All about Canada's thriving gaming scene

"Dragon Age Inquisition (48)" (CC BY 2.0) by MrRiddell

Recent figures from the Entertainment Software Association of Canada paint an encouraging picture of the video game industry in the country, with the last two years proving lucrative for the sector. As we already know, the profile of gamers has evolved quite a lot in the past few years – check out this article canadianreviewer.com wrote on the topic. As a response, the gaming industry had to adapt to the new trends. There are now a reported 20,000 people working at almost 500 companies, helping video games add $3bn to the Canadian economy in 2015, as indicated by the following article on theesa.ca.

Here’s a quick look at some of the homegrown companies, studios, and websites contributing to those numbers.

Hinterland Studio

Situated in Cumberland, British Columbia, Hinterland Games have just a single title on the market – 2014’s The Long Dark. However, the company, which has 25 employees, only came into being in 2012. The Long Dark is a bleak experience that thrusts the player into a post-apocalyptic world and tasks them with staying alive.

Radical Entertainment

Simultaneously a success story and a worrying example of the power of major publishers, Radical Entertainment is one of the oldest developers in the world, currently in its 25^th year. The firm was a linchpin in the Vancouver-based video game industry until 2012 and the release of action game, Prototype 2, when Radical’s owner, Activision, all but shut the studio down.

Prototype’s sequel sold poorly, with 390,000 units shifted. Radical is now in a sorry state, unable to develop its own games and with only a fraction of the staff it had pre-2012. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that the company had been the face of the video game industry in Canada since the early nineties.

"Don’t Starve" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by kenming_wang

Klei Entertainment

Another Vancouver studio, Klei Entertainment is behind recent indie hits, Don’t Starve and Don’t Starve Together, as well as Invisible, Inc, a turn-based action game. Targeting both PC and mobile phones, Klei is a prolific developer with two titles in the pipeline (Hot Lava and Oxygen Not Included) and eight behind them since the company’s inception in 2005. In an interesting twist, Klei is currently working with Capybara Games to create an expansion to Don’t Starve.

Casino Companies

Although offering a different type of gaming, Canadians spend billions of dollars a year on pursuits like poker and casino, with at least $4bn flowing into online sportsbooks. Canada’s betting industry is second in value on a global scale to the UK, with the sector centered on Montreal. Consequently, review sites like onlinecasinos.ca have sprung up to help consumers find the best experience for their tastes and budgets.

They’re not alone; a similar website like slot-machines.ca is designed to untangle things like promotions and jackpots for Canadians looking to play mobile or online slots.

"Mass Effect 3: Alien World" (CC BY 2.0) by Ryan Somma

BioWare

With titles like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Baldur’s Gate, Jade Empire, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in their back catalogue, BioWare is the reigning king of the RPG genre. The company has had a few misfires under EA, Dragon Age II and Mass Effect 3 in particular demonstrating the perils of a short development cycle, but more recent titles like Dragon Age III: Inquisition were well received by the community and press alike.

BioWare has several hundred employees headquartered in Edmonton and at a smaller office in Montreal. The company has picked up a raft of Canada-specific awards in the past, including The Financial Post’s "10 Best Companies to Work for" in 2008. The company’s next title, Mass Effect: Andromeda, is due out in March 2017.

Capybara Games

A smaller studio based out of Toronto, Capybara Games has around twenty employees. However, its small size belies its huge success in the industry, and many of its recent titles (Super Time Force and Critter Crunch, for example) have been critically acclaimed. Capybara Games is currently putting together a retro dungeon crawler called Below.

As a final point, it's not hard to see why Canada has become a haven for video game studios, given the scale of tax breaks and other incentives given to developers. For example, the Ministry of Finance offers tax breaks of up to 17.5% on each qualified employee in British Columbia.