In offices all over Wellington, the tech scene is booming.

Monday, 19 May 2025

Pikpok is a Wellington-based game developer that is releasing a new game called Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days.

Behind doors in streets all over Wellington are technology companies making a difference.

In Willis St, people are playing online games flat out - they are testing PikPok’s latest offerings. In Ngauranga, Openstar is working with fusion energy while in Newtown, Goodnature is working out the best way to trap pests.

All are technology and science-based achievers housed around the capital city.

And it’s only a few of the tech-based companies around. Wellington has an above average concentration of knowledge-intensive jobs - 47.6% of the total workforce compared with the national average of 33%.

PikPok is a Wellington-based game developer which has released a new game called Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days. Senior games user researcher Jonathan Shirley plays the game.

Some which started in the capital city have gone on to take on the world, like accounting software company Xero or Fin-tech startup Hnry.

TechWeek starts on Monday. The biggest technology festival in the country will see big and small businesses celebrating their techness with events run around the country.

In Wellington on Tuesday a Working in the Cloud careers day will offer students the chance to get up close to tech for cyber security, gaming and AI.

Wellington will also be hosting a two-day summit looking at how artificial intelligence is being adopted and used in creative industries..

PikPok CEO Mario Wynands says gaming is not exclusive to teenagers in dark bedrooms, games are on almost every device people have access to now.

Game developers PikPok have been around for 29 years, starting in a flat in Lower Hutt and now covering several floors in Willis St. The company has 200 staff.

CEO Mario Wynands said there had been a change in how the gaming industry was seen.

“When we started the company in the 90s, we were sort of scrambling, like, how do we find any money to kind of get this started, couldn't even get a bank overdraft the same level as our uni student overdraft. And when we approached what was Technology in New Zealand at the time, they said, video games were not technology. But certainly that has flipped on its head. “

PikPok released two games last month and it’s all about zombies or horses.

The first was Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days for PC, a zombie survival game that's been in development for 3½ years so far, which Wynands said was released as an early access programme.

“So it's putting out an unfinished version to actually elicit more feedback and work with the community to help get it to not only where we want it to be, but where it resonates with players.”

And also released was Rival Stars Horse Racing virtual reality edition.

Wynands said TechWeek was a chance to show that the games industry was a career or entrepreneurial opportunity.

Gaming wasn’t exclusive to teenagers in dark bedrooms, he said. “There's huge opportunity out there … games are on almost every device that people have access to these days.”

Dragonfly Data Science director Finlay Thompson says it’s not enough to get kids interested in tech and science careers, they also needed to find those careers in New Zealand.

He said they were seeing really supportive parents of children who were wanting to explore.

“Parents are saying, hey, you know, my kid is really into this, but I just don't understand what the opportunity is. So it's been great to see that kind of curiosity and that open mindedness to game development as a career. “

But it’s not enough to get the kids interested into technology and science, we need to keep them here too.

Dragonfly is a data science company in Wellington based around statistical analysis. Director of Data Science, Finlay Thompson said sadly, it was often young scientists who were deciding to head offshore.

“This is a real tragedy and also a little bit crazy. As a country we have educated them through school and university – with support of taxpayer funding – so it is only logical that we try and keep them until the stage where they can start giving back to the intellectual capital and wealth of the nation.”

He said encouraging kids into tech was a good idea for lots and lots of reasons but they needed the institutions and the broader environment to nurture and support them.

Meanwhile Thompson said he had seen a spike in interest from American scientists who wanted to come to New Zealand to work.

Where they used to see only a few inquiries a week, now they were getting several a day.

“New Zealand is home to some amazing scientists, but the cuts (to research funding) have really shocked our scientific community and this in turn is leading to an exodus of our best and brightest overseas, many of whom may never return. “

Thompson said with US scientists asking about New Zealand, there was a unique and immediate opportunity to to be a safe haven for leading US scientists.