| There must be something in our Canadian water. Something that leads to the creation of intelligent, technologically driven, creative talent.
During the heady days of the dot-com bubble, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa were home to some of the major players, and they got lots of attention. What few of us knew at the time was that there was also a community of video game developers in Canada. And when the bubble burst, the interactive companies just kept soldiering on.
The biggest Canadian publisher/developer is Electronic Arts (EA), with studios in Burnaby, Vancouver and Montreal. Don Mattrick, who founded Distinctive Software in 1982 and operated out of his garage, merged with California-based EA 10 years later. Mattrick’s company became EA Canada and he is now president of EA worldwide studios. In recent years, the company has become the world’s largest video-game publisher (with a firm grip on sports games in particular) and has been acquiring smaller developers along the way, including Vancouver’s Black Box Games, which became EA Black Box in downtown Vancouver in 2002. "Vancouver is a great place to make games," said Brad Herbert, EA Canada’s vice-president of human resources, "and the highly educated, skilled and talented people here flourish."
Also at the top is Montreal’s Ubisoft, a production studio opened by the France-based parent company in 1997. Managed by Martin Tremblay, the Montreal studio is responsible for more than half of Ubisoft’s development, including top franchises Prince of Persia and the Tom Clancy games.
In Edmonton, the privately owned BioWare has been named as one of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 and one of Profit 100’s Canada’s fastest growing companies for the fourth consecutive year. BioWare is best known for their console and computer role-playing games like Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and the recently released Jade Empire. The company’s more than 230 employees are working on the new fantasy role-playing game Dragon Age, and two unannounced titles for the Xbox 360.
Then there’s DreamCatcher Interactive in Toronto, which also made the Deloitte and Profit 100 lists. A game publisher and distributor, DreamCatcher works with various studios around the world to bring games to the marketplace. While they started off publishing adventure titles, they’ve since expanded into the action and role-playing categories with titles such as Obscure and Still Life.
Recently we’ve witnessed a buying binge by large video-game publishers mining the industry’s talent, and Canada is giving up the gold.
Vancouver’s Barking Dog Studios was purchased by Take-Two Interactive in August 2002. Barking Dog had created Homeworld: Cataclysm and Global Operations for computers. Renamed Rockstar Vancouver, the studio will be releasing Bully (from the company that published Grand Theft Auto, the setting of this game is a schoolyard) later this year. Take-Two also has a development studio in Toronto. Now called Rockstar Toronto, the company is working on a game version of the cult film The Warriors, for release in October.
THQ Games acquired Vancouver’s Relic Entertainment in April 2004. Relic was co-founded by Alex Garden in the late 1990s. Their first title was the critically hailed, real-time strategy game Homeworld, which was followed up by the popular Warhammer 40,000. In an interview with GameSpot.com, Garden said, "Relic was founded on an initial investment of $5,000." The THQ purchase price topped $10 million. Relic has since branched out from computer games and is working on next-generation games on behalf of THQ.
And in February of 2004, Vancouver’s Radical Entertainment entered into an exclusive development agreement with Vivendi Universal Games (VU). Radical developed the games, like The Simpsons: Hit & Run and The Hulk, and VU published them. Also part of that deal was an option to buy. In March 2005, VU exercised that option.
Most recently, Activision acquired Beenox, the Quebec City developer that has made a name for itself by creating computer versions of popular console games such as Shrek 2 and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. That deal was signed in late May.
But it’s not all acquisitions. Koei opened a studio in Toronto because of the skilled animators in Canada. At first the studio was given the task of creating computer graphics for localization and cutscenes, but Koei Canada is ramping up for primary development of a game geared towards a North American audience.
Earlier this year, Buena Vista Games (BVG) announced it was creating a new development studio in Vancouver, called Propaganda Games, which is run by Howard Donaldson, Jorge Freitas, Josh Holmes, and Daryl Anselmo. The four met while working at EA. Donaldson was CFO and the others were working in game development (including the Def Jam line). "We had all reached the point where we were looking for new challenges," Frietas said in an interview.
The four had become friends outside the office, and at backyard barbecues would talk about starting their own studio. Donaldson, who had joined EA from Disney Interactive (now BVG), made some calls. "I felt that we needed a strategic partner if we were going to be successful," he said.
Their timing was perfect, as BVG was looking to develop and publish a greater range of games. Michelle Liem, senior marketing manager for BVG Canada, explained that the company is already a top-five player in the children’s market, but wanted to expand into the core market. "And here’s this group of guys with a great track record," she said. "There is a wealth of developer talent in the Canadian marketplace." |
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