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Speaker 1: Our video game sector is having a major boom. Jobs

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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

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Speaker 1: a number of studios to claim back twenty percent of

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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

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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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