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Calgary’s video game sector is on the verge of taking a big step into the limelight.
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The scene has spent the last couple of decades slowly growing through grassroots initiatives and independent companies but has yet to hit it big.
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Mike Lohaus, president of the Calgary Game Developers Association, says that could soon be changing.
“I think that we’re on the cusp here of one of these studios having a massive breakout hit, and that’s just going to add fuel to the fire,” he said while manning a booth at Game Con Canada at the BMO Centre in Calgary on Saturday. “It’s really pretty amazing to see what people are working on.”
Efforts to grow video game developer community didn’t happen in vacuum
The game developers association has grown from 10 members seven years ago to about 1,200 now. Their members have games on every platform available with more being developed and launched at every membership meeting.
These efforts are not happening in a vacuum. The gaming community that has been fostered over the years is thriving on collaboration and learning from each other.
“We’ve heard it from a lot of other organizations and other cities that some of the other cities might have a bit of a fractured development community,” said Lohaus. “It seems like everyone really in Calgary is here to support one another. … It’s pretty amazing to see.”
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Developers run the whole gamut from self-taught hobbyists to post-secondary-educated individuals with a studio supporting them. As technology evolves, it has made the sector that much more accessible.
Calgary companies like Dead Unicorn, Vivid Helix, Zugalu Entertainment and Naturally Intelligent may not be household names yet but all have just released or have games set to be released in the near future.
Video game technology making its way into other sectors
Brandon Sloane, CEO of Zugalu Entertainment, said when he started the Calgary-based company 10 years ago, most of the talent pool came from oil and gas or other simulation-type industries. This is not the case now.
Zugalu has spent the last three years developing its first major title, Thrive, and had a trailer running all weekend at Game Con. They will have an open beta in September with a potential release date in March 2024.
Creators are not just churning out video games in hopes of hitting it big. The technology they are developing for these games is working its way into such other sectors as health care and production for film and television, playing a critical role for them.
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“Video games are always on the creative forefront,” said Sloane. “A lot of the tools and programming that we have to do to figure out things transfers across industries. So really, a lot of times we’re on the leading edge of some of the tools.”
‘Gaming is here to stay’: Shifty Eye Studios CEO
Another candidate for being the first company in Calgary to have a major hit is Shifty Eye Studios, which has partnered with a Hollywood studio to develop a game for a major movie franchise. The details of the partnership are currently under wraps.
Tuncer Deniz, CEO of Shifty Eye Studios, moved to the city from Chicago in the early 2000s after working in the sector there for years. He launched Shifty Eye in 2019 with four Apple Arcade titles.
He said the scene has completely changed in the last 20 years from almost nothing to where it is now, ready to break out. He said it was difficult to attract talent and funding to Calgary back then, even though the city is only a three-hour drive south of Edmonton, where Bioware became a global hit.
This has worked in concert with the tech scene as a whole which has grown exponentially in the last decade. With post-secondary institutions like the University of Calgary and Lethbridge College and others now producing top developer talent, the ecosystem is becoming much more healthy.
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What could really push the local sector over the hump is the promised interactive digital media tax credit, which has been in development since November.
Other jurisdictions, including B.C. and Ontario, have thrived with similar programs, taking cue from such countries as Norway, which have heavily subsidized the sector, acknowledging its global impact worth hundreds of billions of dollars — including a projected US$3.53 billion in Canada this year.
“I think that the governments here have to realize that gaming is here to stay,” said Deniz. “It’s growing and we have a lot of amazing talent here. We can create so many jobs just from gaming alone.”
jaldrich@postmedia.com
Twitter: @JoshAldrich03
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