Archive for the ‘gaming’ Category

Government to aid New Zealand tech firms in entering global markets

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013
Photo credit; Walknboston on Flickr

Photo credit; Walknboston on Flickr

The New Zealand government aims to assist Kiwi tech companies grow and compete in the global market by investing more than NZ$3 million over the next three years to take advantage of the opportunity created by the global boom in demand for digital technologies, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce said recently.

“The digital economy contributed over NZ$2 billion  in export earnings last year, and exports of computer and information services have grown at over 10 percent per annum between 2002 and 2012. Almost 75 percent of revenue from the New Zealand’s top 100 tech companies comes from international markets,” Joyce said in a statement.

“More than 62,000 people are already employed in our wider ICT sector and our investment will help create significant additional export revenues over the next four years.”

The Digital Technology High Impact Program would target support to firms working in the areas of software as a service (SAAS), web services, software development, gaming development, post production, animation and mobile technology.

Joyce also announced new repayable government grants of up to NZ$450,000  per company would be invested in start-up technology companies.

To read more about this story, click here.

Spending $6 million USD on a virtual planet

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

It seems unbelievable, but the virtual planet Calypso on the Entropia Universe social media site  sold for $6 million USD.

What would be the point of owning a virtual planet? Well, real life businesses are beginning to understand the value of online gaming networks, and are investing in virtual worlds at a rapidly increasing rate.  Also, owning a virtual planet allows you to tax players to own ‘homes’ or play on the planet.

In the USA, the virtual goods market overall will reach $US2.1 billion this year!

The Stuff.co.nz article has more info for those would-be investors.