Getting Toronto's game back
In a city known for its great food, and diverse population, an important part of the global video gaming industry isn't usually one of Toronto's many titles. Yet, the Toronto area is home to some of gaming's biggest players, and wealth of past releases. So why, then, has Toronto not flourished as one of the industry's premier developing communities?
This is the time of year when companies and developers flock to San Francisco for the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC09), one of the largest conferences of its kind - and possibly the sweatiest.
But clichéd geek jokes aside, the lack of Canadian developers is a little disheartening. Digital Extremes, Rockstar Toronto and Transgaming are just a few of Toronto's larger industry players, who are all, strangely, absent from this year's festivities.
It's entirely possible that each developer simply had nothing new to show. And that's the problem.
Digital Extremes has been highly regarded in the past for its Unreal Tournament series of games. But with only two lukewarm releases from the developer since the last Unreal Tournament game in 2004, Digital Extremes has remained relatively quiet.
Rockstar Toronto, meanwhile, has dealt mainly with porting games from one platform to another. A simple task in theory, perhaps - but much harder in execution, as the developer learned very recently with Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC. Really, there's no use buying a game if it doesn't actually run.
This isn't to say that the gaming industry in Canada is as lackluster as it seems - in fact, the Montreal offices of gaming giant Ubisoft are nearly the largest in the entire gaming industry. Instead, it simply seems as if the Toronto area is in particular need of a serious infusion of gaming industry blood. Montreal, meanwhile, has invested millions in Ubisoft's success - is it perhaps Toronto's turn to do the same?
After all, the gaming industry is on track to make even more money than the film industry this year, and it's a fact that the Canadian government seems particularly aware of. Browsing through this year's GDC09 attendees, I was a little surprised that, of all things, the Canadian Government's Western Economic Diversification department has a booth set up at the conference.
What for, I can't quite tell - the description is vague, and the department's own website appears to have nothing listed. But one can assume that Canada recognizes there's money in gaming - money that could easily be made in some of the country's biggest cities.
Once the dust has settled, and GDC09 has wrapped up, will anything have really changed? Unless something is done to encourage and entice Toronto-based developers to get their game together, the city may already be at the mercy of a rapidly growing industry, and one that will have no qualms leaving Toronto in its wake.
Comments (10)
(Was tweeting a reply, but got too long so retyping here.)
There ARE smaller game developers in the city, certainly-- We've got Joanathan Mak who really made a big splash with Everyday Shooter; Metanet with their Flash-based game 'N', then brought to consoles as N+; hell, we've even got an annual game developing event (TOJam), where people come in for a week/weekend and create a game using limited time, resources and money.
Toronto's not lacking game developers at all, let alone developmental attention. All we're lacking are big studios -- but the city is fast becoming a hotbed for independent game production. Given Toronto's ubiquitous "culture" subtitle, I dare say this suits us just fine.
You do know there is a Canadian GDC this year, right? And that alot of travel budgets have been slashed greatly...
*sigh*
I totally agree with Anon. Metanet and Capybara Games are great wee companies making really good games and will be at GDC this year.
I agree with Anon above that there are definitely lots of smaller indie devs in Toronto who are doing great, but aside from that, there isn't too much else going on in Toronto. Digital Extremes is primarily holed up in London, actually, and not Toronto.
And yes, we do have a wealth of studios elsewhere in Canada... namely the West. It's hard to establish Toronto as a mecca for Canadian game dev when that title has already been solidly claimed by Vancouver. It just ain't happening!
The only way for Toronto to really catch up with Vancouver and Montreal in what really is a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry, they are going to need a lot of publishers and devs to set up shops in the city, as well as enthusiastic indie developers to start creating larger start-ups down here as well. Who knows when that will happen, if it ever does.
Totally forgot about Capybara (whoops) -- but that just goes to show that in all likelihood there will be far more of these little studios than you can keep track of.
Look at the Toronto IGDA meeting: it's been thriving since it started, and attendance seems to be gradually growing as the months advance.
