New Zealand's digital game development sector is growing at a rapid pace, despite a lack of government support for creative start-ups with big ideas.
Photo: 123RF
Sweden-based e-sports and gaming group MTG bought New Zealand's Ninja Kiwi for $NZ266 million, this week.
The game had more than 140m downloads since it was launched more than 10 years ago.
Game Developers Association director Steven Knightly said Ninja Kiwi is part of a first generation of professional digital game developers who have made it to the big time.
"One of the reasons for Ninja Kiwi's success and the other New Zealand game studios' success is they embraced digital distribution really early, about 10 years ago," he said, adding that Ninja Kiwi got into the market when the Apple iPhone was released.
"So they were all smart business people as well as incredibly creative."
However, Knightly said that timing was not on the side of the next generation of game developers.
He said the government was yet to recognise the game industry's $320m annual contribution to the economy, with exports accounting for 96 percent of that income.
"They are games that are made here, and then sold and exported all around the world to millions of customers," Knightly said.
"One of the shames is, if you're a smart entrepreneurial game developer who wants to be like Ninja Kiwi in five or 10 years time, there's no government support for you to start off your own company," he said.
"None of the support that the government puts into arts and culture, or film and TV is accessible to digital creative companies."
He said the industry had been lobbying government to support the digital arts but was yet to see any financial support.
In the meantime, Knightly said the industry was working to support fledging developers, but it was difficult to get the funds required to develop a project to pitch to publishers and investors, with costs running to about $100,000.
Despite the hurdles, he said there were still plenty of young developers keen to get a start, with 26 recent entries vying for the $25,000 grand prize in this year's Kiwi Game Starter competition.
Knightly said the not-for-profit industry association began the annual Kiwi Game Starter competition in 2014 to identify and support the best of upcoming New Zealand game development talent.
In addition to the Kiwi Game Starter competition, the organisation runs an annual game developers conference and mentoring programme, with a membership of more than 3000 individual members and 50 game studios.
He said the industry had annual growth of 46 percent over the past six years and was expected to create 150 new jobs over the next year.
Knightly said the government needed to support the sector as part of an overall shift to a technology led economy.