Gabe Newell Meeting New Zealand PM to Discuss Gaming Dev
According to Gabe Newell, New Zealand is a great place for gaming development, and he’s meeting with the Prime Minister of the country in an effort to encourage more developers to relocate there. Newell has been on a pro-New Zealand campaign, and during the recent Game Awards Zoom, he confirmed that he wants more gaming developers to “temporarily relocate production teams.” Game Awards Zoom has been fittingly hosted by Geoff Keighley and Gabe Newell is just the latest guest of his.
“Because I’ve been going on a pro-New Zealand campaign lately, I’m probably going to be meeting with the Prime Minister,” said Gabe Newell during a recent interview. “And one of the positions I’m going to be arguing for is that, given there is something super valuable that has been created here in New Zealand due to the hard work of the population of New Zealand, there is likely a large want to temporarily relocate production teams into the country.”
Gabe Newell is essentially a citizen of New Zealand, and he retreated to the smaller country to ride out COVID-19, but now he’s encouraging more gaming developers to relocate to the Oceanic country. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern retained power after a recent election, meaning Newell already has a foot in the door.
Gabe Newell is apparently interested in relocating a Valve production team to New Zealand if Jacinda Ardern clears it, and he’ll be encouraging other teams to relocate while Valve New Zealand establishes itself. Newell also mentioned that COVID-19 has reduced productivity at Valve by 50-75% and they haven’t yet found an ideal solution to the big changes that working from home forces upon developers.
What gaming developers should open a team in New Zealand? Let us know in the comments below!