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Those not immersed in the world of gaming might not be familiar with Pax Australia: the enormous gaming conference and exhibition that takes over the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre every October. My favourite section is always Pax Rising, a showcase of indie video games and tabletop, the majority Australian – but there has been a recent shift that was particularly notable this year: many of the standout titles had crossed the Tasman, arriving from New Zealand.
At the booth run by Code – New Zealand’s government-funded Centre for Digital Excellence – 18 Kiwi developers demoed their forthcoming games in a showcase of the vibrant local scene that was buzzing with crowds. In the comedic Headlice, I controlled a parasitic headcrab monster which could latch on to people’s brains and puppet them. How Was Your Day?, a cozy time-loop game set in New Zealand, warmed my heart with its story about a young girl searching for her missing dog. And Killing Things With Your Friends, a co-operative multiplayer action game about surviving bizarre medical trials, had me pulling off my own arm to use as a weapon against enemy hordes.
Two years since the blockbuster success of Dredge, independent New Zealand games are having a moment. According to a survey from the New Zealand Game Developers Association (NZGDA), total revenue for local game developer studios has risen steadily each year since 2018, and between 2024 and 2025 it shot up 38% to NZ$759m (A$657m). That’s almost double the A$339.1m generated in Australia in 2024.
It’s a figure buoyed up by a few standout successes: Grinding Gear Games’ hit Path of Exile series reported revenue of NZ$105m between October 2024 and September 2025; PikPok, the studio behind the popular Into the Dead series and mobile hit Clusterduck, has achieved more than 500m worldwide downloads across all titles; and Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, Cryptmaster and Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers have all seen big numbers. Some of these projects benefited from the 20% rebate offered by funding body NZ On Air, which paid out $22.4m to 40 companies in 2024/25. But for smaller studios and fresh teams with no incoming investment, Code has become a vital pathway.
Code was established in late 2019 in Dunedin by New Zealand Labour, to service studios on the South Island. In 2022, the federal government invested in its expansion into a national program that administers funding to developers across the country but also educates them on best practices within the global industry. In their most recent funding round, close to NZ$960,000 was awarded across 13 studios and, in September, minister Shane Reti of the New Zealand National party pledged to more than double Code’s funding, offering an additional NZ$2.75m per year.
Many countries offer federal funding for game development. What makes Code unique is its focus on training developers to compete internationally, with a program that encompasses not just grants but mentorships and specialised skill workshops – how to talk to journalists and influencers, for instance; or how to budget, or port to consoles. Code also offers multiple streams of funding, from travel and initial kickstart funds through to large-scale grants – up to $250,000 – for teams that are ready to expand. The aim is to wean developers off Code, to make them self-reliant. “In this day and age, publishers and investors only want to engage with you when you have already got some degree of validation,” says Vee Pendergrast, development manager of Code. “We have that baked into the model.”
The global industry leaders brought for mentorships offer “a cheap solution to an expensive problem”, Pendergrast says. “Even if you’re paying them at consultancy rates, their skills go back into the ecosystem.”
According to Code’s own calculations, every dollar spent by them generates NZ$2.67 of investment back. And that was before the console release of Abiotic Factor, a Code-supported title from Deep Field Games that has sold more than 1.4m copies on PC alone.
On the floor at the Code booth at Pax, the developers had several things in common: their games looked good, they demoed well and their developers knew how to talk to the media. A personal favourite was Canvas City, a turn-based tactical combat rollerblading game. The studio behind it, Disc 2 Games, spun off from Black Salt Games, which created the Code-supported smash hit Dredge. Having Disc 2 separately funded by Dredge’s success allows them to try new things without needing to grow the original company.
“Code is a massive supporter of first-time developers,” the Black Salt chief executive and producer Nadia Thorne says; since Dredge was released, she has become a Code mentor. “A lot of indie studios wouldn’t be able to afford [coming to Pax for] this kind of exposure. Pooling together all those resources means that we’re able to come to a lot of shows that just would be out of reach otherwise.”
Jevon Wright has been working on their first game, Adaptory, for four years; the 2D survival game – where players look after a crew who have crash-landed in space and need to build a base to survive – is set to be released on Steam by the end of the year. They discovered Code midway through development and through it were able to tap into the wider New Zealand scene. “We all know each other,” they say. “And we’re all here to support each other.”
Will Adamson, who was demoing his game Apothecurse at Pax, also praised the collaborative nature of the scene: “We share ideas and experiences and contacts but also developers … there’s a real sense of community here.”
On Steam, NZGDA lists 61 upcoming New Zealand games coming to PC. It’s a high number for a small country but a drop in the ocean considering the 19,000 games that were released on Steam in 2024 alone. To stand out in a crowded market, the games showcased at Pax all offered something unique. “We get a lot of cool, quirky, Kiwi-oriented stuff,” Pendergrast says “That’s part of our whole brand.” Take Middle Management, for instance: an irreverent satire about office culture that involves a brain-draining octopus creature; or Dream Team Supreme, where two players fight monsters by piloting a two-headed robot using two decks of cards.
Not every Code-funded game will be a commercial hit, but that’s part of it too. “We’re really open to sharing our successes and failures, and what led to them,” Thorne says. “We’re just trying to make it easier for the next generation of developers coming through.”
