Hero image: Screen Australia’s games slate. Image: Screen Australia
Screen Australia’s latest games funding round has reached every state and territory — and it comes with a research report arguing that games are now the fastest-growing part of Australia’s screen industry. Read together, the two releases give the clearest picture in a while of who is making games here and what they are worth.
The funding announcement last month put over $2.1 million into 41 projects, through the agency’s Games Production and Emerging Gamemakers programs.
Where the money went
The release names ten of the 41, covering every state and territory, and several are solo projects.
Night Shift: 1999 (SA) is an urban fantasy from Winter Schloss Studios, made by emerging solo developer Georgina Owassapian, about a century-old vampire waking up on New Year’s Day 1999. Project Worl (WA) is a rhythm-based auto-running platformer from solo gamemaker and Nyungar technologist Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker, with six worlds inspired by the Noongar seasons.
Innkeep (WA), from Boot Disk Games, puts players in charge of a run-down medieval inn. The Birdwatcher’s Journal (NSW) is a birdwatching adventure about a missing researcher, and Infinite Airport Upholstery (TAS) is a meditative pattern-making game for the Playdate handheld from a first-time developer.
The rest of the ten run from a boxing frog in Queensland (Untitled BYTEr Project) to a fantasy game inspired by arcade classics in the Northern Territory (Spell Slinger). The full list of blocklines is linked from the release.
What Screen Currency 2026 found
The money landed alongside Screen Currency 2026, released in August and built on more than 13,750 participants across surveys, focus groups and interviews.
Its games findings are blunt. More than three-quarters of Australians (78%) played digital games in the past six months. The value games contribute to the economy “more than doubled since 2016/17, albeit off a small base”, and games exports have grown by an average of 15% a year.
Screen Australia’s Head of Games, Joey Egger, put it plainly in the funding release: “Screen Currency 2026 shows that games is growing faster than all other screen sectors in terms of gross value add, employment and exports.”
The catch
Two lines in the report explain why discoverability keeps coming up. Australian games studios “earn 95% of revenue overseas”, and while knowing a game was made locally is a “value add” for Australian players, the report says it isn’t “a driver of choice”.
In other words, an Australian game still has to win on its own merits — which is why showcases matter. The Aus Indie Showcase covered here last week is one of the places local games go to find their first players, and PAX Aus opens tomorrow.
Source: Screen Australia – Screen Australia funds games projects in every state and territory, Screen Australia – Screen Currency 2026 media release, Screen Australia – Screen Currency 2026