‘Girls don’t play games’: Trailblazing developer on how she’s breaking down stereotypes and finding success

This article is part of series we are publishing this week focusing on indigenous women in New Zealand and the Pacific.

Being an indigenous woman in gaming has come with its challenges but Metia Interactive chief executive Maru Nihoniho says while it has been tough, the journey has been worth it.

After 20 years of pitching ideas and software developing, she is at the stage of selling her single-player action adventure game for PC and console, Guardian Maia, with a central focus on Māori culture.

“It’s going to reach millions of people, well, it better reach millions of people and they’re all going to engage with Māori culture and naturally build an understanding,” Nihoniho says.

In the last 20 years Metia Interactive has been committed to creating inclusive and accessible games for all players which weave together universal themes and authentic representations of indigenous Māori culture. Most of the games the company has created are available for free on Apple's App Store and Google Play. Nihoniho says Māori Pā Wars was the first game they developed in te reo Māori.

Pitching work hasn’t always been so straightforward, remembering when she set out Guardian Maia in the early 2000s, she was told to rethink what she wanted to do because back then, the discourse in gaming was: “Girls don’t play games, let alone make them.”

“There was nowhere in New Zealand to learn the technical skills I needed to make a game, the internet was still dial up and there was no YouTube,” she says.

But rather than giving up, Nihoniho’s solution was to travel to gaming conventions in Europe and America, and write notes in a book.

“[Now] I’ve made just as many games in 20 years and half of them are Māori games, and more than half of those are iwi stories.”

She says being an indigenous woman pitching an indigenous game at conferences in Germany and other places overseas has been “tough.”

Attending Gamescom, Europe's leading trade fair for digital games culture, she says you only get 20 minutes to pitch, but for her, 10 minutes is spent explaining New Zealand and Māori culture and then 10 minutes is spent pitching the game itself.

“If I was pitching a racing car game on Mars they’d get it straight away,” she explains.

But she says the process has been worth it, given the chance to further educate people about Māori.

“People ask, ‘Is this really a real culture of people?’ Yes, I am that, that’s me, it’s our culture,” she says.

“I don't think the industry in general, whether it’s New Zealand or elsewhere, are ready for our own stories, but it doesn’t matter because you bring the stories to life and you make it ready.

“Once the world starts to see there’s cultures [in New Zealand] of authentic voices, that’s going to make it ready.”