Play hard

By Jason Smith, February 20, 2008 @ 9:12 am

Kiwi game developers are getting bigger on smaller thrills

[Metrics]

No longer is gaming just about PlayStations and Xboxes, plonked on a beanbag in front of the telly. Small is beautiful. Smaller games, handheld devices and phones are the names of the game. New Zealand’s emerging game development industry is ideally placed to progress to the next level.

Generations ago, back in 2000, this fast-paced and mostly Wellington-based industry barely registered on the global gaming scene. From the get-go, game developers in New Zealand were mavericks, starting out in the garage with basic tools and a creative drive, learning on the job. Parallels with the early days of the Kiwi movie industry abound. A Second Life on the smell of an oily rag.

Today the lion’s share of game development talent in New Zealand is still in Wellington, a perfect competitive cluster model. Industry leader Sidhe Interactive has 75 staff—half of all New Zealand game developers—and Microsoft and Wingnut Interactive are waiting in the wings. With new companies in Christchurch and Dunedin, there’s increasing critical mass and an emerging reputation for New Zealand as a game-developing destination. In Wellington, and all over the country, it seems there’s a whole lot of shaking going on.

Smitten by New Zealand’s small and smart brand of smack-handed fun, international games publishers who couldn’t be persuaded to visit NZ in 2000 now regularly come calling (three publishers visited in November 2007 alone). The largest ever New Zealand game deal signed between Sidhe Interactive and Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment is developing Speed Racer, a game based on the upcoming movie from the Matrix-making Wachowski Brothers. Game and movie will be globally released in 2008 simultaneously. Slick.

Sources: New Zealand Game Developers’ Association, NZTE

Teeth were cut on ‘work for hire’ projects, but generating original content is now where New Zealand’s small and smart brand of creativity is coming into its own. Educational and ‘serious’ games are growth sectors—school students learn how to run businesses, restaurant workers get Food Standards training. Games technology, style and accessibility combined with serious education modules make Monopoly seem like child’s play.

The flavour of New Zealand-generated content of digital games is increasingly small, handheld, and sold over the Internet directly to consumers. This is long tail economics in action. It’s all playing right into our hands.

Jason Smith is a PhD scholar at AUT University specialising in the creative economy. He lives on the shores of the Kaipara Harbour where life is just one big game