CANADA FOCUS| BETA
STATES OF PLAY: NOVA SCOTIA
Another booming province in the burgeoning Canadian industry is the south-eastern province of Nova Scotia. Whilst not yet as big as its Ontario and Quebec neighbours, the local developers are privy to strong provincial support and it has become a haven for new IP and independent developers, particularly in the digital space.
NSBI, which supports companies in the
area to grow and succeed, believes the area is set to grow. Director Jayson Hilchie also says: “Many of our start-ups are doing innovative things that don't overlap at all with the larger studios. It is quite remarkable to see the range of games being made here.”
One indie studio that has set up in the
region is Xona, which in December last year released four-player shoot ‘em up Score Rush to Xbox Live. Lead programmer Jason Doucette says that although new IP is important, creativity is very much a risk. “When you've hit the jackpot, why
would you change? From a business perspective, it makes little sense to not keep the momentum up with what you already have.” New studio Fourth Monkey, which
currently has a headcount of 12 employees, says it is “dedicated to developing innovative, visually stunning, high quality games” on social and mobile platforms. President Kirsten Tomilson says the biggest challenge they face is “getting the funding to create a vertical slice”, but the digital tax credit “helps to alleviate issues resulting from a downward economic spiral.” Of the increasing competition in Nova
Scotia, she says: “I think it allows for more creativity in that the climate is extremely competitive in nature causing us to think outside of the box and create IPs that push the proverbial envelope.”
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despite expanding its workforce by an impressive 100 employees since last year, his studio has been affected by the economy. “Frima works mainly with US clients and the US dollar devaluation has had some impact”. Laurent Abecassis, president at Di-o-
matic, adds: “As our neighbour is the US; the exchange rate fluctuation of the past few years has had a huge impact on outsourcing for US customers and as a result we have seen less contracts coming from there than before.” SnowedIn CTO Chris Thiffault also says
many of their clients are from the US or deal directly with US companies, and economic issues have forced Canadian studios to reduce staff and cut projects. “Outsourced projects are often either cut or moved to an internal team which has its internal project recently cut.” His colleague Matt Tanner adds: “Because many major publishers are based in the US, there’s been a slowdown of content being released, which in the end trickles down to studios like ours. On the other hand, Indies have really been able to flourish – since for them, its about releasing quality creative content.” HB Studios President Alastair Jarvis sums up the overall situation Canada faces: “Both the economic climate and technological disruption has affected studios in Canada. “It’s very reminiscent of how the music industry was a decade ago, but it seems as though the industry and government policymakers have been much better prepared to react to this
shifts and have taken those lessons on-board.”
STRENGTH IN TAX Despite all the challenges facing the Canadian industry, Canada has continued on a 20 to 30 per cent trend of growth. Interactive Ontario president Ian Kelso puts it down to the tax incentives the various provinces are able to offer, which have offset the unusually strong Canadian dollar, whilst the cities have remained relatively inexpensive to live in. Rocketowl’s Emily Armstrong even
believes, “contrary to what most would assume, studios have been tremendously affected in a positive way by the economic climate in Canada.”
She explains that the tax
incentives that are on offer “allow gaming studios the financial freedom to make employees enticing offers, including extremely competitive salaries and appealing incentives. Having the ability to work with the best talent in the industry has proven to be extremely beneficial to independent studios such as RocketOwl.” It is no secret one of the key
factors in Canada’s success is its generous tax policy. The federal corporate tax rate has been reduced to 16.5 per cent, and is set to go down to 15 per cent in 2012. As a result Canada will have a combined federal-provincial corporate income tax rate of
NOVEMBER 2011 | 27
Dennis Chenard, GNWC (top), Howard Donaldson, Digibc (middle), Emily Armstrong, Rocketowl (above)
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