Australian Government Names Its Digital Games Tax Offset Advisory Board [Updated]

Update 12/9/23: Minister for the Arts Tony Burke has announced the inaugural appointments to the Digital Games Tax Offset Advisory Board. Johanna Egger and Morgan Jaffit will join the board for three-year terms, advising the Government on applications submitted to the DGTO. Egger is the Managing Director, Family & Kids at creative agency Two Bulls/DEPT. Jaffit is a founder and director of Australian studios Defiant Development (RIP) and Spitfire Interactive. He is currently working with Weta Workshop as a Consulting Executive Producer on its upcoming Lord of the Rings game.

Original story continues below.

The Digital Games Tax Offset (DGTO), a new scheme that introduces a 30% tax incentive to Australian game developers with budgets above $500,000, has passed through the Australian Parliament and into legislation today.

It’s been a long road for the Digital Games Tax Offset, which has endured numerous hearings and amendments since it was first introduced in 2019. The last time Kotaku Australia reported on the DGTO was in November, at the time of its introduction to Parliament. With its passage through Parliament complete, the DGTO now sits among other funding initiatives like the Federal Government’s Revive program and state-based schemes. What it means, in summary, is that Australia’s ability to get locally-made video game projects the funding they need is better than it’s ever been.

“Today is a momentous occasion for Australian games creators, who have an extraordinary reputation internationally,” said IGEA CEO Ron Curry in a statement. “These developers can now confidently proceed, expand and scale their businesses to deliver in-demand game content to a global audience and are well positioned to drive the knowledge economy.”

Developers around the country, confident that the bill would pass, have been preparing for its passage into legislation for some time. The hope is that the DGTO will also grab the interest of major AAA publishers and studios looking to establish outposts in Australia. It’s been some time since Australia had a major AAA presence locally but, given the incentives now on offer, the time might finally be right for the major players to return to our shores, creating more jobs for Aussie devs.

It’s hard to overstate what a moment this is. This is a red letter day for the local industry as a whole and is the result of 20 years of difficult campaigning and fraught bargaining. Years of Australian politicians being unwilling to take games seriously, and those that understood the inherent value of the local scene being drummed out of office before they could make a difference. The thousands of campaigners that stepped up to push for more and better for local developers doing it tough when the film and television industries always took the lion’s share of funding. GGs to the campaigners, the cheerleaders, the lobbyists and the Parliamentarians on both sides of the aisle, some from entirely different governments, that worked together to get this done. I hope everyone at the IGEA goes for a beer after work today. They’ve earned it.

The DGTO will be implemented retrospectively from 1 July 2022, which will provide a boost, not only to new game projects but to games projects already underway.

You can read the full bill on the official Parliamentary Info website.

It’s a good day, friends. We take them when we can get them.