Games Business

The Game Business course is a postgraduate course for students that have completed the Advanced Diploma and/or the Bachelor Degree and have learnt all about making games and animation. This program assists these students to turn their new creative skills into innovative businesses.

This course is not about becoming a better game developer or animator although you will be making more creative content, so that will happen too! It is about working purposefully on a project with very clear goals to create income.

As world-renown educator Frank Farfalla says, "The Advanced Diploma will teach you how to make great games and through the Graduate Diploma you will learn how to make them work for you".

Not at all! When you are studying the Graduate Diploma of Management (Learning), you spend three full days a week studying courses like Strategic Transformation and Business Planning, and two days on a project of your own choice. This may be building a game studio and developing a game for commercial release, or developing your freelancing business and portfolio/skills for attracting clients, or developing a games-adjacent business such as in marketing, recruitment, or eSports. The only requirement is that your business is planned as a commercial enterprise (ie designed to make money) and that it is in the games industry, broadly speaking. The only limit is your business creativity!

Yes. Your study component over the year requires three full days study each week (except for holidays), and for the other two days you are expected to work on your project or business development. At the same time, we realise that other commitments arise and the program strives to be a professional work environment with flexibility where possible, as long as necessary outcomes are delivered. Please speak to your Trainer about your particular circumstances.

Yes, eligible students in this course can apply for a VET Student Loan to defer the cost of their tuition fees. It is important to note that VET Student Loans will not be approved for students who do not meet eligibility requirements. A VET Student Loan gives rise to a VETSL debt that continues to be a debt due to the Commonwealth until it is repaid. A VET Student Loan is repaid through the Australian tax system once a person reaches the minimum income threshold level of repayment.

To be eligible for a VET Student Loan, a student must meet eligibility criteria which includes citizenship, academic and other requirements. For more information about the VET Student Loans eligibility criteria visit aie.edu.au/vet

The short answer is yes. This is actually a topic for debate in industry: while some feel that only particular people need to have business skills in a studio, these are usually larger studios who can afford to pay business professionals. Smaller and more independent studios often require all their members to have some business skills, so that everyone can contribute to marketing, for example, or so that everyone understands the need for effective marketing, or their overall contribution to the bottom line of the business.

No. We have both individuals and teams applying. A number of applicants come into the program with the project they developed with their team from the Advanced Diploma. Sometime they continue with this project and other times they start fresh with new project ideas and different team members. We also have individuals that form a team with other individuals in the program. Teams are formed organically, through a series of pitches and negotiations, so no-one is forced into a team they don’t want to be a part of. It is possible to join the program and not be part of a team by working as a solo developer. It's important to note that we recommend all students participate in the program as part of a team. Working in teams enables more ambitious projects to be undertaken and completed quicker. It means team members can working in their areas of specialty and develop their management and soft skills.

So if you’re interested in Games Business but you're not sure whether the rest of your teammates are, you should certainly apply! Once we know there is interest we can check in with the rest of your team to see what they are thinking.