Latest / Best of Business / Joy Keene: Game Developers Association Executive Director discusses rebate expansion to games industry.

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Joy Keene: Game Developers Association Executive Director discusses rebate expansion to games industry. · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZEDB. Follow this
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  Speaker 2: Labour's keeping this policy and the policy train rolling. I
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  Speaker 2: should say this time it's all about video games. If elected,
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  Speaker 2: they plan to expand the game Development Rebate, which gives
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  Speaker 2: Kiwi studios access to forty million bucks a year to
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  Speaker 2: grow the industry. Joe Joy rather Keen is executive director
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  Speaker 2: of the Game Developers Association with me this morning, Joy, good.
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  Speaker 3: Morning, good morning. How are you very well?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you? How many studios use the current subsidy At.
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  Speaker 3: The moment we have forty one studios accessing the subsidy.
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  Speaker 2: And is all the money, because I think it's up
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  Speaker 2: to forty million a year, is all the money that's
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  Speaker 2: currently on the table being taken up being used?
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  Speaker 3: No, not at all. So this particular well the twenty
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  Speaker 3: twenty five financial year, we had twenty four million used
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  Speaker 3: out of that forty million allocation.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And is that because people there aren't enough companies
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  Speaker 2: out there to actually take it or people don't know
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  Speaker 2: about it.
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  Speaker 3: It's definitely more and not enough people qualify for it.
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  Speaker 3: So we have a lot of developers that are small
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  Speaker 3: maybe one to three staff that are turning over less
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  Speaker 3: than two hundred thousand dollars and so they weren't able
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  Speaker 3: to access the rebate based on that entry qualification.
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  Speaker 2: Right, and they will now be at well, assuming labor
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  Speaker 2: gets into power, then they would be eligible for it.
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  Speaker 2: What constitutes gaming, what do you actually have to be doing?
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  Speaker 3: So it's actually game development, So it's the creation of
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  Speaker 3: video games essentially, and it's an industry that's it's very interesting. Actually,
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  Speaker 3: when you're making a video game, you don't normally have
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  Speaker 3: any income at all, so it's very hard to make
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  Speaker 3: a video game without money. And then once your game
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  Speaker 3: is made and you release it to the world, then
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  Speaker 3: you might make money. So what the rebate actually does
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  Speaker 3: is it just helps give the studios a bit more
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  Speaker 3: resource to be able to go off and make these
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  Speaker 3: games and get them out there. We have a fabulous,
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  Speaker 3: fabulous development agency called Code who helped the smaller studios
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  Speaker 3: get ready for launching the games and to ensure that
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  Speaker 3: they are successful.
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  Speaker 2: Games very quickly. How many businesses have used it have
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  Speaker 2: been successful? Do we know?
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  Speaker 3: Oh? Actually most of them. So we have companies like
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  Speaker 3: pick Park who are award winning developers Dinosaur Polo Club,
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  Speaker 3: Grindy Gear Games. They made Path of Excel too, which
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  Speaker 3: is New Zealand's most successful game at the moment. But
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  Speaker 3: every game that comes out just really seems to resonate
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  Speaker 3: and the world can't get enough of New Zealand developed games.
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  Speaker 2: Droy appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for being with me.
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  Speaker 2: Joy keen New Zealand Game Developers Association.
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