The Burn

Game development Down Under

(This article was originally published in The Burn in May 2016)

The Melbourne games industry can seem chaotic from the outside, but there is still a healthy community for developers, according to an industry veteran.

Daniel Visser, founder and Managing Director of Wicked Witch Software, believes the entire Australian development scene is on the up.

“We’ve got a good reputation and we’ve got some government support, so it’s better than it could be,” says Visser.

Despite this, Visser believes that the development industry needs more support. “We’re lucky to have the support we have, but it’s not a big amount.”

Film Victoria is one institution offering financial aid to game developers in Melbourne.

“They’ve been super supportive of the games industry. It has helped us, and heaps of studios in Victoria.”

Visser has been developing games since childhood, making his start on a Commodore Vic-20 Computer.

“Those computers came with a basic programming language on them, and I just started typing in the examples out of the user manual and kind of just figuring it out.”

Visser worked at Melbourne studios such as Torus Games before founding Wicked Witch Software in 2001.

Beginning in Visser’s house, Wicked Witch Software now has over 40 employees with a large catalogue of titles, such as Catapult King, released in 2012.

The Melbourne games industry has changed drastically since Visser started out.

“There used to be a fair few big studios around, but they all started imploding and exploding.”

Visser says that the Global Financial Crisis led to the closing of many Australian developers, such as Krome Studios Melbourne.

The large costs and experience requirements of console development have led many Melbourne studios to develop mobile games instead.

“If you want to release a game on console, you’ve got to buy the development kits, and they cost thousands of dollars,” said Visser. “With mobile, you can start using Unity or Unreal for free.”

Visser believes that breaking into the industry can be difficult due to the number of games flooding the market, with nearly 400 mobile games being released every day.

“Your game has to be in the top 1 per cent of originality or quality in order to stand out,” says Visser. “Accessibility has gotten easier, but making money has gotten harder.”

Passion is the most important quality for a budding game designer, according to Visser.

“You really have to have a genuine love and passion for what you’re doing, because it’s pretty difficult and laborious.”

Besides passion, Visser says programming and artistic skills are essential to becoming a successful developer.

“At the end of the day, a game is a computer program,” says Visser. “It’s easy to design something cool, but you need to know how it’s going to work”

According to Visser, designing games is the best part of the job, but the actual production of the game can be quite difficult.

“Making video games is like coming up with some cool ideas, and then solving the million problems that come after that to make it work.”