Game-maker seeks adventurers

By RICHARD PAMATATAU

"Adventure capitalists" are needed for New Zealand's knowledge and technology-based entertainment industry to flourish.

That is the message from Rick Reimann, director of Takapuna console game developer Binary Star, which offered a taste of its Homeland product to game publishers and players this week.

Sixty-something Reimann was a general practitioner and vascular surgeon who migrated from Switzerland around 10 years ago.

Because of the cartel approach of New Zealand's medical establishment, he was unable to practise and has now become the money man behind son Thomas' business.

He is not regretting the shift as the company gets closer to releasing Homeland, a console game where a war is being fought over oil in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world.

But he is amazed at how venture capitalists behave when it comes to information technology and the entertainment sector.

"We looked for money from the usual sources, but we want people with an adventure capital way of thinking. Not venture capital people," he says.

"Venture capital, like the term angel investor, is just another way of saying shark," says Reimann, who has raised money for the project from his family and friends.

"There's nothing angelic about angel investors, and if something goes wrong they'll take you to the cleaners."

Venture capitalists have a "take mentality", he says, while adventure capitalists recognise that a project, while having some very well thought-out risks, also takes them on a journey and may make them money.

He's mum about just how much money has been put into the project, saying it's millions, but speculation points to around $3 million.

"Of course we are looking for more money, and if someone wants to talk to us we will listen, but they have to share our vision too."

That vision is for Homeland, to be released next year, to grab a significant share of the global video-gaming market, which Reimann says is worth almost $30 billion a year and growing.

Reimann says people must also realise that gamers are not just computer-geek boys - increasingly people over 30 and women are turning to a computer console game for fun and relaxation.

For that reason, the hero in this game is Ella, a pretty, assertive woman with big leadership skills.


Reimann has created a funding model where investors lend the company money with the hope that when the project is completed they will be paid back with significant interest.

"We are not looking to sell down the company, because all it is really is a collection of high-talented individuals working collaboratively on a project.

"Binary Star will create the entertainment, but it is the publisher we sign with who will do the rest because that organisation has the distribution networks and processes to put a product into the market."

Thomas Reimann, Binary Star managing director, says the company has 22 staff at the moment who are paid on a per day rate, the same way as many in the film industry.

Mario Wynands, president of the New Zealand Game Developers Association, says the progress made by Binary Star is fantastic.

"It's good to see them making some headway in a very competitive industry."

Wynands is also managing director of Wellington's Sidhe Interactive, which has had significant success with a rugby-based game and is poised to launch new titles including one involving rugby league star Stacey Jones.

Wynands says the industry is starting to grow from a few years ago, when there were about 30 people working in the sector.

That number is now over a hundred, he says, and kids looking to work as game developers will have places to work.

Wynands says other companies worth watching are Squash Software, Blue Boar and Metia Interactive.

"There's quite a lot going on."

A Trade and Enterprise New Zealand report in June 2003 was less optimistic about the games industry.

It said the local industry lacked cohesion and was not well integrated internally, although it was outwardly connected to the wider world of technology, creativity and game playing.

It implied that Kiwi developers needed to co-operate to gain "critical mass" before Government development agencies poured money into the "tiny" sector.

However, Wynands says much has happened since then and is optimistic about game development in New Zealand.


Binary Star

Squash Software

Metia