The booming local electronic gaming sector is hoping its first conference this weekend will prompt a new breed of Kiwi game developers to help keep the industry growing.
About 230 industry players are expected to attend the New Zealand Game Developers Association (NZGDA) Conference today, at the Media Design School in Auckland.
The local games industry grew 46%, or by 114 jobs, last year and there were about 450 full-time game development jobs in the country, NZGDA chairman Stephen Knightly said.
"What's great is there's now such a depth of talent in New Zealand and it's all about sharing knowledge with those who are starting out," he said.
"Kiwi developers are really creative. We can do a game efficiently but still add the professionalism and creativity to it that's missing in some markets overseas."
Gaming was "a serious business", Mr Knightly said.
"These are high-tech, high-export jobs, and the games industry is pioneering new business models."
He said 99% of games developed in New Zealand were for international markets.
The challenge was to help more Kiwi developers become more than one-hit wonders, he said.
That could soon become more likely. The Auckland Media Design School is waiting on final NZQA approval to run two bachelor degrees, the bachelor of software engineering (game programming) and bachelor of creative technologies (game art).
If approved, both would start this August.
