Joy Keene: Game Developers Association Executive Director discusses rebate expansion to games industry.

Labour plans to expand rebate for game development industry.

Labour says that, if re-elected, they will expand the game development rebate, which gives Kiwi studios access to $40million a year to grow the industry.  

The subsidy currently covers 41 different game studios, and in the 2025 financial year $24million of the $40million was spent. 

Game Developers Association Executive Director Joy Keene told Ryan Bridge that, “the world can't get enough of New Zealand developed games.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Labour's keeping this policy, the policy train rolling, I should
say this time it's all about video games. If elected,
they plan to expand the game development Rebate, which gives
Kiwi studios access to forty million bucks a year to
grow the industry. Joe Joy rather Keen is executive director
of the Game Developers Association. With me this morning, Joy,
good morning, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
How are you very well?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Thank you? How many studios use the current subsidy.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
At the moment we have forty one studios accessing the subsidy.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
And is all the money, because I think it's up
to forty million a year, is all the money that's
currently on the table being taken up being used?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
No, not at all. So this particular well the twenty
twenty five financial year, we had twenty four million used
out of that forty million allocation.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Right, And is that because people there aren't enough companies
out there to actually take it or people don't know
about it.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
It's definitely more and not enough people qualify for it.
So we have a lot of developers that are small,
maybe one to three staff, that are turning over less
than two hundred dollars, and so they weren't able to
access the rebate based on that entry qualification right.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
And they will now be at well, assuming labor gets
into power then they would be eligible for it. What
constitutions gaming, What do you actually have to be doing?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
So it's actually game development, so it's the creation of
video games essentially, and it's an industry that's It's very interesting. Actually,
when you're making a video game, you don't normally have
any income at all, so it's very hard to make
a video game without money. And then once your game
is made and you release it to the world, then

(01:47):
you might make money. So what the rebate actually does
is it just helps give the studios a bit more
resource to be able to go off and make the
games and get them out there. We have a fabulous,
fabulous development agency called Code who helped the smaller studios
get ready for launching games and to ensure that they

(02:11):
are successful games very quickly.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
How many businesses have used it have been successful? Do
we know?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Oh? Actually most of them. So we have companies like
pick Park who are award winning developers, Dinosaur Polo Club,
Grindy Gear Games and they pass of Excel too, which
is New Zealand's most successful game at the moment, but
every game that comes out just really seems to resonate

(02:38):
and the world curn't good enough of New Zealand developed games.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Droy appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for being with me.
Joy Keen New Zealand Game Developers Association for more from
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