Games, Girls and Graphics - the event

G3 Games, Girls and Graphics
Opening of the event: Mayor Dick Hubbard
Talked about Auckland city wants to encourage the creative industry and is working to upgrade broadband in the central city. Showed background information on what the want to achieve with the auckland strategy that has just been approved. As a city we want to support, support the needs, requirements of the creative industry. At the moment there is only 2-4% of Girls in the IT industry, want to see this grow. To be able to understand and foster the relationships of different digital industries. Auckland is a lifestyle city. If auckland wants to attract top creative industry they have to promote themselves as a creative city. Auckland city wants to put emphasis on event promotion and have the top events. Auckland city, creative and innovative beat.

Fresh Kiwi thinking
Overview of the New Zealand Game Industry
Mario, President of the NZGDA

There are a number of companies in New Zealand who are in Game Design, and game development, all types of game development is being created, from console, handhelds and computer games. This is a very diverse area.

There is industry support in New Zealand.
NZGDA - New Zealand Game Developers Association
Multiple Game Development Courses, Massey, and Otago, Media design school in auckland.
Multiple Academics Undertaking Research, games and usability, game development.
Government Support, Auckland City Council in funding this event, and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
Media, Amateur, Grass Roots, Interest, this is a new art form that we need to push forward to the world.

We have had early success in the game industry, We are developing new and innovative Intellectual Property (IP)
Some have been
PS3 Gripshift which received 2 IGN Honors
PSP Cube
PC Chocolate Castle, Darwin the Monkey, The Kitchen
Largest ever NZ Game deal signed, however the release date is yet to be confirmed.
The third year of graduates coming out of the media design school.
G3 Event, without a number of people this event would never have taken place.
There is more success to come, more games in all consoles and devices are being developed and will continue to be developed.

Opportunities
Strong creative and innovation is happening in all areas
Collaborative potential within the industry and with film/tv/music
Digital Distribution, being able to distribute through the internet without having to find publishers, games go to the market, easier, faster than ever before.
Rapidly expanding Asian markets
Increased interest form investors, they did not understand the business model before, now investment capital is happening.
Links to research capability, universities, individual, they are able to get to the heart of gaming, what it is about, usability...

Challenges
Losing currency value advantage, kiwi dollar used to be 45c, now we are looking at 80c there is starting to be some difficulty with certain markets
Lack of depth to business development experience, the industry in New Zealand is really only 10 years old.
Foreign relationships expensive to build.
Difficult scaling, more jobs than people. In the 1990’s there were 3-4 companies, in 2007 there are hundreds of companies.
The skills sets are the same for a number of industries, film, visual effects, the pool is drying up. Companies competing for the good quality graduates.
Content is key.
Technology is not an issue. Using other peoples engines(middleware) means that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.