The Australian government just gave video games developers a $20 million boost

There was some good news buried in the headline numbers of the federal government’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) for Australia’s video gaming industry.

The upbeat MYEFO forecasts have the combined deficits over the coming four years to FY25 falling by $2.3 on the May budget forecast to $342.4 billion. The FY22 deficit has dropped by $7.4 billion to $99.2 billion compared to the budget prediction, but things will get worse a decade down the track.

Notably, the government has $16 billion in unidentified spending squirreled away head of next year’s election.

But the good news for the digital games industry is that the Digital Games Tax Offset will offer an extra $19.6 million over two years as a tax break to the sector to include ongoing development work—known as ‘live ops’—on digital games following their public release.