Bigger than wool: New Zealand’s journey to make video games its most famous export

gamesindustry.biz:

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Two weeks ago, the New Zealand government announced a new 20% tax rebate for game development studios as part of its budget 2023.

Ginny Anderson, New Zealand's minister for digital economy and communications, said in the announcement that the rebate will be available for studios who meet the minimum expenditure threshold, which is NZ$250,000 (US$150,000) per year.

"Individual studios will be able to receive up to NZ$3 million [US$1.8 million] per year in rebate funding, and the scheme will be backdated to 1 April 2023," she further explained. "The rebate will help attract and retain gaming studios to operate in New Zealand and provide a long-term incentive to build their business here."

The country's games industry had been hoping for a tax relief scheme for a long time, and it has been an ongoing battle for its trade bodies. Prior to this announcement, we talked to Chelsea Rapp, chairperson of the New Zealand Game Developers Association (and head of strategy at Cerebral Fix). Incidentally, Rapp had met with Ginny Anderson just prior to our interview.

"We've been campaigning like mad for the last year to try to get this across the line because if we don't do it this year, it's going to be really challenging for studios to recover," she tells GamesIndustry.biz about the tax rebate. "So many of our studios are saying, 'Well, if we don't get it this year, my only option is to set up a studio in Australia because the labour pool is bigger'."

Competing with Australia is one of the biggest issues currently facing the games industry in New Zealand. As reported by RNZ earlier this year, Kiwi talent is regularly poached by the neighbouring country