One’s a 30-year-old gaming studio that was almost an accidental success story in a competitive global market.
Another is an anonymous developer who seems happiest out of the spotlight, but whose game is now a worldwide phenomenon.
Both sound so Canadian, eh?!?
The long-established game studio BioWare, and the new and as yet-unidentified one-man development team known as LocalThunk, are among the nominees for the prestigious Studio of the Year Award, the big prize in this year’s Canadian Game Awards. Also up for the award are Inflextion Games, Hilltop Studios, and Behaviour Interactive; Studio of the Year is one of several award categories in which the best gamemakers in Canada will be honoured.
The glam ceremony takes place tomorrow, February 15, 2025, at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto.
And alongside the compelling stories that individual gaming studios in Canada can tell, the Canadian gaming industry as a whole is sharing its own story of terrific success, growth and opportunity.
The Canadian video game industry has scored big time, says a new economic report conducted by Nordicity for the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC). ESAC image.
That’s because the awards ceremony follows on the heels of the release of a new report, Canada’s Video Game Industry: Powering the Future of Play, which shows how the Canadian video game industry has scored big time, even considering the challenges faced by the entire global industry during and coming out of the pandemic.
The report, conducted by Nordicity for the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC), itemizes the economic significance of the video game industry in Canada.
This comes as the revived game awards event celebrates the overall impact that Canadian game developers, studios, and innovators have here and around the world.
Created by Carl-Edwin Michel, the Canadian Game Awards (CGA) has Valnet as its Title Sponsor for the 2025 edition, and Valnet publication Screen Rant is the Official Media Partner of the event. As Rob Keyes, Editorial, PR, and Branding director for Valnet and ScreenRant, said of the event and the industry, “We are proud to support the Canadian Game Awards and celebrate the incredible achievements of Canada’s gaming community. [W]e’re committed to amplifying the stories and accomplishments of these talented creators and helping to bring their work to a global audience.”
In some ways, that audience is already playing video games the Canadian way: an amazing 88 per cent of the industry’s revenue comes from exports! So Canada plays the role of global leader in video game development and digital innovation. The industry counts more than 800 studios, has some 34,000 employees, and makes a big contribution to the country’s economy.
Paul Fogolin, CEO and President of ESAC
“The video game industry is a cornerstone of Canada’s digital economy, creating high quality jobs, driving innovation, and showcasing our creativity on the global stage,” Paul Fogolin, CEO and President of ESAC, said of the report’s findings. “Canada is a global powerhouse in making games; we punch way above our weight. Of all the things that jumped out for me (in its findings) was the average salary: it’s around $102,000 now. That’s a jump from the $70 or $80,000 previous high, and it shows the maturing of our industry, the experience of our talent.”
Although there was a reported decrease in overall employment (a slight one, down about three per cent), the report shows an increase in the percentage of full-time employees (from 81 to 86), and that increase Fogolin highlighted in salary across all roles, up more than 20 per cent to an average of $102,000 per year. Overall, the gaming industry in Canada showed a three per cent growth, adding $5.1 billion to the nation’s GDP. It speaks to the muscle of the industry that that kind of money is in play.
Another apparent strength of the industry is the increasing number of women playing important roles in game creation and production. “There’s more work to be done,” Fogolin explains, “but we are seeing an increase (in the number of women in the industry). It used to be that most women were in marketing, or legal, departments. But that’s flipped; now, some 60 per cent of women are hands-on in the development process. I suspect we’ll see a lot more of that,” he adds, explaining that one of ESAC’s roles is to work with government and other agencies to get more women – and young girls – into the industry, and especially into coding.”
Another of ESAC’s roles is to play with other gaming associations and coalitions around the world, such as the Global Video Game Coalition (GVGC).
More girls and women involved in game development would be a game changer, says the UN and the Global Video Game Coalition (GVGC). Partner photo.
As it turns out, the GVGC and UNICEF have a gaming partnership in place to support and equip adolescent girls with the skills needed to thrive in a digital future.
Fogolin had just been on a Town Hall call with the founding members of the GVGC, and the discussion touched on the Game Changers Coalition, an existing plan to reach three million girls in the next three years, part of UNICEF’s even more ambitious goal of equipping 26 million girls (links to pdf) worldwide with learning and skills-building opportunities to go from playing to learning to earning.
The Game Changers Coalition will also bring together key players and contributors – brands such as Electronic Arts (EA), Roblox, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Ubisoft – who contribute to the GVGC, in which ESAC is a founding member.
ESAC members include Codename Entertainment, Certain Affinity, Glu, EA, Epic Games, Eidos Montreal, Gameloft, Ubisoft, Kabam, Ludia, Microsoft, Nintendo, NetEase Games, Other Ocean Interactive, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Relic Entertainment, Roblox, Solutions 2 Go, WB Games, Take-Two Interactive, and Tencent; the association works with them to ensure the country’s legal, regulatory and public affairs environment is favourable to long-term business development in the Canadian video game industry.
Be that for long-established studios, or anonymous new talent.
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Featured title image from BioWare’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard, nominted for Game of the Year in the Canadian Games Awards.
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