*a pretty awesome

Need to pay more attention to what I write >_>

I do hope they get the support they desire.

I really need to get Oklahoma into the game support business. They already support film and music production. It would be simple to extend that to game development.

I've followed some Australian industry forums and news articles in the past. I hope they get the support they're seeking, it'd be great to see their industry develop to the scale that other countries are reaching.

Don't start me on 2K games, my hatred for them knows no bounds. This is probably intuitive, but it's about the DRM on the PC version of Bioshock... oh and the shitty endings to the game, but mostly the DRM.

I hope they don't get support, as well I hope their film industry loses it as well. We don't need government to support us, the government should be the one needing support.

@ t0nz0r

One can sometimes be concidered an exception (like manhunt 2 for example), several is what I call 'Significant'.

An Australian company was also involved with making STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl.

But the best purely Australian game is probably and pretty awesome RTS KKND: Krossfire (2). It's just as good as Starcraft, imho.

If it were my vision of what a Government should be (minimal, Libertarian), I'd not support this "rebate", but since that won't happen any time soon, I'm for this move (rebate).

@Zigs: Your perception of one game's ending is enough to justify crippling the interactive entertainment industry of Australia? Leave your Ad hominem attacks elsewhere please.

Oh, and here's a short list of games made (or assisted with) in Australia:
Bioshock, System Shock 2, Medieval Total War 1 and 2 + Xpac, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger series (huge sellers overseas), Spyro: New Beginning and Eternal Night, Destroy all Humans, Viva Pinata: Party Animals, Full Spectrum Warrior, Mercenaries, KKND, Powerslide, Fury. The list of quality games can go on. Thanks for your trash goes in, trash goes out comment.

Back on topic, government incentives won't really help the estabilished companies like Irrational (2K Australia), Krome Studios or Creative Assembly much. What it will do is help the smaller development companies who may not have the private financial backing to get started, or the funding of a major international partner.

This wouldn't be such an issue, but the fact that the film industry is getting these rebates whilst we are not is a major oversight on the government's behalf.Censorship and ratings are another issue entirely, games should have the same system as movies but do not. There is no R18+ for games here. Also, the games that the OFLC has banned are generally pretty terrible games that no-one wants to play anyway, but that's still not an excuse.

The industry over here is booming, the larger companies are still growing at a huge rate and the quality of I.P that is now being delivered to Australian studios is world class. Not to mention we have a great lifestyle to support the long hours :)

Raum Says: "Australia already censors a significant ammount of the games coming into the country"

Significant amount???

Dude, get a clue from the video games you play - if you're going to attack something, make sure there's ammo in your peashooter...

5 games in the entire history of the OFLC have been given an RC classification, and only 2 after they were already released.

Hardly a "significant amount".

They want government backing? Will I guess it must be because the government has done such wonders with their broadband funds. /Sarcasm off

ParanoidIndividual is right, they will add stipulations.

Today Tonight will probably then do a segment on "Killing Death Training Simulations. How the government sponsors violent video games targeted at preschoolers".

@Zigs

Even overlooking the fact that you're judging games that you're probably not in the target demographic for, I find myself wondering if you've actually played these games. Mostly because you say that the new Spyros, that is plural, were practically unplayable.... yet the new Spyro isn't even out yet.

I think we might be looking at a troll. Though I will acknowledge your point that financially succesful games aren't always good. Heck, I think we can say that 95% of EA games fit that criteria... where is EA located again? ;)

Bagging dozens of companies based entirely on their location is narrow-minded and unfair.