Brisbane is positively swimming in talented independent video game developers, but - if we can indulge a stereotype for a moment here - they're not always very social.
So how are they supposed to find each other? That's where BIG Dev comes in.
"I’ve been in Brisbane for about eight years now," explains Mana Bar co-owner and BIG Dev (Brisbane Independent Game Development Meetup) founder Pras Moorthy. "When I originally came here, I was working at Creative Assembly, which is now Sega, in game dev. What happened in the last eight years was that there were a lot of issues with the Aussie dollar, causing pretty much the entire industry to crash. I was one of the lucky ones — I got out of there and opened the Mana Bar before I lost my job.
"What I found was that there were a lot of really good games makers in Brisbane, a lot of really good people, but nowhere for them to work. The other thing, and this is a bit of a cliché, is that game devs tend not to be extroverted. They don’t really talk to each other, they don’t understand the importance of networking with people.
"So I basically set up Big DEV because there were all these programmers, all these animators, all these artists, all these sound guys; they’re all in Brisbane and they’ve all got things they want to work on, but they just don’t have any way to make it.
"Owning the Mana Bar helped, of course, so I just organised this casual thing. Once a month, everyone comes to the bar, we have some drinks, we have some chats... people start talking about their ideas and get feedback. Maybe they’re looking for a sound guy, and maybe there’s a sound guy in the room, and maybe they start talking. It’s just networking, basically.
"Brisbane’s had quite a few indie success stories recently, the obvious one being Halfbrick Studios [creators of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride], but there are others. So Big DEV is basically a nice, informal thing for people who normally wouldn’t have any idea how to find other people. Instead of calling an agency and going, ‘oh, I’m looking for a programmer’, it’s all word of mouth, and people just get together and sort their stuff out."
BIG Dev, usually held at Mana Bar, will be held at the State Library of Queensland on Friday February 8 as part of the next Level Up games night. The event will feature DJs and speakers and is open to the public.
