Why should Australia care?

In 2011, the prime minister of Poland gifted visiting US president, Barack Obama, a copy of a game from Polish studio CD Projekt Red. Games from that studio have become emblematic of Polish success, because CD Projekt Red has grown to become one of the most important developers in the world on the back of its success with The Witcher series. The third game in the series alone has drawn in close to $300 million in revenue.

Other, emergent developers in Poland, such as Techland (Dying Light), and small developers such as 11 Bit Studios (This War of Mine), have seen global success, and now Poland has a thriving community of highly talented developers and studios. This is in turn healthy for the local industry, because the experienced developers and large studios are able to recruit and train young developers, who can then take their skills and build their own start-ups and projects.

Poland is a model for how a healthy, robust, and valuable game development industry can be grown. In Australia, after the GFC decimated the local industry, the games fund was able to achieve similar results and the industry began to rebuild. Developers such as Defiant Development (Hand of Fate), Uppercut Games (Submerged) and League of Geeks (Armello) were able to produce popular and critically successful games that were sold around the world.

This is the kind of industry that our politicians should be fighting to protect and develop. Instead, under Tony Abbott, the games fund was cut, and there has been no specific confirmation that the fund would be restored with the new government. Think of all that innovation we might be missing out on.

Wallflower at the innovation dance

Most critically of all, Polish games funding has been established in close collaboration with the industry. CD Projekt Red was the partner in establishing the fund, and it has been clear from the outset that the money would be directed in the most appropriate way to address the quirks and challenges that games development faces that other creative mediums do not.

As the head of CD Projekt Red's studio R & D, Stan Just, said in an article with Venture Beat: "This is a program aimed at increasing the competitiveness of the Polish gaming sector through R & D ... We want to stimulate innovation in companies that already have experience in pursuing such a path, as well as encourage new companies to start embarking on more innovative projects."

There was a sign that our government was willing to be more consultative when the Senate inquiry into Australia's games industry took on guidance from the industry to determine that the Labor government's investment should be returned in full. Should that funding be returned it will be very welcome indeed, but we would call for the government to pay more attention to the games industry in Australia.

As a creative outlet, but also as a source for innovation and the kind of STEM-based skills that both sides of government would like to seed in Australia, games are the wallflower to the innovation agenda. We know how to get there and become the next Poland of game development. The challenge is, now, getting it on to the political agenda.

Ross Symons is CEO of Melbourne-based game developer Big Ant Studios.