Rocket scientists on Discord and NZ’s billion-dollar games industry, with Stephen Knightly

This bite-sized episode of Grounds Up was filmed at the inaugural NZ Tech Expo on 18 September. It's the perfect length for a coffee break ☕ Court sits down with Stephen Knightly, COO of RocketWerkz, the Auckland video game studio founded in Dunedin by DayZ creator Dean Hall. "When you are an exporter, you must be world class," Stephen says. "But actually world class is the table stakes to compete." He chaired the New Zealand Game Developers Association for five years and has watched game development become a billion-dollar New Zealand industry that sells almost entirely overseas. He explains how digital distribution opened the door, and why the competition that came with it raises the bar for every team. He also talks about launching survival game Icarus on Steam, and why RocketWerkz wants a more direct relationship with its players. Its newest game, Kitten Space Agency, is free to play, funded by community contributions, and has a Discord full of people who work at space agencies. Stephen also covers building an in-house game engine, how AI coding has sped up the studio's pipeline ("definitely not vibe coding"), and why staying paranoid keeps a studio innovative.