New Zealand First is announcing today a funding commitment that will grow our Creative Industry sector, help grow our economy, and keep kiwi talent, skills and companies in New Zealand.
New Zealand First provided early support for the video gaming industry by investing $10 million from the Provincial Growth Fund into the Centre of Digital Excellence (CODE) based in Dunedin. CODE provides grants to local creators to build prototypes, establish new studios, and scale existing businesses. It also acts as an incubator, offering targeted workshops and commercial advice.
The Video Game industry is an often overlooked in the Creative Industry sector. New Zealand's Game Development Industry has hit $1 billion in annual revenue this year, a growth of 33.5% on the 2025 figures.
The Global Video Game industry at US$184 billion dwarfs both the US$33.9 billion Global Box Office and US$28.6 billion Global Music industries combined.
Video Games are now the largest entertainment industry in the world and New Zealand has an opportunity to massively benefit economically from that industry.
CODE has seen the establishment of 20 new studios, with one becoming so successful that its corporation tax paid in the last few years has paid for CODE's original provincial 6-year grant programme.
This is sustainable economic development, not a government hand-out.
The Gaming Development Sector Rebate (GDSR) is currently at $40 million per year and allows studios to grow and compete on the world stage, but we are currently limiting its use and we intend to remove that limitation so they can grow, build faster, and employ and retain our people in New Zealand.
In 2026 the rebate paid out $21.9 million to local studios and returned $213 million in income tax and PAYE. The return to the Government is $9.73 for every dollar invested.
The issue is that the Gaming Sector has room to grow but because of limited settings of the Rebate our CODE supported local talent is being poached by Australia. Even though the industry has enjoyed massive growth over the last 5 years we risk stunting our industry's growth.
New Zealand First aims to double our economy by 2050 and in order to do so we have to support successful domestic industries to reach that target.
That is why we are announcing today that we will:
- Improve the Gaming Development Sector Rebate scheme. We will:
- Increase the GDSR that studios can receive from 20% to 40% to support accelerated growth to $3billion in export revenue by 2030 and much higher than that by 2050.
- Increase the amount Gaming Studios can claim from $3 million to $10 million. This will allow our largest studios to continue to grow jobs in New Zealand and keep our sector graduates onshore.
- Increase the annual appropriation of the Gaming Development Sector Rebate from $40 million to $45 million by 2028 to further support the growth of the sector.
- Lower the threshold that Gaming Studios can start claiming from $250,000 to $150,000 to allow smaller studios to start developing earlier.
In order to secure the future development of local creators we are also committing to:
- Funding certainty for the Centre of Digital Excellence (CODE)
- We will provide funding certainty for CODE by baselining its current budget of $5m per annum to ensure that the Gaming sector has certainty year on year.
- We will also commit to expanding its budget to $7m by 2028 to ensure that we have the talent needed for a growing Video Game Sector.
CODE secures the future pipeline of studios and skilled workers for the industry, and some will grow, with the support of the GDSR programme, into the big, successful studios of the future to accelerate our industry from a billion to three billion dollars of revenue by 2030.
New Zealand First is the only party that is encouraging and planning for the growth of our economy.
