Canada is one of the biggest gaming markets on the planet. Measured by revenue, the country’s US$3.3 billion income makes it the eighth largest behind the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada.
That is an impressive achievement in itself, but what makes Canada’s top-ten spot even more remarkable is just how much smaller the nation’s population is compared to the other nine countries in the list. With approximately 39 million living within its borders, the entire country of Canada is outnumbered by the number of people who play games in Germany, and is almost identical to the size of the gaming markets in the UK and France.
Canucks are not just consumers of games, either. The Canadian gaming industry is a heavyweight hitter on the world stage, churning out major titles like Mass Effect, Borderlands, Bioshock, and Assassin’s Creed.
So what makes Canada such a powerhouse? Let’s take a look.
Historic Connections
Canada is a country in a very enviable position. As well as being, for the most part, stereotyped as being a nation of friendly folk, it has strong connections to some of the world’s biggest economies from the last few centuries.
Of course, Canada is neighbours with the United States, making cross-border trade and cooperation very easy. This makes the US the country’s biggest trading partner by quite a margin.
Therefore, Canada is an obvious choice when video game publishers are looking for new locations to open offices.
The country also has strong historic connections to both the United Kingdom and France and has a large proportion of its population that speaks both the languages of its transatlantic cousins.
Cultural connections to Canada make the country a popular destination for French exports. One of the most notable of these is roulette which was first created by the French inventor Blaise Pascal and then spread throughout Europe and across the Atlantic.
Today, players in Canada and across the world can enjoy multiple variants of this classic casino game, including traditional European Roulette, American Roulette, and High Roller Roulette. Each one has slightly different rules that augment the standard mechanics, helping to appeal to a very broad mix of players of varying taste and bankrolls.
The same is true for British games like Driver, Lemmings, LittleBigPlanet, and several Call of Duty titles.
Highly Skilled Workforce
The Canadian workforce is the most educated in the world, with almost two thirds of all Canadians holding some form of post-secondary education qualification. In addition to training and educating its own to world-leading levels, Canada also attracts more immigrants with masters or doctoral degrees than any other country on the planet.
While this education isn’t solely focused on technology, the tech sector is a major beneficiary of this highly skilled workforce. Canada has the third-largest tech cluster in North America, with many of the world’s biggest technology companies, including Microsoft, Apple, and Cloudflare, all having a large presence in the country.
This huge pool of talent, many of which have advanced STEM skills, is incredibly attractive to video game developers who need to tap into this to create ever-more-advanced titles to push to market.
It is why many of the biggest brands in gaming from the United States, United Kingdom, and France all look to Canada when opening overseas outputs.
In particular, French companies like Ubisoft look to Canada because of the large French-speaking tech-savvy population that allows them to access a workforce that can speak their primary language of operations. Therefore, in addition to being technically competent, there are fewer language barriers which both speeds up communication but also reduces the need for additional costs relating to translation and interpretation.
This large skilled workforce also means Canadians often have larger-than-average disposable incomes, meaning they have more available to spend on games. This, therefore, boosts the industry from both sides, allowing companies to sell more in the country as well as produce much of this in-demand content.