The booming world of Québec’s gaming industry

Employment in the gaming industry has grown exponentially in recent years, with the number of jobs increasing tenfold since 2002. In 2017, more than 11,000 people were employed in Québec’s video game industry. Montréal is the world’s fifth-largest video game center, after Tokyo, London, San Francisco, and Austin.

Just to point out some big names famous around the world, you have for example, EA Montreal’s location, that includes Motive Studios, a Frostbite game engine team, as well as many development support and corporate teams, such as Market research and Analytics, UXR, CDS, SEED, and Audio works. Across all of these groups, from titles based on established franchises to original IP, the teams in Montreal are pushing boundaries with fresh games and gameplay that’s never been seen before. You also have Eidos-Montréal and SQUARE ENIX that announced the creation of Eidos-Sherbrooke, the brand new regional chapter of the video game studio recognized worldwide for its work on the Deus Ex franchise and the latest installment in the Tomb Raider series. The primary mission of Eidos-Sherbrooke will be to support research and development by exploring, testing, and applying new technologies to create the video games of tomorrow. For its opening this fall, Eidos-Sherbrooke is targeting 20 dedicated full-time employees. The studio will start its activities “virtually” and the premises are scheduled to open in early 2021. Within 5 years, the team’s growth is estimated at nearly 100 employees in Sherbrooke, including seasoned professionals, veterans of the industry, and related fields in addition to graduates from Sherbrooke universities. As well as from all of Quebec and Canada and internationally.

Codename Entertainment is the award-winning studio founded in 2008 here in glorious Victoria, British Columbia. Managing to firmly establish themselves in the hearts of players over the years. Codename creates computer and mobile titles.

The mobile sector is a perfect example of the “boom” that occurred, as mobile apps register millions of users. With so many options available, Fantasy MMO’s, new Canadian online casinos, single-player games like fruit ninja, or Angry birds made a huge hit. The accessibility of the platforms laid ground to a whole immense new sector. Even Google announces new Android features for developers, gamers in bid to make its platform a global gaming hub.

Canada ranks third in the world for developing video games, behind the U.S. and Japan, according to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada. Last year, the industry employed 20,400 people in more than 470 studios and contributed $3 billion to the country’s GDP. Canada, a country known for its tech-savviness and high mobile adoption rates now has the leading countries in its sights in terms of becoming a gaming powerhouse.

In the national economic strategy for Canada, video games are one of the focus industries so the Trade Commissioner provides a lot of support. “The world owes a little bit of a debt to the Canadian government for what the Canada Media Fund has done in helping jump-start a lot of really amazing games,” said Seattle-based Chris Charla, director of Microsoft Corp.’s independent developer program for Xbox. “The government support for video games in Canada has been tremendous and the net result is that Canadian games are by far some of the best in the world.”