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Speaker 1: Labour's keeping this policy, the policy train rolling, I should

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Speaker 1: say this time it's all about video games. If elected,

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Speaker 1: they plan to expand the game development Rebate, which gives

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Speaker 1: Kiwi studios access to forty million bucks a year to

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Speaker 1: grow the industry. Joe Joy rather Keen is executive director

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Speaker 1: of the Game Developers Association. With me this morning, Joy,

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Speaker 1: good morning, good morning.

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Speaker 2: How are you very well?

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Speaker 1: Thank you? How many studios use the current subsidy.

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Speaker 2: At the moment we have forty one studios accessing the subsidy.

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Speaker 1: And is all the money, because I think it's up

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Speaker 1: to forty million a year, is all the money that's

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Speaker 1: currently on the table being taken up being used?

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Speaker 2: No, not at all. So this particular well the twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty five financial year, we had twenty four million used

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Speaker 2: out of that forty million allocation.

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Speaker 1: Right, And is that because people there aren't enough companies

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Speaker 1: out there to actually take it or people don't know

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Speaker 1: about it.

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Speaker 2: It's definitely more and not enough people qualify for it.

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Speaker 2: So we have a lot of developers that are small,

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Speaker 2: maybe one to three staff, that are turning over less

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Speaker 2: than two hundred dollars, and so they weren't able to

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Speaker 2: access the rebate based on that entry qualification right.

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Speaker 1: And they will now be at well, assuming labor gets

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Speaker 1: into power then they would be eligible for it. What

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Speaker 1: constitutions gaming, What do you actually have to be doing?

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Speaker 2: So it's actually game development, so it's the creation of

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Speaker 2: video games essentially, and it's an industry that's It's very interesting. Actually,

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Speaker 2: when you're making a video game, you don't normally have

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Speaker 2: any income at all, so it's very hard to make

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Speaker 2: a video game without money. And then once your game

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Speaker 2: is made and you release it to the world, then

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Speaker 2: you might make money. So what the rebate actually does

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Speaker 2: is it just helps give the studios a bit more

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Speaker 2: resource to be able to go off and make the

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Speaker 2: games and get them out there. We have a fabulous,

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Speaker 2: fabulous development agency called Code who helped the smaller studios

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Speaker 2: get ready for launching games and to ensure that they

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Speaker 2: are successful games very quickly.

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Speaker 1: How many businesses have used it have been successful? Do

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Speaker 1: we know?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Actually most of them. So we have companies like

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Speaker 2: pick Park who are award winning developers, Dinosaur Polo Club,

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Speaker 2: Grindy Gear Games and they pass of Excel too, which

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Speaker 2: is New Zealand's most successful game at the moment, but

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Speaker 2: every game that comes out just really seems to resonate

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Speaker 2: and the world curn't good enough of New Zealand developed games.

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Speaker 1: Droy appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for being with me.

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Speaker 1: Joy Keen New Zealand Game Developers Association for more from

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