Well, as you might not have known, I've been doing some work on the site for the past week. Most of it has been fixing and updating how the site does things, but I did get to add some new functionality to make Sumea even more useful.
First off, we have the Sumea Calendar. It's integrated with the news, and it'll let you know what conferences, events, competitions, industry related deadlines, enrolment dates etc are happening. The calendar will also show how many days left for that date. It…
Irrational Games Australia has announced that it's expanding their studios in Canberra...
""A major international video game title costs 5 or 6 million US dollars to develop and employs 30 - 40 people over a couple of years" said Jon Chey, Managing Director of Irrational Games Australia. "The majority of our expenditure flows directly into the ACT economy in the form of salaries and infrastructure. And as we are taking on a greater number of larger game development projects, we need to employ…
Eurogamer has claimed the first interview with Brendan McNamara at Sydney's newest development studio, Team Bondi. The interview asks a few questions on Brendan's pervious title, The Getaway, along with the ambitions he has with the new next-gen title Team Bondi are working on, and also why Brendan decided to come back to Australia.
"I agreed with Sony that I was going to return to Australia a couple of years ago. It was a personal choice and my wife having twins confirmed the decision.…
Avault has the third installment to the Warlords III developer diary with Steve Fawkner. Steve talks indepth about the different varieties of game balance, and itsimportance it is to the polish of a game.
"To cite one of my favorite examples, how many of us played Diablo II all the way through with every single character? And why? Because it was beautifully polished and balanced!"
For the first time in Australia, cash flow support has been provided by a State Government agency, for the development of electronic games.
Film Victoria has provided local game developer IR Gurus Interactive Australia Pty Ltd with a Cash Flow Facility advance of almost $1.5 million for the development of the electronic games, AFL Live Premiership Edition, and AFL 2005.
For the full details, please click the link below.
Game development studio Sidhe Interactive announced today it has secured a government research grant from Technology New Zealand to assist in developing for upcoming handheld gaming device, the Sony PlayStation? Portable (PSP).
Tyrone McAuley, Technical Director at Sidhe, commented, ?The Technology NZ funding complements our own significant investment, allowing us to accelerate our research programme for this exciting new platform?.
Industry analysts are predicting a strong debut for the…
"In a world first, the Victorian Government decided last year to grease the wheels of the state's game development industry by striking a $250,000 deal with Sony, and later Microsoft's Xbox, to provide free access to a dozen of the company's highly prized and expensive development kits.
The idea was to help local games companies turn ideas into action.
Less than a year down the track, a multi-million dollar deal has been struck between Melbourne-based games outfits IR Gurus and thatgame and a…
Our good friend Tim Richards over at www.gamenews.com.au has updated his website with a very nice new design! He's also running a small competition with a prize, so be sure to visit the website for more details. Click this way!
Tim is also the editor for the GDAA newsletter, and issue 7 January Edition has just been released (there are some faces and mentions to familiar names on Sumea too), so make sure you subscribe to it if you haven't already!
This is a forum post from BinhNguyen inviting all Melbourne developers to come and meetup!...
Hi,
I'm part of the group organising the Independent Games Conference and I'd like to invite people in Melbourne to come to International Game Developers Meetup Day.
This is seperate from the conference but will be a great place to discuss game development and I'd welcome any comments for the upcoming conference.
The meeting is monthly and the first is on
Babble Cafe,
4B Izett St Prahran, Melbourne…
Yusuf Pisan teaches a game development related course at the University of Technology, Sydney, and has an interesting blog entry touching on the number of graduates vs the number of game developer companies that can absorb them..
"OK, so there are a few companies... Not so many! Now do your sums on how many new students leave universities in Sydney that want to one of those positions. Add graduates from outside of Sydney to that. Add specialised schools such as AIE, AIT, etc. Add the number of…
