The zombie apocalypse is where NZ games maker PikPok thrives

Zombies, silly puns, and an eccentric collection of driving, flying, sports and, frequently, shooting games with plots you may not expect have driven a Wellington-based mobile games developer to the top table of local startups and given it longevity in a cut-throat industry.

Mario Wynands co-founded his company, now called PikPok, in 1997. He is sometimes described in that very New Zealand way as a “quiet achiever”, but his games are anything but.

"Into the Dead" is probably its best-known series and is the typical zombie-takeover story with added gore and bloody humour. 

Then there’s "Clusterduck" (yes, we see what they did there), where our feathered friends are reimagined in ways that tell a lot about the weirdness of your imagination. 

PikPok features more than two dozen games, focused mostly on mobile.

NZ's largest studio

Games industry observers say PikPok has avoided its own zombie apocalypse through what one called Wynands’ “cultural leadership”. He knows how much gamers love strangeness and offbeat humour – a mixture that has put NZ on the global gaming map.

The very longevity of PikPok came up in how Wynands made his way into the inaugural BusinessDesk CEO Index, especially since it is a relatively established firm to be in the startup category. As one judge noted, every time PikPok releases a new game, it is like starting up again.

PikPok, NZ's largest game development and publishing studio, has delivered more that 500 million game downloads worldwide and is known for its key productions, which apart from the zombie titles include "Rival Stars Horse Racing", plus American football and basketball, plus driving and flying games and the bonkers "Doomsday Clicker" with its irresistible come-on to "Push the big red button and DESTROY THE WORLD, then profit from the destruction!"

PikPok’s  Wellington team of 180 occupies four floors above Unity Books on Willis St. Wynands also has a growing team of 55 in Medellín, Colombia.

Lifts the whole industry

The secret to his strategy is that he focuses on the global distribution of mobile/PC/virtual reality games from NZ – a “weightless export model”, as BusinessDesk staff writer Dileepa Fonseka describes it.

Wynands won plaudits from BusinessDesk's independent panel of judges for achieving the startup dream. They declared him the winner of the startup category in our inaugural CEO Index.

“Mario Wynands has quietly and powerfully shown that New Zealand and New Zealanders can build incredibly successful, innovative businesses that deliver joy and financial outcomes,” said the panel. “He's very inclusive. He lifts the whole gaming industry. He's been very involved in lobbying for gaming as well, so he deserves respect for that, and he's built a very successful company.”

BusinessDesk asked Wynands about his approach when it comes to the CEO Index criteria of vision, innovation, impact, resilience, and influence.

Vision: Wynands says he has two visions. There’s an aspirational vision for PikPok, which is about finding success and joy by entertaining the world together – a lofty statement, he jokes, that feeds into the company’s values.

“In terms of our more strategic one-line pitch for the organisation, it is ‘to build, curate and manage a portfolio of complementary world-class and enduring franchises through targeting underserved markets with best-in-class releases,’” he says.

At PikPok they want to be creating games that are bigger than individual ones. They have success over the years and decades from iteration to iteration.

“For example, our 'Into the Dead' game series – the zombie apocalypse franchise, which we released in 2012 and which went on to be downloaded over 100 million times. We followed that up with a sequel,” he says.

When conveying his vision to staff around the world, it’s about being able to break it down into simple language that articulates the what and the why very clearly, says Wynands.

“And it’s all about bringing the conversation back to that vision regularly, re-articulating the why, ensuring people don’t get lost in the day-to-day execution,” he adds.

With the growing team in Medellín, who are largely Spanish speaking, Wynands still tries to keep everybody in the loop and feel like they are part of the same thing, he says. 

“We have free Spanish lessons for everybody in the Wellington studio, whether they are liaising with the Colombian studio or not.” And free English lessons are on offer for the team in Medellín. 

Innovation: Wynands prides himself on leading an innovative organisation from a creative, technical, and business standpoint, but he likes to encourage selective innovation at PikPok.

“We don't want to reinvent the wheel every time,” he says, though there is a place in games to be experimental.

“But from a commercial perspective, the reality is what you bring to the table is a mix of the familiar with healthy doses of that which is new and innovative.” 

“Reimagining or remixing is where we find the 'magic,’” he says.

“If a company released a car and it had five wheels and no roof and its engine was made out of cardboard, it might be the best car ever in the world but you’d really have to do a lot of work to explain why it’s better than everything else out there.” 

Wynands puts his success in product creation and perseverance down to his parents’ example. “They ran a bricklaying business in the Hutt. There was just such a fundamental pride that my father had in the things that he built, whether it was the lobby of a hotel or the façade of a particular building. There’s a level of creativity and craftmanship there that I can relate to as well.” 

Impact: When gauging the impact his leadership has on the performance of the organisation, Wynands feels that when he is doing his job well, the organisation is prospering over time, even if it is hitting bumps in the road along the way.

“Ultimately, in an organisation like ours, which is very people-focused, 80% of the costs of the organisation, of doing business, is people,” he says.

“If there is ongoing dissatisfaction and dysfunction then I am doing something wrong,” he adds.

There are formal and informal methods Wynands has for measuring dissatisfaction and dysfunction, such as regular staff surveys, fireside chats, one-on-ones, anonymous feedback channels, and comprehensive business metrics reporting. 

“The key is measuring often and staying attentive and responsive to those signals, to address issues as they come up, ideally before they balloon into bigger problems,” he says.

Resilience: The now-established entrepreneur can remember times early on in the company's life when it was reliant on contracts, building games for other people, and money got tight.

“There were some periods where I could count the number of days that we had left on one hand,” says the CEO.

It's living through that sort of pressure under fire that he thinks has helped PikPok through tough situations as they’ve come up.

“I think it's really important for leaders to be calm, work out how to solve the problem, and get to that resolution,” he says.

You can worry about who to blame or how to avoid it again in the future.

“Meanwhile, learn as much as you can in the time available, weigh the options, then make the call,” says Wynands.

Influence: Where the PikPok CEO would like to use his influence is to see the success of all in the gaming community and work in pursuit of that, with no hidden agenda.

“We genuinely want to be supportive of the ecosystem because, you know, we see that if the wider ecosystem flourishes, then that creates an improved environment for us to flourish as well.”

His guidance, experience, and occasional “dictatorial decree” are made as transparently and honestly as possible, he says.

“I don't have all the answers, or at least I don't have answers that are necessarily applicable in every context.”

A good book: Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Pérez is a great read, exposing personal, societal, and institutionalised bias and challenging your own perception of the world, says Wynands.

Sliding doors: The PikPok CEO consumes a lot of media around space exploration and astrophysics. “I’m not sure if I’m personally suited, but being an astrophysicist probing the edge of our known reality seems like it would be an amazing job.”

● BusinessDesk will publish a report on the overall winner of the CEO Index on Nov 19.

● Read more of the BusinessDesk CEO Index here.