Canadian Video Game Industry Survey Results

In a keynote address at the Ottawa International Game Conference, Jayson Hilchie, President & CEO of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada today unveiled new research about the Canadian video game industry. The research shows that Canada’s overall video game industry is still growing at a moderate pace, even as the sector and its business models continue to evolve.

Unveiling results from new research conducted by Nordicity for ESAC, Hilchie showed that Canada’s 329 video game studios generated over $2.3 billion in GDP for the Canadian economy in 2012.

“There are 16,500 men and women working full time in Canada’s video game industry – up 5% from where we were in 2011,” reported Hilchie. “But our industry is responsible for generating employment for approximately 27,000 people across the Canadian economy. These are high paying jobs – paying on average just over $72,000 – going to young workers in creative / artistic disciplines, technical fields and business / administrative functions,” said Hilchie.

The average age of workers in the Canadian video game industry is just over 30 years old.

Over 84% of Canadian video game studios are now working on games for mobile devices (phones and tablets), while just over 48% of studios are devoting some of their resources to console games. Studios in Canada are also developing PC games (66%) as well as games for the Web (46%) and for social networks (29%). Although the overall Canadian industry is shifting more of its attention to mobile or casual titles, bigger-budget console games are still receiving the lion’s share of resources. Companies report that the average budget for console games is $8.7 million, produced by an average team of 65 persons in 583 days, as compared to an average budget of $300,000 for mobile games, a team of 7 persons and 156 days of production.

Canada’s video game industry continues to develop some of the world’s biggest blockbusters including franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Batman Arkham, NHL and FIFA.