MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Finally some good news out of Canada, as the region’s Entertainment Software Association has revealed the country’s video game industry added around $2.3bn to the national GDP in 2012.
Games Industry reports that ESAC announced the figure during a keynote address at the Ottawa International Game Conference last week – stating that despite layoffs and studio closures being consistently in the news over the past year or two, the number of people involved in the industry is on the rise.
"There are 16,500 men and women working full time in Canada’s video game industry," president and CEO Jayson Hilchie said, "up 5 percent from where we were in 2011.”
But our industry is responsible for generating employment for approximately 27,000 people across the Canadian economy. These are high paying jobs – paying on average just over $72,000 – going to young workers in creative / artistic disciplines, technical fields and business / administrative functions."
Hilchie added that 84 per cent of Canadian studios are working on mobile titles. PC was the second most popular platform at 66 per cent, while 48 per cent develop for consoles, 46 per cent for web browsers and 29 per cent for social networks.
