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Joy Keene: Game Development Association Executive Director on the impact of the rebate · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Our video game sector is having a major boom. Jobs
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and game development have increased twenty and a half percent
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  Speaker 1: over the past year. That's just a year now. This
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  Speaker 1: is due to a government tax rebate scheme that allowed
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a number of studios to claim back twenty percent of
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: their spend. So Joy Keen is the executive director of
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  Speaker 1: the New Zealand Game Developers Association and joins me now.
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  Speaker 2: Hallo JOI, helloa, good morning. How are you.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Greg You guys are great. I mean, that's quite
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  Speaker 1: incredible growth, isn't it.
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  Speaker 2: It's absolutely phenomenal growth. We are so pleased with the
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  Speaker 2: results of what the GENS has been able to do
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  Speaker 2: for the industry.
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  Speaker 1: Why New Zealander so good at making video games?
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  Speaker 2: I love answering this question. I think game development is
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  Speaker 2: a rule, is quite a passionate industry and we've got
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  Speaker 2: a lot of experience here, especially when you take into
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: account we will workshop for example, There's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: talent that's come out of here and has naturally fallen
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  Speaker 2: from animation into game development.
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  Speaker 1: So this tax rebate that gives you the times to
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  Speaker 1: get back twenty percent of your spend. Many other industries
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  Speaker 1: would love something like that, but how good has it
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  Speaker 1: been for your sector? Can you continue with it or
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  Speaker 1: should it even be increased? Oh?
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  Speaker 2: Look, I think to answer the first question, how good
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  Speaker 2: has it been for it's been phenomenal. A couple of
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  Speaker 2: years ago, just before the rebate was announced, we saw
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  Speaker 2: a lot of New Zealand studios looking to move to
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  Speaker 2: Australia because of the rebate scheme there. So it's been
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  Speaker 2: a game changer. The gs rebate has been able to
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  Speaker 2: stem that movement overseas over to Australia. But also, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: would we like it increased? Well, of course we would.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody would like funding to be increased. But we think
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  Speaker 2: that increasing the GDSR to twenty five from twenty percent
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  Speaker 2: in line with the screen production rebate as a no brainer. Basically,
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  Speaker 2: the matching that screen production rebate is an additional benefit
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  Speaker 2: to businesses who are showing a direct economic benefit, and
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  Speaker 2: we believe our studios actually show that.
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  Speaker 1: So where to from here? Can you get bigger?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we can get bigger. Look, we're on track to
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  Speaker 2: become a billion dollar industry. Last year, our total and
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  Speaker 2: so let we start again. Gosh, so really our total
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  Speaker 2: export revenue was five hundred and forty eight million dollars.
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  Speaker 2: We know we're going to be a billion dollar industry
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  Speaker 2: very very soon. So that's where we're heating.
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  Speaker 1: Good work joy and I thank you very very much.
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  Speaker 1: They get a twenty percent rebate. The other day I
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  Speaker 1: reported that EWEO authorities play a seventeen point five percent tax,
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  Speaker 1: and they've shocked a lot of people. They seem not
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  Speaker 1: to know that. And we've talked about the incredible growth
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  Speaker 1: of the Maria economy. So here you go where you
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  Speaker 1: do some tax rebates. When you have a favorable corporate
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  Speaker 1: tax environment, you spur on industries. But the government's not
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  Speaker 1: considering that for all.
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  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:14
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• 3:17
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