The Government Didn’t Respond To The Video Games Inquiry, And Scott Ludlum Isn’t Happy

411 days ago, an upper house inquiry tabled a report to the Federal Government recommending eight things that Australia could do to better support the local games industry – not just for the health of the industry, but for its economic and social benefits to the country.

Did the Federal Government respond to that report? Of course they didn’t.

It’s been well documented on Kotaku and elsewhere just how successful federal funding has been for Australian video games in the past. Apart from the fact that the industry has continued to grow – more than films, which gets more federal support from video games – the Australian Interactive Games Fund was also successful financially.

Scott Ludlam: Australian Government Is Missing "Extraordinary Opportunity" With Games When the Australian government ran a red line through the Interactive Games Fund it removed $20 million dollars from an industry that always paid back its investments and then some. Greens Senator Scott Ludlam is currently attempting to change the way the federal government thinks about video games. According to him, we're missing out on an "extraordinary opportunity". Read more

That’s partially why the upper house inquiry put forward an unanimous report recommending federal support for the industry. But 411 days after that report was tabled, the government hasn’t filed a response. Procedure dictates that they’re required to, and the fact that they haven’t saw Greens Senator Scott Ludlam give the government a fairly solid whack in the upper house this week.

“What we saw in part through the Commonwealth contribution in kickstarting this projects are games like Framed, Bean Dreams, Gems of War, Submerged, Hand of Fate and Crossy Road,” the Greens co-deputy leader said. “Some of these things probably exist on some of the phones carried around by senators in this place, and they are some of the creative, outstanding and—if you are interested—lucrative games produced by the recipients of the first round of the council fund.”

“We look forward to getting more than just a letter in the mail from the minister saying, ‘We need more time.'”

As do we all, Senator. If you want to read the full transcript of Ludlam’s speech, you can do so here.