RocketWerkz founder, CEO and games developer Dean "Rocket" Hall (38) was in town this week to touch base with his rapidly expanding games development "family", who now number 50 at its Wharf St studio, in only its fourth year of business.
There are also four in Auckland at present working in Mr Hall's apartment, until the company confirms its Auckland waterfront lease agreement.
Mr Hall said the expansion was in line with the company's focus on ensuring its status as a triple-A video game developer, meaning it was able to sustain multimillion-dollar game development budgets.
"That means upgrading our business, putting systems in place and doing a lot of what I'd consider to be dumb, corporate things," he said.
A major focus for the Oamaru-born tech entrepreneur has been on recruiting the right people.
"The programming and art generation elements of the gaming business have changed a lot over the past several years. There's a lot of automation and the computer does the heavy lifting, so our challenge is to find and attract diverse talent, people that are as good in the studio as they are engaging with customers."
That has resulted in the appointment of a new fulltime chief operating officer in Stephen Knightly, an experienced technology marketer and the former managing director of InGame.
Mr Knightly, a member of the NZ Game Developers Association, is a co-author of the just released Interactive Aotearoa report, suggesting New Zealand's tech sector was "uniquely placed" to take a bigger share of the $258billion global games market.