As for Canadian GDC, news to me. What we need is for NXNE to get an Interactive aspect going; its got the films, music and conferences, just need to capture that fourth quadrant.
Re: Vancouver -- Toronto's not trying to compete with Montreal or Vancouver on such a large scale, just trying to carve out its own corner in the game dev world. Wonder if education has anything to do with it; UOIT in Oshawa's now got this (rather shoddy) game development program -- their first grads leave school this April. Let's see where they go from there.
I think we've the big studios as well.. if you look at Groove Games, Throwback Entertainment. What we lack more then anything is the PR/marketing that you see the other studios doing across the country and around the world. I recently launched www.GameIndex.ca, that is a great list of companies across the country.
Good discussion going on here. I'd add a couple of other points:
Just because a company doesn't have a booth at GDC doesn't mean that they're not holding meetings there, or investing in sending their talented developers to learn about the latest and greatest developer trends and tools. It's not surprising given the cost of booths that with the economic downturn some companies are choosing to forgo booths this year. KowZ's point about travel budget restrictions is also valid. A quick glance at the GDC registered media list for this year shows that attendance is down compared to years past.
The second point I'd make is about the hardware side of things. Anyone who's been around the GTA tech scene for a while knows that ATI Technologies (now a part of AMD) resides just north of the city in Richmond Hill. ATI is responsible for the cutting-edge graphics processors that keep PC gaming and console gaming moving forward (their chips are in the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii for example). AMD has been a client of mine for a while and I know that for the last month or so they've been heads-down preparing for GDC, either arranging meetings or preparing content for speaking sessions, so you know Toronto will be well represented by those guys as well. Shameless plug, two friends and super smart guys Richard Huddy and Neal Robison will be speaking at GDC this year. If you're there, definitely check them out -- more info here: http://bit.ly/uXD99
While I knew Jonathan Mak was based here, I wasn't aware Capybara was either. You make some good points on the topic of independent game developers, Anon. Though indie developers and studios like these definitely are making strides to become successful in the gaming industry, I think the industry overall is still too much of a walled garden to allow them to completely flourish, at least, as far as consoles are concerned. While you have developers like these creating succesful games, there's no denying they lack the scale and penetration that could be achieved by some of the industries bigger players.
Keep in mind, creating small, indie games like these isn't a bad thing - if anything, it's proved that its these developers are the ones that have the ability to fight the stagnation of old and tired IP in the industry. What I think is that there needs to be some sort of synergy between smaller developers, and the industries bigger players, in order to give them the ability to flourish on a larger scale. We're getting there, but it doesn't seem as if Toronto's all the way there just yet.
@Duane Brown: That's an amazing list you have there; bookmarked, as I have a feeling that will come in handy!
I think we should compete with Vancouver & Montreal at least from a PR/marketing stand point. We shouldn't just be an ugly stepchild of the gaming scene in Canada. Having Toronto as a great city will mean that our developers and publishers and their games will be more high profile around the globe. I take this view having worked PR/marketing for a location video game publisher.
@Matthew Braga: Been working on GameIndex since last August and just launched it last month. I see that you go to Ryerson as well.. finishing up a couple classes there.
Game Index: www.GameIndex.ca
GameIndex is an awesome resource, and shows that Toronto is definitely not short of talent, nor existing businesses. While we do lack consistent "big hit" companies to be the poster boys; we have a thriving community that needs to get more publicity and exposure.
I agree with Duane, it comes down to PR that says "look at Toronto" even locally! I've done my stint in Vancouver in the game industry, and have lived in Montreal for a few years after coming back home to Toronto. Every month, and sometimes every week you could read an article in national, and local newspapers about the local game industry. EA is non-stop in the news in Vancouver, they know how to schmooze.
What we need is people at the mainstream, and off-beat media to cover the stories in the industry. The group of geeks getting together, the upstart making a successful game, the dreams of making that poster-boy studio in hometown Toronto...
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