Time to attract talent (+ video)

Dean Hall has big plans for his Dunedin games studio. Photos: Peter McIntosh
Dean Hall has big plans for his Dunedin games studio. Photos: Peter McIntosh
University of Otago student and intern Jayde Cohen trials the HTC vive — a virtual reality head...
University of Otago student and intern Jayde Cohen trials the HTC vive — a virtual reality head-mounted display.
This screenshot shows a virtual reality ideas being worked on by two University of Otago interns...
This screenshot shows a virtual reality ideas being worked on by two University of Otago interns at RocketWerkz.
This screenshot shows a virtual reality ideas being worked on by two University of Otago interns...
This screenshot shows a virtual reality ideas being worked on by two University of Otago interns at RocketWerkz.

The star games developer behind rapidly expanding Dunedin games studio RocketWerkz plans to hire an extra 50 staff this year as he prepares to start work on his next global hit. Vaughan Elder investigates.

The brains behind a blockbuster zombie game has settled on Dunedin as the base for his games studio after overcoming a rocky start in the city.

Dean Hall, originally of Oamaru, set up his studio, called RocketWerkz, after the massive success of DayZ, which has sold nearly 4 million copies.

A few early hiccups meant he had questioned his decision to base himself in Dunedin but, after moving into an office in Wharf St in July and getting hooked up with gigabit fibre, he is now excited about working in the city and is preparing to start work on his next global hit.

The studio was rapidly expanding, growing to 17 staff from a handful last year, with plans to hire an extra 50 this year.

‘‘It's going way better than expected here in Dunedin,'' he said.

Mr Hall's excitement about making video games is clear as he walks round his Dunedin office and talks to his staff - who are mostly recent graduates in their first video game job.

His vision is to follow in the footsteps of some of the biggest game studios in the world - he mentions Rockstar Games, of Grand Theft Auto fame, as an example of the kind of success he is looking for.

Until now, the focus has been on building the studio rather than building games but now the studio was preparing to start on a ‘‘triple-A'' game - the industry term for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion.

To do that, the studio would need to hire about 50 staff in Dunedin this year, including people with experience working on massive games around the world.

‘‘I think that there is a real chance for us to make games much bigger than DayZ.''

Some of the new staff could be from Gameloft's Auckland studio, which closed last month with the loss of about 160 jobs.

His newfound confidence in Dunedin follows initial doubts about the city's high-speed internet and a stoush with Immigration New Zealand over attracting international talent.

Since then, he had been impressed with the value Dunedin offered when it came to things such as renting office space.

This made the city a much better place to do business than somewhere like Auckland.

‘‘If I was going to open a studio and I had to chose between Auckland or somewhere else, I would chose Los Angeles because it would be cheaper and there is a bigger pool of talent.''

The cheaper cost of living was an attraction for staff.

‘‘A couple of people we brought down from Auckland after graduating media design school, they actually bought their first house.

‘‘There is not a lot of places left in the world where you can do that.''

While committed to Dunedin, he was still keen to eventually open two divisions, with the Dunedin office focused on fresh talent and a second office in Queenstown focused on attracting talent from around the world.

For the studio to grow and begin work on a triple-A game, experienced staff who had worked on massive games before were needed.

‘‘The problem that we have is that we have two options: either we steal experienced people from other companies in New Zealand, or we bring them in from overseas.

‘‘We believe that cannibalising other studios in New Zealand is not a good idea for the long term.''

On that front, the studio was working through issues dealing with Immigration New Zealand when it came to attracting staff from overseas, he said.

‘‘We feel like we are in a long-term battle with the immigration thing but I don't think we are the only ones.''

Among the staff they were trying to attract was a ‘‘very senior'' person who had worked on ‘‘one of the biggest games released in the last few years''.

The senior staff member - whom he would not name - was brought over to Dunedin for a visit and fell in love with the donuts at cafe Nova.

‘‘The donuts were a significant recruitment tool,'' Mr Hall joked.

As the studio ramps up towards working on its triple-A game, its staff were working on ‘‘quite modest'' games that would break even with the sale of about 30,000 units.

The fresh talent at the studio was bolstered by the calming presence of two office kittens, both of which have been given suitably geeky names.

One is called Princess Zelda, from the The Legend of Zelda video game series and the other is called Ellie Rey - after Ellie, a character in the game The Last of Us, and Rey, the lead in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

In a room tucked away at the end of a hallway, two interns from the University of Otago are experimenting with some of the latest virtual reality hardware - the HTC Vive, which is yet to be released to the public and is only in the hands of select games developers.

vaughan.elder@odt.co.nz

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement