Labor has pledged it will reinstate the Australian Interactive Games Fund if elected in the upcoming federal election, offering it a $25 million AUD budget at the same time.
The announcement was made over the weekend as part of Labor’s arts policy. A document detailing the policy (via Kotaku) said the Australian Interactive Games Fund would be reinstated to assist local studios “access finance” in order to “grow as businesses” and create new games.
“Restarting the Fund will kick start the rapid growth of our games development sector through the establishment of new game studios in Australia, investment and projects flowing into existing Australian studios and a range of joint ventures,” Labor’s policy document stated.
“This will enable a variety of works and the generation of original intellectual property in long form games, apps, virtual reality and augmented reality with output across the arts, communications, digital economy, innovation, education, training, health, defence, and more.”
The Australian Interactive Games Fund kicked off in 2013 under a federal Labor government and was discontinued in 2014 by the a federal Liberal government. The fund has been essential in helping Aussie studios like Flat Earth Games, Tin Man Games, The Voxel Agents and more develop their works. The fund has long been recommended to be reinstated.
We’ll have more on the Australian Interactive Games Fund as it’s made available.
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