November 21, 2007
Chasing government subsidies, game development talent is abandoning Ontario for neighboring Quebec, complains Denis Dyack. The outspoken head of Silicon Knights (Too Human) told Gamasutra:Because all of our universities and colleges are subsidised by the government, what we're doing is training all of these people, educating them, and then they're leaving. We've got to stop that... Most people trained in Ontario would like to stay in Ontario, so let's start giving jobs to people here, let's keep it on Ontario and let's stop the brain-drain to Quebec...
Ubisoft has a major studio in Montreal, as do EA, A2M and other developers. Eidos is also opening an office there. Dyack continued:
The subsidies in Quebec are, well, insane... Once those subsidies stop, because they can't go on forever -- they've got like, 50, 60 percent of salaries covered, it's really cheap to make games there -- will those business stay there, or will they move out, as they're global and mobile?
It's costing the government a ton of money and the payback is uncertain. I think what our government needs to do is to make smaller steps, maybe not such extremes... I mean, video games is one of the fastest growing sectors in entertainment in the world, and we've got to do this kind of thing carefully.
Comments
It depends on the support industries that benefit, how much they are spending to "subsidize", and how much tax revenue they get.
On another note, the UK is looking into filing a WTO complaint, complaining that Canada is unfairly subsidizing the game industry as a whole country, killing the growth of gaming companies over there.
Ontario is screwing the pooch on this issue because the successes that game developpers have been having in Quebec, BC and Alberta should make it a no brainer to implement this in Ontario. This would not only benefit the province, but the whole country.
FYI, I am from Ottawa. Also, I sincerly believe that Canada has become the country that produces the best video game in the world and we there's still plenty of room to get better. Soon enough, Japan and the US won't be able to touch us when it comes to video games.
how the Canadiens have not won a Stanley Cup in 14 years.
I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that the US entered the hockey world by buying all the best Canadian players. And then followed up by buying up the best Euro and Russian players...
There's a reason you guys win the cup, but then lose horribly at the Olympics... ;)
And a yellow electic rat.
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