thing my ass guys.
TRANSMISSION GAMES having recently lost the right to create the Sin City game … hardly surprising considering how ineptly that company is run, only to later have the Heroes Over Europe game also disappear and finding themselves in SERIOUS financial trouble (hence there desperate attempt to contract Flashman Studios for help)… lets see how much longer they last.
RED TRIBE … the company responsible for the dreadful Jumper and Space Chimps games lost many of its staff over 12 months ago and have been desperately trying to stay above water since. With the CEO not even confident enough in his own company to stay in the country, one has to wonder how much longer they will exist. … be afraid guys... be very afraid..
KROME … well with studios in three states in Australia, and with the dreadful track record of rubbish movie licenses this company puts out, only the brave at heart would think they can keep all those development costs under control and people in employment for too much longer in all three states… look for job cuts there as well.
BLUE TONGUE having jumped in bed with THQ are now heading towards a train wreck. With one dev team in Brisbane already let go it is only a matter of time before the rot sets in and no amount of De Blob game sales is going to save them.
While I could go on, ( TEAM BONDI, I am looking at you ) I will stop there for the moment.
Lets start things off with this tid bit
Let’s start things off with a nice little article that was published 12 months ago in a local Australian newspaper.
I encourage you all to read the article..
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0%2C23739%2C23061476-27197%2C00.html
After this article was published, the local game devs took offence and immediately began a PR exercise to try and dismiss the valid points discussed in the story...aka Tom Crago's reply ( though he is not the only dev to sprout rubbish )
What a wonderful thing it is to be able to refer to the article twelve months on and see just how accurate and telling the story was and continues to be.
Since the article was written, at least two more game developers have gone bankrupt, with many others just waiting for the final death hammer to drop.
I encourage you all to read the article..
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0%2C23739%2C23061476-27197%2C00.html
After this article was published, the local game devs took offence and immediately began a PR exercise to try and dismiss the valid points discussed in the story...aka Tom Crago's reply ( though he is not the only dev to sprout rubbish )
What a wonderful thing it is to be able to refer to the article twelve months on and see just how accurate and telling the story was and continues to be.
Since the article was written, at least two more game developers have gone bankrupt, with many others just waiting for the final death hammer to drop.
Whistleblower Welcomes You
Hello all,
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.
The reason I have created this blog is to dismiss the false and misleading information propagated by many of the Australian game developers.
If you were to believe the tripe that local games companies sprout in Australia, there is no better time to join this 'exiting, rewarding' industry.
They are quick to shoot down any form of criticism of themselves or there industry and happy to tarnish anyone who happens to disagree with them.
This blog is for all those people who have had bad experiences with the local games development community and I encourage you to contribute with your experiences.
Send me an email and tell it like it is - 2009informer@gmail.com
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.
The reason I have created this blog is to dismiss the false and misleading information propagated by many of the Australian game developers.
If you were to believe the tripe that local games companies sprout in Australia, there is no better time to join this 'exiting, rewarding' industry.
They are quick to shoot down any form of criticism of themselves or there industry and happy to tarnish anyone who happens to disagree with them.
This blog is for all those people who have had bad experiences with the local games development community and I encourage you to contribute with your experiences.
Send me an email and tell it like it is - 2009informer@gmail.com
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