Industry of Imagination: New Zealand game designers join international experts
Ashen's faceless characters are being built here in New Zealand.
A homegrown gaming company that started out in a Featherston garage will join international sci-fi, fantasy and pop-surreal artists in Wellington this week.
Aurora44, who secured a deal with Xbox for their not-yet-released game Ashen, will share expert advice at the Industry of Imagination Conference at Massey University this Saturday, alongside other local and international experts on how to create imaginary worlds for film, television, publishing and games.
Aurora44's success story has been seen as a blueprint for other young game designers wanting to break into the industry.
Chief executive Derek Bradley said Ashen, a third-person, action role-playing game about forging relationships, was leading the way in New Zealand game development. "Nothing quite like this has ever been made in New Zealand – it's very much a polished console Xbox title," said Bradley.
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Bradley and his creative director Leighton Milne started out their business in 2013. They left their artist roles at Weta Workshop, where they worked on creating landscapes such as those in The Hobbit, and set to work on a video game from their garage.
The Aurora44 team, who keep their faces in the trend of their characters on the set of Ashen.
From there, the ball started rolling. Aurora44 moved into Avalon Studios (where Sir Peter Jackson filmed his 1992 gore film Braindead) and has since expanded to 30 employees, securing funding from Microsoft to release its game exclusively with XBox.
"Our role in the industry in general – you could say we are quite a young company. We're in quite a unique position where we are quite young and feisty. We like trying new things. We like pushing the boundaries of what's possible but, at the same time, we are in a very fortunate position where we have the resources to do that sort of thing and to really go for it," Bradley said.
"Part of our role is also to be role models to show people, 'hey if we can do it, you can do it too'.
A preview image of Upper Hutt game developer Aurora44's first Xbox game, Ashen.
"Certainly a big part of what we do is to show people that they can do it. So if there are the right people out there with the drive to make their own studios, we'll provide a bit of a blueprint as to how you can get such a thing going."
Game development is a promising industry that has already been ticked as a key contributor to a successful New Zealand economy.
Queensland's Bond University professor Jeffrey E Brand has studied the use of gaming in New Zealand since 2010.
Aurora 44 CEO Derek Bradley.
In his report, Digital New Zealand 2016, he found there were 568 full-time high-tech game development jobs, including 134 new jobs on the market in the 2015 financial year.
The industry had a $78.5 million revenue in 2015 – a massive hike from 2012's revenue of just $19.5 million.
In Wellington alone, mobile game developers PikPok, Dinosaur Polo Club and Camshaft Software are making massive names for themselves, as well as Carterton's Morepork Games and Dunedin's Rocketwerkz.
Sir Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings kicked off a world of fantasy thriving in New Zealand.
"Gaming is very much an international business – everything lives or dies on the international market - but I think New Zealand's relevance for games is that we have a highly skilled population as a result of places like Weta being around," Bradley explained.
One of the challenges that faced the industry was finding experts for their highly specific needs.
"Immigration is a tough one. With gamers being such a specialised field, we can find good programmers, we can find good artists, but then there will be really specialised skills that come along with it," said Bradley.
A preview image of Upper Hutt game developer Aurora 44's first Xbox game, Ashen.
"If you want somebody who's got 10 years experience, it's just impossible to find in New Zealand. Or, if you want to find a really good combat designer, for example, well, there are not a lot of combat games being made. There's a whole bunch of iPhone games being made, but you can't really hire someone out of that to be a senior combat designer, for example.
"We've got a couple of international people here now and the amount of knowledge that our team get from them is amazing, even just from them coming from other studios and seeing other programmes. For us, just getting that really vital perspective from other studios and keeping up to date [is important]."
Industry of Imagination founder, creative director Paul Tobin, who is also Weta Workshop's senior concept designer, said the creative and imaginary worlds had become big business and hoped this weekend's second Imagination conference would draw even more interest from both local and international artists.
Paul Tobin at the Imaginary Worlds exhibition in Upper Hutt in 2015.
"There has been a real struggle to find local talent at the level we need," he said.
Last year's conference had just a couple of sponsors, but this year organisers have attracted many more.
"We're starting to pull in companies from up and down the country," Tobin said.
A screenshot from a zombie survival game DayZ, which was developed by Dunedin based Rocketwerkz.
"This could be become an Australasian event – that's the level of potential I think we have."
American science fiction and fantasy writer and painter Wayne Barlow will be speaking at the event, as well as concept artist Vance Kovacs (known for his work on The Jungle Book, Batman vs Superman and God of War).
Other international guest artists include Pixar Animation Studios senior designer Armand Baltazar and New York-based artist Tara McPherson, who will share their advice and stories, alongside New Zealand artists such as Weta Workshop co-founder Richard Taylor, cinematographer and creative designer Alex Funke and pop-surreal artist, concept designer and modelmaker Garry Buckley.
Sir Richard Taylor will speak at this weekend's Industry of Imagination
Bradley said Sir Peter Jackson's success in the industry is a clear indicator that building an empire on this side of the world was possible.I think the profile of the industry is really important for New Zealand and definitely the Industry of Imagination is key to making sure people know about New Zealand," he said.
"If you have an idea which is a valuable commodity and you have the skills to execute it – you'll find a way."
Industry of Imagination is sponsored by NZ ComicCon, Weta Workshop, Massey University College of Creative Arts, Weta Digital and Mechanic Animation.
Although Saturday is the main conference day, associated masterclasses and exhibitions are running from now until Sunday. For more information, see art-and-industry-of-imagination.co.nz
- Stuff
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