With regard to the immigration of high-tech professional talent, Canada has adopted looser immigration policies, so it has attracted many top designers, programmers and artists. The Canada-based game software development companies have grown by leaps and bounds.  The country currently has 472 digital game companies and employs 21,000 people.  Since 2013 the number of game companies has gone up by 143 and among those cities that enjoy rapid growth, Montreal and Vancouver are most well known.  Toronto has been a dark horse in recent years and has more than 13,000 technology companies that together have revenues of US$52 billion a year.

The game market in Canada started off in 1991 when EA invested in Vancouver and afterwards Ubisoft set up its subsidiary in Montreal in 1997.  The digital game development industry in Toronto in the Province of Ontario has emerged to prominence in recent years and enjoys rapid growth.  Many of the digital game production professionals come from the country.  Among more than 35,000 students enrolled in digital game related programs in Ontario, 75 percent are in the Toronto region.  This includes the ones at Sheridan College located just outside of Toronto.  The school has long offered programs for 2D, 3D and stop-motion animation software as well as game design.

Vice President Julien Lavoie of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada pointed out that the main reason for the rise of game software companies was that many previous employees of large companies started their own studios.  They tap into games and technologies from different perspectives and different angles and excel with diversity and innovation.  Although the Province of Quebec accounts for half of Canada’s digital game industry and has 139 game studios, 96% of Quebec’s game employees work at larger studios like Ubisoft.  In contrast, the Province of Ontario hosts 108 game studios including Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Rockstar and only about 32% of game employees work in these larger companies with most employees hired by smaller companies.  The game industry contributes US$265 million to Ontario’s GDP. (2017/06/20)