| Last November, Telefilm Canada unveiled the Great Canadian Video Game Competition. Created from a $2 million fund, the competition was designed to give Canadian game developers a unique opportunity to showcase their work and access mentorship and financing in a model that mirrors traditional video game industry financing: innovation, product development and commercialization.
By December 15, 69 developers from across Canada had submitted applications to be considered for the competition. One month later, judges Yannis Mallat (CEO, Ubisoft Montreal), Ron Moravek (vice president, COO, Electronic Arts Canada) and Kelly Zmak (president, Radical Entertainment) had selected 10 projects as round-one winners. Those companies each received $50,000 to explore their concepts and develop financing plans, and in March they pitched, again, but this time it was live and in person, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
"As an entrepreneur, you always pitch early and pitch often and pitch as much as you can," says Matthew Mather, CEO of Montreal’s MindHabits. His company was one of four finalists. "The more sounding boards you can have and the more times you can repeat your ideas and get feedback the better."
Big Blue Bubble (London, Ontario), Cerebral Vortex Games (St. Catharines, Ontario), Hothead Games (Vancouver) and MindHabits were each handed $250,000 to come up with playable prototypes and marketing plans. A final winner will be announced at Vancouver’s Vidfest at the end of September. That company will receive up to $500,000 in matching funds to support commercialization.
"Getting the chance to finance the prototype was the most important for us," says Damir Slogar, CEO of Big Blue Bubble. Slogar said that prototype development on his game is going faster than he expected.
Coming up with a playable prototype in five months is an aggressive schedule, but Cerebral Vortex’s Jason MacIsaac says that his group had a prototype early on in the competition and he’s just returned from a business trip to meet with potential publishers for his company’s game. But they still want to win. "We want the prestige of having won," MacIsaac admits, "but if we don’t, the game goes on." This sentiment – that the developers would try to commercialize their games even if they don’t win the Telefilm competition – was shared by all.
"It’s going really well," claims Su Skerl, producer for Hothead Games’s Swarm project. Skerl says that the experience of her team – Hothead only hires industry veterans, and Skerl herself has 10 years in the industry – is one reason things are running so smoothly.
"Our experience is a little bit different," says Mather, "in that we’re not industry veterans for video games." Which meant that the exposure to people from the industry – mentorship was built into Telefilm’s competition – "was very useful."
Mather praises the Telefilm initiative in coming up with the unique manner of dispersing funding. "They could have just done it as a $2 million fund and have people apply," he says. Externalizing it, he says, gives credibility to the work. "It’s being vetted by industry."
"We understand there’s a lot of pressure on us because we have this industry history," admits Skerl. "It doesn’t help to get distracted or stressed. We also have a lot of Nerf guns in this office."
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Spider-Man 3 (publisher: Activision; platform: PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, DS, GBA, Wii, and X360; rated: teen)
There’s something to be said for having a run of fun sequels like the video-game accompaniments to the Sam Raimi films. If nothing else, the developers of these games have been able to continuously upgrade their representation of New York City so that Spider-Man 3 at least made me feel like I was actually in the Big Apple. The only thing lacking is the utter congestion of vehicles and people; the last time I was in New York I had to walk on the street because the sidewalks in Times Square were so crammed. The controls were easier to use than before, too, so I was averting crimes and taking on Spider-Man 3 movie missions before my wife could say "friendly neighbourhood." The camera control was a liability, though, as it spun around chaotically trying to centre behind my Spidey, making me dizzy. Spider-Man 3 also features the voice talents of the film’s stars, with Kirsten Dunst being the only omission. I didn’t miss her, though, especially as Bruce Campbell is the snide voice of your guide through the game. Shop smart.
Super Paper Mario (publisher: Nintendo; platform: Wii; rated: everyone)
Mario got his start in two-dimensional games, but with advances in technology he also appeared in 3D games, too. Super Paper Mario combines the two perspectives. It’s a brilliant concept, actually. As Mario, you run and jump as before, hitting blocks to get coins and power-ups and cronking bad guys on the head, but you’ve now got the ability to go 3D. So when you reach that impassable wall of blocks, slipping into 3D means that you can go behind what is actually just a column of blocks. What looks like an unremarkable stone in two dimensions is actually an arrow pointing out a path that you can only see in 3D. In an attempt to make use of the motion-sensing controller, Nintendo developers came up with a few reasons to shake the Wii remote, but they shouldn’t have bothered, as it adds nothing to the game. My other complaint is that the introduction to the game’s story took, I kid you not, 20 minutes, which was a complete waste of time. |
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