National Cultural Policy submission: Critical Game Studies Research Group

We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the development of a new Australian National Cultural Policy. Dr Ben Egliston, Dr Brendan Keogh, Dr Benjamin Nicoll and Dr Dan Padua form part of the Critical Game Studies research group in the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC). Their research draws on humanities and social science theories and methodologies to explore videogame production cultures and audience practices. We write this submission to urge the new National Cultural Policy to appropriately account for the broad significance of videogames to Australian culture. While the economic and technological value of videogames are today well understood, their cultural value remain understood in relatively limited ways. Much more could be done to support and enhance Australian videogame developers and audiences as a significant and central part of Australia’s cultural sector.