Parliamentary Friends of Video Games group offers bipartisan forum

Tim Watts MP, Labor’s Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cyber Security, and Liberal Senator James McGrath have recently launched a bipartisan Parliamentary Friends of Video Games group.

The new group will offer a bipartisan forum for those in the Australian video games industry to “engage with parliamentarians and raise awareness of the importance of the sector.”

Tim Watts MP said:

We’re launching this group because of the huge economic and social impact of video games today. It’s a continuation of the great advocacy work IGEA has done in Canberra to date for the industry to be taken seriously. Australia is home to a talented, world leading community of game developers and publishers but lacks the scale of its peers in New Zealand, Finland, Canada, and the United Kingdom. While often overlooked in policy making processes, the video game industry is a dynamic, future-focused and digital industry that provides creative tech jobs and is almost entirely export-based.

With the right policy settings, the video game industry has the potential to help drive the post-COVID economic recovery, creating jobs and opening up a significant export market.

Senator McGrath added:

This industry represents the fastest-growing media in the world and is a significant driver in the global tech industry. Australia has built a reputation over many years of producing some of the world’s best creative talent and I have no doubt we have a generation of innovative, technology-savvy developers and publishers who are ready and eager to grow this industry here, explore opportunities and export their products to the world.

The group was launched at the Parliament House event last night, to hear about the challenges and opportunities facing the sector, with Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) and Melbourne-based developer Big Ant Studios (AO Tennis) attending the event.

Ron Curry, IGEA CEO, said:

We couldn’t be more pleased with the establishment of the Parliamentary Friends of Video Games group. This is a first for the local games industry and highlights the support we have across parties. We know that billions of players around the world engage with games on a daily basis and we welcome the formal pathway Tim Watts and Senator James McGrath have created to formally engage with the Australian games industry and game players.

We know there are many in Parliament who publicly or secretly love playing games and it’s fantastic they now have a forum to celebrate it. The group has already expressed a desire to ensure that Australia remains competitive on a global stage and takes advantage of all of the opportunities a complete video game development ecosystem will create economically, creatively and culturally.