In New Zealand, 67% of the population plays video games, 46% of video game players are female and the average age of a video game player is 34. New Zealanders spend an average of 88 minutes a day playing video games. [1]
As of 31 March 2020, the New Zealand video game development industry employed 747 full-time game developers and New Zealand studios earned $323.9 million in revenue, of which 96% came from international audiences. [2] In addition, New Zealand consumers spent $501.4m on video games in 2019. [3] Despite the difference in population size, New Zealand game development is comparable to Australia's, in terms of revenue and employment. [4]
Industry bodies for video games in New Zealand include the New Zealand Game Developers Association, which supports video game developers, and the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association, which represents publishers and platforms.
New Zealand was an early adopter of the video game phenomenon, despite its remoteness. [5] Many Atari 2600 titles were assembled under licence by Monaco Distributors in Auckland. [6] New Zealand developed its own Pong-style game console, the Sportronic, in the late 1970s, as a result of import licensing laws. [7] [8]
The development of games in New Zealand was continued in the 1980s and 90s. Notable games include Laser Hawk , which was developed for Atari 8-bit computers in 1986 by Andrew Bradfield and Harvey Kong Tin, and Super Skidmarks , which was released for the Amiga in 1995 and was developed by Auckland-based company Acid Software.
Although a minor player in the global video gaming industry, New Zealand has had success with homegrown game developers. Sidhe, the largest game studio in New Zealand, have developed a number of sports games, including several titles in the Rugby League series. Dinosaur Polo Club developed Mini Metro . The action RPG Path of Exile , perhaps the best-known New Zealand game, was developed by Grinding Gear Games and released in 2013, enjoying international success. The video game series Bloons was made by the New Zealand company Ninja Kiwi.
The New Zealand Game Developers Association was formed in 2001 to support the development of games in New Zealand.
The New Zealand Game Developers Conference is held annually. [9] The New Zealand Games Festival [10] is held in Wellington around Easter each year and includes several events including the Play By Play conference and The Pavs, the New Zealand Games Awards. There are many regular Meetups in cities nationwide. [11]
The Game Masters exhibition was held at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa from 15 December 2012 through to 28 April 2013. The Arcade:Homegrown Video Games exhibition was held at Dowse Art Museum from 10 Nov 2012 – 24 Feb 2013 and then toured nationally. [12]
The rise of digital platforms has seen independent studios publish video games worldwide, including Rainbite and Screenshock Games, each consisting of developers trained at Media Design School in Auckland.
In 2003, Manhunt became the first video game officially banned in New Zealand. [13] In 2004, Postal 2 and its demo were banned on the basis of gross and abhorrent content. [14]
The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and the 32-bit 3DO Interactive Multiplayer that launched the same year. Powered by two custom 32-bit processors – Tom and Jerry – in addition to a Motorola 68000, Atari marketed it as the world's first 64-bit game system, emphasizing its 64-bit bus used by the blitter. The Jaguar launched with Cybermorph as the pack-in game, which received divisive reviews. The system's library ultimately comprised only 50 licensed games.
Ubisoft Reflections Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Founded in 1984 by Martin Edmondson and Nicholas Chamberlain, the studio focuses on racing games and it is best known for creating the award-winning Driver series. Reflections was acquired by GT Interactive in 1998 and sold to Ubisoft in 2006. The company works on AAA games in close cooperation with sister studio Ubisoft Leamington.
A video game clone is either a video game or a video game console very similar to, or heavily inspired by, a previous popular game or console. Clones are typically made to take financial advantage of the popularity of the cloned game or system, but clones may also result from earnest attempts to create homages or expand on game mechanics from the original game. An additional motivation unique to the medium of games as software with limited compatibility, is the desire to port a simulacrum of a game to platforms that the original is unavailable for or unsatisfactorily implemented on.
The New Zealand Game Developers Association (NZGDA) was founded in 2001. It was formed to support the video game development industry in New Zealand.
Germany has the second-largest video games player base in Europe, with 44.3 million gamers in 2018, after Russia. Consumers in Germany spent €5.87 billion on video games over the course of 2021, a 3 percent year-on-year increase from 2020. The video game market in Germany grew by 6 percent to €6.2 billion in 2019.
Atari SA is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Once one of the largest video game companies in the world through an acquisition policy under Infogrames, Atari SA dealt with continuing pressures and difficulty finding investors which led to the company seeking bankruptcy protection under French law in January 2013 while subsidiaries in the United States sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as well. Since 2020, the company has seen a turnaround with a new focus on dealing with re-releases of older titles and the acquisition of companies that deal with the re-release of mainly abandonware video games.
Video game development is a developing industry in the Ireland, with some government attempts made to encourage investment via tax breaks. Of the approximately €206 million spent by Irish people on video games in 2015, Irish game developers "[saw] little of this spend".
Russia has the largest video games player base in Europe, with an estimated 65.2 million players nationwide as of 2018. Even though piracy has been a great issue in the Russian gaming industry, the games market more than doubled in the past five years to over $2 billion in 2019.
Martin Kenwright is a British video game designer and the founder of British-based virtual and augmented reality innovation company vTime Limited, digital media, entertainment and technology company Starship, and video game development studios Digital Image Design (DID) and Evolution Studios. He created seminal computer games such as F29 Retaliator and EF2000. He is also responsible for the World Rally Championship franchise and PlayStation 3 launch title, MotorStorm, along with its respective franchise.
Video games are a rapidly growing industry in Thailand, with an average growth rate of 15% per year since 2017. In 2021, the Thai games market generated over a billion dollars, making it one of the highest-profile games markets in Southeast Asia. The number of gamers in Thailand has reached 32 million according to a report by Newzoo, an international games and esports analytics and market research group. And in 2022, Thailand was ranked among the top Southeast Asian video-game markets, with a revenue of US$1.24 billion that is forecasted to reach $1.4 billion in the same year.
Video gaming in Finland consists of video game industry of 260 active video game developer studios, roughly a dozen professional players and countless enthusiastic amateurs.
The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) is the industry association for computer and video games in Australia and New Zealand.
Video games in Turkey is a massive industry with many branches of it and also covers pastime in Turkey that includes the production, sale, import/export, and playing of video games.
The total value of Norwegian games industry was US$328 million in 2018. Norwegian games industry managed a turnover of $42 million in 2014. As of 2015, there are 140 companies in the whole sector with 565 people employed.
Poland is a major video game market and home to one of the largest video game industries in the world. In 2022, Poland became the world’s fourth largest exporter of video games and Polish publicly-traded gaming companies were worth over €12 billion. The game studios in the country employ around 10,000 people and release almost 500 new games annually.