Game On Festival 2019 (GO423 2019)

The Game On series of curated annual public exhibitions and events is focused on a place-based community of practice (the Brisbane game developer community) with the overall intent of developing what anthropologist Victor Turner (1969) has termed ‘communitas’ – an unstructured community where all members are considered equal contributors and participants. The project began in 2006 at a time when the Australian games industry was evolving away from the traditional model of large hierarchic companies, toward a more creative entrepreneurial model of small teams adaptive to the needs of the project and supportive of each other. In 2008, the GFC resulted in the disappearance of larger companies from the Australian game development landscape, leaving smaller ‘indie’ developers with both room to develop but also major challenges. A strong community and sense of communitas was considered vital to the survival of the sector. The Game On program of events was designed to facilitate an acknowledged need for mutual support and communitas. The shape of the games industry has changed, however, the need for communitas is still evident. The community has grown and diversified, the scale of the Game On events has grown. Success is evident in the continued growth and support of the community, particularly the emerging mix of community members in a communitas relationship with each other centered in place. The emergence of communitas is encouraging as a model for curatorial practice in similar community contexts. The results are good evidence for a case of best practice in other situations.