Last week at PAX Australia, Digitally Downloaded’s Sam sat down with Santana Mishra, the designer of Assault Android Cactus to talk about the state of independent development in Australia, the benefits of creating an arcade-like multiplayer game, as well as the role of the Wii U and handhelds for indies.…
Read MoreLast weekend was the first time the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) was held in Australia. Developers, gamers and the cold weather all came down to the Melbourne Showgrounds for the weekend to celebrate all the things we love about this hobby. Being as this was the first time PAX had…
Read MoreWithin the casual puzzler market on iOS, it’s virtually impossible to stand out now. Whether it’s an in-app purchase freemium title, or sold at $0.99/ $1.99 purchase up-front game, there’s virtually nothing that we haven’t seen in some form before. Given that these games do need to compete with Angry…
Read MoreIn two days the Australian Classification Board has shown its true colours. That R18+ rating, which was introduced on the promise that the Board recognised the rights for Australian adults to play the kinds of games that children should not be playing, was a lie – the Board plans to…
Read MoreProving further that the R18+ rating is a complete farce in Australia, the Classification Board has seen fit to ban the release of Saint’s Row IV. The game was Refused Classification (RC), meaning that retailers cannot sell the product, on the basis that interactive, visual depictions of implied sexual violence…
Read MoreOne of the real highlights from the Supanova show over the weekend was, of course, the cosplay, and there were some really amazing costumes on show this year around. We’re not just talking about the cosplay competition, either. In fact, some of the people with the very best costumes didn…
Read MoreOver the weekend Sydney played host to Supanova, a major show for all things pop culture. And the people, they came in droves. This was the first time I had attended the event, so I’m not sure whether the sheer volume of people that turned out was to be expected,…
Read MoreGamification. Here’s a word that will send shivers of fear down the back of anyone that hates marketing buzzwords. For gamification is the buzzword of the games industry at the moment. What is it? Simply put it’s the idea of taking something that is anything but a game, like education…
Read MoreNot a day after the depressing news that the Australian game development industry had shrunk to a third of the size of what it was a few years ago, the Federal Government announced the “winners” of its $6 million Games Enterprise investment into the growth and development of the industry.…
Read MoreThe Australian Bureau of Statistics has released some raw statistics regarding the games industry that shows that the industry is in a horrific state of decline. For the 2011-2012 financial year there were just 581 people employed in games development in Australia. Of that number, just 51 of them are…
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