Victoria's new state government released its first budget yesterday, revealing many cuts across the board to combat the state's troubled economy. Early reports had expressed concern at the perceived discontinuation of Film Victoria's Games Investment Program -- a government funding initiative that SMH explains has supported games such as MacGuffin's Curse, Bullistic Unleashed, Gamebook Adventures and Jolly Rover.

However, reading further between the lines, MCV Pacfic note that it's not necessarily a complete withdraw of state-funding for budding game local developers, as Film Victoria -- the organisation responsible for coordinating funds -- will still be obliged to share the love with games:

When Film Victoria first began funding games, it was allocated additional funds on top of its existing budget to promote film and television. Those funds came from the Department of Business and Innovation and the Victorian Treasury. It is these moneys which have been given the axe.

Reed believes that in order to fulfil its obligation to games, some funding will have to be allocated from the existing film and television budget, and is expecting that funding will remain at its current level, or at least will not drop to a level which indicates support for games in name only.

Although it looks like funding levels for game development at the state level may not decrease, MCV rightly points out that the fact that it is under threat of being cut at all bluntly contradicts recent recommendations by the Convergence Review, that much more funding be made available to the local games industry at a federal level.

MacGuffin's Curse, Bullistic Unleashed, Gamebook Adventures and Jolly Rover.

Never heard of any of em.

MacGuffin makes alot of the movies on usenet though ;)

They should put all the money into one big game instead of all these smaller ones, and actually get some decent recognition for a great game.