Hard News: The next creative industry?
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An interesting comment we've just received from Chris Butcher himself:
The primary thing that needs to develop in NZ is the ecosystem. If there’s only a few key innovators in a market, then it’s a precarious situation for people to move a long way. Whereas movies have a broad base of contract staff who are expecting to “just do one gig” and then move on, games take a lot longer to make and so your developers want to be able to settle in for the long haul. That means there needs to be a breadth of companies in a market, to offer stability and a safety net.
Growing such an industry is challenging. It requires governmental support, IMO – to identify champions, to establish programs of coordination between academia and industry, to provide seed funds for startups, to do international outreach, etc etc. I’m no expert in this. But the UK is trying a lot of innovative things in this area.
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Anyone have any thoughts on infrastructure? Beyond talent, market knowledge and capital (of the individual firms) does our location matter?
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Not especially, provided that we've got phat tubes. There can be downsides to juggling time-zones (I remember trying to get hold of an FBI agent in Atlanta once, and it took several days of phone tag before we connected), but there's no good reason why people can't adjust their day in NZ to start or finish with a couple of hours' overlap to the TZ of "home base"; though if home base is the UK things can get quite ugly.
Other than the tubs, though, we have the infrastructure. We have electricity, we have offices. We've even got something of a digital products hub in Albany. That's pretty much all that's required to allow the people to play the game. I'll get my coat.
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Our location can also be an advantage: we work while Europe and the US sleep, which means we can deliver first thing their morning. This is a plus in a number of time-sensitive situations.
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Timezones are handleable - lots of us work off shore but live in NZ (and yes we do want fat pipes to our homes) - for the US one simply gets up early or comes to an agreement with your client/customer/boss nominate some 'core hours' that anyone can meet
I know people who simply work night shift in London - and others who work in programming teams where no two people live in the same timezone
And then there's that whole other class of 20 something techno-nomads who have simply gone on the road and are sitting on a beach in Thailand right now, and will be in the Alps next month - providing places they can land for a month or two in NZ (with fat pipes) is a way to attract those dollars into our economy
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Would now be a good time to talk about licencing via c***r**** and s*ftw*re p*t**ts...?
No? I'll get me coat, then.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Don't make us break out the Thread of Doooooooom (patent pending, trademarked in 49 states plus Idaho, registered copyright)!
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Sky Siege was developed in NZ - an Augmented Reality iPhone app.
Of course it didn't take long for Lucas to rip it off...
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A 2009 report found potential for the local industry to grow from the present 300-odd employees to 2829
What an oddly precise prediction. Do they know their names or at least the job-titles too?
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Only for the first 1782.
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3410, in reply to
A 2009 report found potential for the local industry to grow from the present 300-odd employees to 2829
What an oddly precise prediction.
The apparent odd precision simply comes from having the imperial approximation of 4000 converted to a metric measurement.
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It's an homage to Starsiege
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could be that today's odd employees are worth many more future normal ones
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I suspect they may also be predicting $31,926,542 of flowthrough benefits into the economy.
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Speaking of which, guess whose copyright status has been infringed by the raving right male backlash wingnut/'phobe Chuck Bird?
To cite an article I did about Bruce Logan and his fall from the Maxim Institute five years ago:
"According to John Burrows and Ursula Cheer, Section 16 of the Copyright Act 1994 (New Zealand) means that the original creators and/or current license holders of particular works have sole right to copy works, issue copies to the public, or broadcast and adapt their original work. It cannot be copied, published or broadcast without their authorisation. Since 1892, Commonwealth law has held that this applies to newspaper articles. It is held in New Zealand law that this includes lifting parts of others work and incorporating them into work that is allegedly one's own, especially if the original work is the product of diligent research and hard labour. If copies are distributed, then that's even worse, according to Section 16 (1)(b) of the Copyright Act 1994.
What damages might ensue? If someone is found to have breached copyright, monetary penalties may be equivalent to the sum that the plaintiff might have charged if the defendant had sought permission as required by law. Exemplary damages may apply if the defendant profited from a deliberate and calculated act of copyright violation. As well as New Zealand's own copyright legislation, copyright is protected through our membership of two international copyright conventions, the Berne Convention (1886, revised 1979) and Universal Copyright Convention (1952; New Zealand ascension, 1964). "
Unfortunately, I've just found out Bird has done exactly the above. See:
www.nzcpr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1032 - ... Civic Responsibility, Gay Men and the Blood Donor Ban Posted by: Craig Young.
http://gaynz.com/blog/redqueen/archives/932http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/10/general_debate_29_october_2010.html
I know it's tangential to the gaming debate, although given that intellectual property (mine) is involved, perhaps not all that much. I don't particularly feel much like backing the Pirate Party at the moment, though...
Grrrr!
Craig Young -
Update: To his credit, Mr Farrar took prompt action and removed the offending section in question. Dr Newman has yet to respond to my email...
Craig Young
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Rich Lock, in reply to
Get in touch if you need the big guns.
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Further Update: Dr Newman has responded, and the Bird has flown the coop- er, I mean, been deleted. Game over, unless Mr Bird helps himself to some more of my intellectual property.
Craig Y
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
What, no level 85? You'll get ganked. The bitterness.
Now we're talking. Didn't take long either.
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