Media Centre: In the News

Gaming industry to be resilient through slump
Published March 25, 2009

By Steve Tilley Sun Media

Despite a slumping economy and some high-profile layoffs, the Canadian video-game industry is still raking in more cash than portly plumber Mario in a coin-filled treasure chamber.

A study released today by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada says Canadian game development companies generate an estimated $1.7 billion in annual revenue, employing more than 14,000 people across 247 firms.

The study presents a snapshot of the video-game industry in Canada as a whole and may give provincial governments insight into how they can foster the growth of a lucrative but overlooked arm of the entertainment business, Entertainment Software Association of Canada executive director Danielle Parr said.

"A lot of people don't know (the size of Canada's entertainment software industry), and government certainly doesn't know it either," Parr said.

The report predicts a growth of 29% in the Canadian video-games business this year, up from last year's already impressive 23% growth. Retail sales of video games and game consoles, controllers and so on were up 33% in 2008 from the year prior, ringing up $2.2 billion at Canadian cash registers.

While the study was done last summer just before the global recession took hold and game studios in Vancouver and elsewhere trimmed staff, the software association still predicts significant gains in 2009.

"I suspect those numbers would be somewhat tempered now, but even then we were looking at strong growth year over year," Parr said. "There are many industries I don't think can say that now."

Greater Vancouver and Montreal remain the country's twin hotbeds of game development, each anchored by a giant studio and host to several other large and mid-size firms.

EA Canada in Burnaby, B. C. produces titles such as NHL 09, Need For Speed: Pro Street and the upcoming The Sims 3, while Ubisoft Montreal is responsible for Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia and many of the bestselling Tom Clancy series of games.

Quebec and B. C. as a whole account for more than 80% of the country's game-industry employment, with Ontario at just 14%. Ontario's two highest-profile game studios, Silicon Knights in St. Catharines (makers of Too Human)and Digital Extremes in London (Dark Sector)account for a large portion of the province's video game labour pool.