12/01/2022
As we begin 2022 there’s much optimism about the state of the Australian games industry. We’ve had a number of critically acclaimed Australian titles released, and investment and acquisition in the local industry is buoyant.
The potential for support at State and Federal levels is at an all-time high. NSW announced a 10% offset with a $500k threshold. QLD surprised us all when it added games as eligible for the 15% PDF offset at a spend of only $250k. And back in May the Federal Government announced a 30% tax offset on a $500k spending threshold. This has yet to be fully fleshed out and implemented but is good news, nonetheless. And the first Federal support since 2014 I believe.
So, problem solved? The Australian games industry is saved! Well, not quite. Now don’t get me wrong, all the State and Federal offsets are truly excellent news. Reducing the thresholds to make them more accessible would be nice, but it is a HUGE step in the right direction. With these offsets, and the renewed interest in investing in Australian studios, either through capital raising, acquisition, or publishing deals comes a new problem. Insufficient staffing.
But surely “if you build it, they will come”? To a point yes, but with the (relative) embarrassment of riches that the Australian industry has, one thing that is lacking is sufficient senior staff to fill all the current vacancies.
Look at almost any studio currently recruiting and you’ll see the majority of roles being recruited for are senior level staff. There are certainly some mid-level roles advertised, and some where no level is in the title, but even these tend to want 3+ years of experience. Today on https://www.tsumea.com/jobs there are just 3 roles explicitly advertised for Juniors. There are no roles explicitly advertised for graduates.
So, it’s genuinely great to see as many vacancies as there are. Seeing so many different studios recruiting is great for the local industry. If it was just one or two big studios doing all the hiring, that’s bad for The enthusiastic publisher funding, investment and acquisition are all fuelling this recruitment drive. And that’s great. But there simply are not enough staff to fill all the mid and senior roles that are being advertised.
So, how can we fill them? We must fill them, right?
• Staff churn happens, people will leave a studio and go and work at another. Sometimes it’s for promotion, look at all those juicy senior roles! Sometimes it’s for a change of scene, a change of genre, change of platform. But that just creates another vacancy to be backfilled.
• Poaching happens. There are some studios that are quite aggressive in their hiring, and I understand the frustration on both sides. But again, that creates a vacancy to be backfilled, along with a side salad of animosity between developers.
• All hail the 457 Visa! Before the GFC happened, many developers used to bring in senior talent from overseas. But that’s quite expensive, and often foreign talent only stays for a year or two. It’s sometimes treated as a gap year in many ways Ooo! Look! A koala!
• The studios with deeper pockets, broadly those owned by foreign entities, have been pushing up salaries to win the competition for talent. Some of my clients are losing out because they can’t compete on salary. And whilst short-term this appears to fix the problem of recruitment; it leads to potential problems long-term with salary expectations for those folks. If they’re being paid a premium, they’re less likely to move locally, but more likely overseas. When the GFC happened and Pandemic, THQ and all closed there were a lot of well-paid staff who wanted to maintain their salary levels. And the only way to do that was to move overseas. And this was especially so for the senior talent. Of course, I don’t wish any ill on any studio in Australia. I hope not to see the downsizing that we’ve previously endured. But if it happens there’s a whole lot of people who will be in that boat of being used to a very nice salary…
It’s all well and good pointing out the problems and pitfalls but what do we do? How do we address the senior staffing issue?
• We have to grow our own seniors. We need investment in training, and we need to recruit graduates and juniors to train. We need to take on interns. We need to start planning for our industry longer term.
• We need to stop planning projects that require EVERYONE on the team to be a senior. It’s not practical. We need some of our existing, experienced, talent to step up and train and mentor people.
Not all studios can afford to do this, I understand that. But the larger, better funded studios should be looking at it and actioning it. It’s an investment of time, not just money. It’s NOT a quick fix, but it’s a more sustainable answer than banking on hiring a senior.
You get to mould a junior or graduate into your work style, whether that’s coding style, art style, design methodology or anything else. You custom build your upcoming talent to work the way you work. A “mini me” if you will. In return you’ll get loyalty, hard work, and in time the senior you wanted to hire. You help grow the local industry, and not at the expense of your friends and colleagues at other studios. Everyone gets a chance to win.
Last time I checked the one thing we were NOT short of was people who wanted to enter the industry, either as fresh graduates, or as juniors who are self-taught.
It would be great to see State and Federal support for this, that could make it a no-brainer for more developers. I’m not familiar with everything available throughout Austraila, perhaps this already exists?
We’re held in higher regard than ever, there’s a LOT of investment/publisher funding available. Govt support is (comparatively) off the charts. But a misguided reliance on finding senior talent is arguably the biggest challenge the Australian games industry faces in 2022.
“A (longer than I planned) thread about the state of the Australian industry (including ) in 2022, and the challenges we face (and for once it’s not ALL about money) 1/ https://t.co/I4K0Qreeiy”
