keyleedaud (REAL ESTATE)

Here's a handy link to Canadian video game studios, organized by province.

The Globe and Mail has an interesting article about the state of the videogame business in Canada, including a detailed look at the Ontario government's actions to bring a game publisher to Toronto. The Vancouver video game business began organically. Distinctive Software Inc. was founded in the early 1980s and scored success, and in 1991 was bought by Electronic Arts. From this foundation, about 60 companies – employing 6,000 or so people – now call the city home, according to numbers from an industry association report published in March. Video games aren't a particularly big business, with about $1.7-billion in annual revenue in Canada, a fraction of what Royal Bank of Canada or Research In Motion Ltd. generate. However, the industry captures the imagination of politicians, who see high-paid, high-tech jobs. Ontario has been specifically inspired by the “creative cities” thesis of Richard Florida, a University of Toronto professor and consultant to Queen's Park. The su...

( Updated . Here's an interview with Yannis Mallat, who will be in charge of the Ubisoft Toronto facility. Thanks to Alan Cook for the link.) This will only be of interest to those working in animation in Toronto, but Ubisoft, the French videogame company, will be opening a studio in Toronto . I personally don't have much interest in games, but I do have a strong interest in the Toronto industry. For years, it has been anchored by Nelvana, which not only employed people but also subcontracted work to smaller studios in the city. More recently Starz has been working on features and has managed to keep a steady stream of work for its crew. A few weeks ago, I had lunch with several industry people and they asked me how I saw Toronto's future for animation. I wasn't optimistic. The TV industry is shrinking and budgets are being pushed lower as a result. While there is also visual effects work for features being done locally, that business has notoriously low margin...

Slate has an article on this year's E3 conference and the state of the gaming industry. "To the extent that games provide consumers with engaging interactive entertainment for $60—sometimes 100 hours' worth as in the post-apocalyptic Fallout 3 —it's an industry that deserves to fly high in the recession. But the game industry has fired nearly 12 percent of its work force since last July (8,450 folks), according to Wanda Meloni, an analyst at M2. There may be more to come, too. Beyond closing 13 game-development studios, video game publishers are tightening their belts while, at the same time, desperately trying to show how extravagant they can be by spending millions on parties with famous bands, fancy convention booths, and movie-award-like press conferences at E3, the lavish yearly games convention in Los Angeles that's more like a boisterous, barker-filled state fair midway than a business gathering." That layoff percentage above implies that the gaming ...

( UPDATE: Variety reports that Midway Games, makers of Mortal Kombat , filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Feb. 12.) Slate has an interesting article on the state of the videogame industry. While sales are rising, budgets are rising faster. That's leading to financial losses and layoffs. The development cost of a game is now in the area of $40 million, which is the cost of a mid-range animated feature. The gaming industry is pursuing a Hollywood model, hoping that blockbusters make enough money to offset losses on other releases. I'm not sure how smart it is for anyone to raise the stakes in a time of economic uncertainty. I'd love to know how many artists the gaming industry employs relative to TV and feature animation. It's possible that gaming employs more than the two of them put together. If that's true, I hope that the game producers know what they're doing.