Covid helping NZ crack billion-dollar gaming market
Monday, 18 January 2021
Covid might have been ‘’game over’’ for some industries, but for one it has been ‘’game on’’.
New Zealand’s gaming sector is working towards being a billion-dollar industry by 2025 and it appears lockdowns around the globe have given that a significant boost, says industry leader Chelsea Rapp.
The sector surged an incredible 59 per cent in the 2020 financial year, with $324 million in sales of New Zealand-made games for PCs, consoles and mobile devices, and augmented and virtual reality programmes for education and training.
About 96 per cent of those sales were exports, according to recently released industry figures.
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Rapp, chairperson of the New Zealand Game Developers Association, said that financial boost helped create more than 140 new jobs last year for programmers, designers, artists, writers and composers.
They were kept busy working from home, creating games for many people around the world stuck in pandemic-inspired lockdowns.
“The industry is very mobile, it was very easy for developers and artists and the like all to quickly work from home, and we didn’t have any disruptions in our pipelines - people still played games.”
Lockdowns meant more people around the world were exposed to games for entertainment, she said.
“There are a lot more people who have probably never played games before or … others who are playing them more now.
“You had these people who had to find new ways to entertain themselves, and games are so accessible that they became the most obvious option.”
Especially mobile games, played on phones and tablets.
“Mobile games have grown faster than any of the other platforms in the past few years.”
A survey of the industry is predicting studios to build on that momentum. It found 49 per cent of firms predicted significant growth this year, with just 17 per cent tipping a decline in sales.
“I have heard from a lot of studios that they have grown during Covid … a lot of us believe that is not just a temporary fact, that the people who started playing games as a result of being stuck at home are not going to give that up once they’re back in their normal lives.”
Wellington-based PikPok is one studio forecasting growth.
It has been going for close to 24 years, making it New Zealand’s oldest game development firm, and one of its most successful.
Its games, including Agent Intercept and the Into the Dead series, have been downloaded more than 350m times.
Chief Financial Officer Lance Burgess said the company saw an unprecedented 30 per cent jump in revenue between February and May, as the world stalled in the grip of Covid-19.
Much of that came from in-game purchases and advertising.
“We put that down to there being little entertainment options for people,” he said. “They were stuck at home, they couldn't even leave the house. That directly led to an increase in gaming.”
And an increase in staff for the company.
PikPok hired 30 people last year, growing its workforce by 20 per cent.
“Covid has given us some opportunities to employ people coming back to New Zealand.”
He said the only way was up, despite revenue being hit by a weakened US dollar and Covid-19 border restrictions limiting access to experienced employees.
“Because we are able to operate normally I think the industry is going to continue to flourish, but that does rely on there being interest in the games, and I think Covid will keep that up.”