Developers fight for contacts, cash

Back in November, the Georgia Straight reported on the launch of Telefilm Canada’s Great Canadian Video Game Competition. Created from a $2 million fund, the competition was designed to give Canadian game developers an opportunity to showcase their work and access mentorship and financing in a three-step model that mirrors traditional video-game-industry financing: innovation, product development, and commercialization.

By December 15, 69 developers from across Canada had submitted applications. A month later, judges Yannis Mallat (Ubisoft Montreal), Ron Moravek (Electronic Arts Canada), and Kelly Zmak (Radical Entertainment) had selected 10 projects as Round 1 winners. Each company received $50,000 to explore its concept and develop financing plans, and in March they pitched again, this time in person at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“As an entrepreneur, you always pitch early and pitch often and pitch as much as you can,” said Matthew Mather, CEO of MindHabits, on his cellphone from Montreal. His company was one of the four finalists. “The more sounding boards you can have and the more times you can repeat your ideas and get feedback, the better.”

Big Blue Bubble (London, Ontario), Cerebral Vortex Games (St. Catharines, Ontario), Hothead Games (Vancouver), and MindHabits were each handed up to $250,000 to come up with playable prototypes and marketing plans. A final winner will be announced at Vancouver’s Vidfest at the end of September. That company will receive up to $500,000 in matching funds to support commercialization.

“Getting the chance to finance the prototype was the most important [support] for us,” said Damir Slogar, CEO of Big Blue Bubble. Slogar told the Straight that prototype development for his game is going faster than he expected.

MindHabits’ Mather praised the Telefilm initiative for coming up with an innovative manner of dispersing funding. “They could have just done it as a $2 million fund and have people apply,” he said. Externalizing it, however, gives credibility to the work. “It’s being vetted by industry.

“Our experience is a little bit different,” he continued, “in that we’re not industry veterans for video games.” Which meant that the exposure to people from the industry—mentorship was built into Telefilm’s competition—“was very useful”.

Coming up with a playable prototype in five months requires an aggressive schedule, but Cerebral Vortex’s Jason MacIsaac said that his group had a prototype early on in the competition, and he’s just returned from a business trip to meet with potential publishers for the game. Commercial prospects notwithstanding, he still wants to win.

“We want the prestige of having won,” MacIsaac admitted, “but if we don’t, the game goes on.”

That sentiment—trying to bring a game to market even if it doesn’t win the Telefilm competition—was shared by all.

“It’s going really well,” claimed Susannah Skerl, producer for Hothead Games’ Swarm project, on the phone from her Yaletown office. Skerl said that the experience of her team—Hothead only hires industry veterans, and Skerl herself has been in the industry for 10 years—is one reason things are running so smoothly.

“We understand there’s a lot of pressure on us because we have this industry history,” she admitted. “It doesn’t help to get distracted or stressed. We also have a lot of NERF guns in this office.”