Epic Games opening ANZ offices run by GDAA CEO

Posted on October 27, 2018

In rather large news for the Australian video games industry, CEO of the Game Developers Association of Australia (GDAA), Tony Reed has stepped down from his role to establish Epic Games offices in Australia and New Zealand.

The announcement was made by Reed at the Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) conference during Melbourne International Games Week a couple of days ago. While he hasn’t gone into great detail about what his role is or what these offices will be specifically doing, he did say there would be “a lot of news” soon.

“Every year at GCAP I take a moment to reflect… This year takes me all the way back to 2009, before I took over the GDAA and I took over GCAP. I said at the time – and I believed this at the time – that I would stay for a maximum of ten years,”  said Reed.

“I believed strongly at the time that every association, every industry body, should have a change of ownership – fresh eyes, and fresh ideas, and new approaches. And the thing is, I was right. So a few weeks ago, I resigned as the chief executive of the GDAA, and this will be my last GCAP as your host.”

“I am proud of the work I have done,” Reed added. “But most of all, I am proud of you, because you came through the worst of times, and you built an industry that the world takes notice of. You have come together and formed a community that the world respects. That is a hell of an achievement and I’m extraordinarily proud of you for doing that.”

Epic Games

It’s no doubt that Epic Games have done nothing but pick up speed over the last year with the gigantic success that is Fortnite. You may have even caught the Fortnite Tram during your Melbourne PAX travels.

This only cements that they are expanding their reach in a serious way; we’ll have to wait and see what happens next and how the Aussie video games landscape changes as a result.