The Canadian video game industry doubled in size from 2013 to 2022, growing from 775 local firms to 1,628 during that period.
According to Statistics Canada report published in September, the growth is coming from Canadian firms, companies focused primarily on video game design rather than publishing, and small studios with fewer than five employees.
This, in turn, was reflected in revenues, which rose from $2 billion to $7 billion over that nearly decade.
Canadian industry employed just under 60,000 people in 2022, up 116.2 percent from a decade earlier. In terms of specific cities and territories, Ontario had 638 game development firms, followed by British Columbia with 426 and Quebec with 338.
Most studios are small and owned by Canadians.
As the report notes, 97.4 per cent of video game businesses operating in the country in 2022 were owned by Canadians. Moreover, 77.5 percent of the total were small studios with fewer than five employees.
It's worth noting that foreign companies, which the report said are typically relatively larger businesses with 20 or more employees, generated more revenue than Canadian companies in 2022—$4 billion versus $3 billion.
Two other notable indicators include that one in four employees in the Canadian gaming industry is a woman. According to the report, the rate increased by 17.8 percent in 2013 to 24.5 percent in 2021, and the share of women's share payments increased from 14.4 percent to 20 percent.
As Statistics Canada notes, women's share of employment is growing faster than women's share of pay, likely the result of newcomers to the industry taking entry-level positions with lower salaries.
Studio closures slowed from 2014 to 2021.
The second notable metric from the report includes the number of entries and exits, that is, the opening and closing of businesses. According to the report, entry rates for video game companies in Canada were higher between 2014 and 2018, but lower between 2019 and 2021, consistent with all private employer firms. Then, from 2014 to 2021, video game companies' exit rates were much lower than all other private employer firms.
Statistics Canada concluded that studio closures are “relatively rare” in the Canadian video game industry.
Unfortunately, as we have seen in recent years, this figure appears to be changing. Of course, several companies have opened new studios in the region, including People can fly And Avalanche Studiosbut despite the growth, many workers found themselves in a situation of layoffs and studio closures.
In 2023 Ubisoft Montreal has laid off employees amid larger company cuts that also affected the Quebec branch. Next year Sumo Group has cut 15 percent of its staff in Canada, Poland and other regions. Then, almost 20 years later, the Canadian studio Hothead Games close after filing for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Sumo Group-owned outsourcing studio Atomhawk closed its Canadian branch two weeks ago, after eight years of use.
But it's not all doom and gloom. In June, Ubisoft Halifax developer filed with the union with media union CWA Canada. This follows the creation in March of an industry-wide union called United Video Game Workers-CWAwhich was created by workers in Canada and the USA, as well as by the efforts of Quebec Hunters and the Canadian Union CSN in May 2024 to help workers form unions at the region's major studios.
