CODE journeys to GDC
- laurenksaker
- Apr 17
- 3 min read
Supported by CODE's fifth national Travel Grant round, ten New Zealand studios attended GDC in San Francisco, USA, in March.
Eight teams presented at Representing Games 2025, a premier MeetToMatch event, and a further two service providers attended GDC seeking to connect with clients worldwide.
What were CODE’s key activities at GDC 2025?
Key Sponsorship of NZTE presence, including a co-working/meeting area 'Kiwi Spaces' and evening mixer event.
Representing Games showcase of eight teams to 45 publisher scouts and investors.
Many business meetings - building market intelligence and comparisons with other incubator and industry development programmes, liaising with publishers, platforms and investors to bring in contact with developers in the CODE cohort.
Pictured: NZ studios pitch at Representing Games at GDC - Mitch Duncan & Ali Evenbly (Teeto - Eat Pant Games); Sam Ramlu (How Was Your Day - Mad Carnival); Joe Simmonds (Match & Mastery - FourFox Interactive)
What were the outcomes?
For CODE, having the chance to compare notes with other incubators was particularly valuable. At the Economic Development Summit the key topics focused on audience validation, regardless of whether a developer is following a self-publishing or external publisher pipeline.
It was reported that out of 1,000 studios pitching to publishers, only 1.6 are currently securing signed deals, while CODE’s studio rate of success sits around 40%! It’s pretty apparent that the combination of CODE’s strong pitch training, international trade missions, conference preparations, marketing and PR workshops for NZ teams are proving invaluable.
“We spend a lot of time in preparation for events like GDC - months of planning, reviewing pitch decks, helping developers set meetings, working with our partner teams like NZTE and Representing Games - to set ourselves up for the success we hope to see. Despite challenging headwinds in the US, the outcomes outclassed our previous efforts with this event and that was really rewarding to see all that hard work come off and the momentum growing”, says Vee Pendergrast, CODE's Industry Development Manager.
About those games?
All of the teams are continuing talks with publishers from GDC, following up meetings with requests for pitch decks, demos and builds.
“The Lesser Key team had an amazing time at GDC! We met with great publishers and service providers, and have already had some positive follow-up from those chats. A real highlight was hanging out with the CODE team and other devs, sharing ideas, feedback and laughs.” - Cait Stewart, Lesser Key Studios Co-Founder and Lead Artist.
Pictured (L-R): Tana Tanoi (Dead Teapot Games/Dinosaur Polo Club) at Kiwi Spaces; Anna Barham (Balancing Monkey Games), Cait Stewart (Lesser Key Studios) and Jenn Sandercock (Games Producer) at NZTE Mixer Event; Nate Tamblyn and Thomas Barrer (Fnife Games) at Day of the Devs.
There’s been an incredibly positive response to all the games, it has definitely been CODE’s most successful trade mission to GDC to date.
“Attending GDC with support from CODE was brilliant, and really felt like a huge next step in the growth of our studio. Having a central hub provided by NZTE to conduct our business made organising meetings extremely easy, and created opportunities for NZ teams to share international connections and make introductions on-the-fly throughout the week,” says Thomas Barrer, Co-Founder Fnife Games.
“We loved being able to participate in the live pitching session at Representing Games and network at the NZ Games Industry Mixer, and were able to make a lot of great contacts. Though it was a slightly daunting prospect, we felt very well-prepared for our live pitch due to the excellent coaching and feedback we got from CODE's pitching workshop programme”.
But what about service providers in the sector?
We also had a further two teams travel with us - Epic Gold Partner, Prismatic Studios and prestigious game audio producer, Soundcreature Interactive (Dread Hunger). Both teams connected with clients looking for help to optimise and port technical and audio content for game devs worldwide. Feedback from these meetings are sounding very promising - watch this space!
Pictured (L-R): NZTE's LA-based Trade Commissioner, Haylon Smith opens the NZTE Mixer Event; CODE's Antony Maday meets Veronica Stodolnik of Stride PR; NZ Games: Small Nation, BIG Wins.
CODE's campaign to GDC, San Francisco was further supported by our colleagues at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) | Te Taurapa Tūhono North American team.
Expressions of Interest for Round 6 Travel Grant funding is now open until Thursday 24th April 2025, for Gamescom-focused travel grants. Check our Funding page for more information.
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