The New Zealand government will back the local games industry with a NZ$10m ($6.4m) investment.

As announced by the government, the country’s new Centre for Digital Excellence (CODE) is in the city of Dunedin.

CODE is set to lead New Zealand’s games industry into being worth $1 billion.

Last year, the country earned NZ$143 million ($93m)  - growing 39 per cent year-on-year since 2013 - however, globally the games industry is worth $159 billion.

The $10 million funding from the government will come from the Provincial Growth Fund, which will be invested in various initiatives - to both develop the games industry and create new employment opportunities.

Thriving on innovation

“Dunedin has a long history of innovation and is already home to increasing numbers of successful, internationally recognised tech businesses – including video game development studios RocketWerkz and Runaway,” said Dunedin mayor Aaron Hawkins.

“We have a thriving and collaborative start-up community supported by first-class tertiary education providers. The industry’s need for storytellers, artists and designers, taps into our city’s growing creative economy. The city-wide, one-gigabit per-second fibre digital connectivity is another plus.”

CODE Working Group Chair, Murray Strong added: “The game development industry thrives on innovation and creative problem-solving, and gives workers highly transferable skills.

“CODE provides people in Dunedin and beyond with the prospect of exciting, innovative work and business opportunities with international reach.”