The biggest game industry news to hit Toronto last week (and probably ever) is that France’s UbiSoft, best-known for its smash hit Horsez 2 from the Nintendo DS Petz series, is establishing a new game studio here in the Big Smoke. The province Premier used a combination of grants, tax breaks, 263 million dollars, and the promise of frequent back rubs to lure the studio here.

Ontario has been trying to land its video game “anchor tenant” for many years now. The buzz has long been that video game companies were attracted to Quebec because of all its tax breaks and incentives, and Vancouver because of its proximity to Silicon Valley. After trying for many years in vain to physically move the province closer to California (i suggested a rope and pulley system on the government website), Ontario decided to go the other way and build up those tax breaks.

Finally, Ontario got its tax breaks and grant incentives up to snuff, to the point where the free money flowed as easily (if not more easily) than in Quebec. It was only a matter of time before an enormous company like UbiSoft snarfled up to the slop trough.

Ubi-trapped?

The question on many peoples’ lips when the news hit was “what does this mean”? Mainstream newspapers like the Globe and Mail took the predictable route of questioning the 263 million dollar carrot on a stick:

McGuinty’s Playing with the Cool Kids

Underwriting a thriving company such as Ubisoft that can already boast $111-million in annual profits may cause some taxpayers to raise an eyebrow, but “it’s a competitive world out there,” says Mr. McGuinty, and digital media is a “surefire winner.”

Ho-hum. Article author Marcus Gee is right to shake his fist at the kids on his lawn. Such modern contrivances as “video games” and “indoor plumbing” clearly have no future in this world.

For as savvy a read as a mainstream paper will ever manage, read the Toronto Star’s take on it:

Game-Making Talent Thrives in Hip, Independent Studios

Business reporter Chris Sorensen wisely decides to lean on an industry insider tell the tale. In this case, it’s Nathan Vella, head of the heroic Toronto indie studio Capybara Games. Nathan chooses his words carefully when talking about the UbiSoft announcement, because Ubi is publishing Capy’s latest title. Neverthless, he manages to squeeze out this gem:

At a studio of 800, you’re going to be a cog in the wheel,” he said. “But you can come into a company like Capybara or Metanet and be a real maker of video games, rather than be someone who spends all day modelling rocks or designing a sub-menu.

Zing!

For a less level-headed take on the news we turn to me, Ryan Henson Creighton, head of Toronto indie game studio Untold Entertainment, who’s always been less guarded with his criticisms. It hasn’t gotten the studio ahead any further, but it makes for an entertaining read. In fact, being an entertainment company, we strive to make everything we do here entertaining. So on that note, on with the career-killing tirade!

Stir Something Up, Creighton

Whether or not UbiSoft’s move to Toronto is positive or negative depends on who you are and where you’re sitting. If you’re a student of one of Ontario’s many, many college game design programs, which are expertly crafted to take graduating high school boys’ money (or that of their parents, in most cases), you are likely very thrilled about the news. And you’ve probably already submitted your resume (rumour has it that UbiSoft received over 500 job applications the day after the anouncement). This puts you in the “UbiSoft Toronto is good” camp.

i expect you’ll eventually waft over to the “UbiSoft Toronto is bad” camp, however, when you discover that despite having a doctorage or a certifiploma or a phC+ in gaming, or whatever your college has handed you, you’re not actually employable in the game industry. The 800 jobs that UbiSoft has proposed to create in the next ten years will go to computer science graduates, software engineers, and fine arts grads – you know, people who actually have marketable skills in the industry. i’ve said it before – to students in these courses, and to the faculty as i’ve sat on their advisory boards – and i’ll say it again: if you’re in a “game design” program, and your final project is not a game, you’re in trouble. If your final project is, rather, a spooky animated fly-through of a gritty dungeon level tooled up in Unreal Engine 3, please give some special consideration to learning an actual game industry skill before you apply to UbiSoft. To wit: pretty pictures, or code. You don’t actually get to sit around designing the thing until you’ve been through the trenches (or unless Nathan Vella hires you on at Capy ;)

An Answer to Their Prayers

You’re on the “UbiSoft Toronto is good” camp if you’re trade association Interactive Ontario, who’s been itching to represent a “real” game development studio for quite some time now. Luring in an “anchor tenant” was all the talk at io’s GameOn: Finance conference last year. Same story if you’re the Ontario Media Development Corporation, the group charged with doling out taxpayer dollars as grants for interactive digital media companies (among others). At a recent grant info session, the OMDC staff said that an ideal situation for them is to have a multi-million dollar AAA console developer submit a grant proposal to them for OMDC’s $150k buy-in. The OMDC would then see their logo displayed on the game and would share in any success the title enjoyed. (Nothing says “shared risk” like contributing 3% of the cost of a project.)

i’m not complaining, of course. It all makes sense. Of course a government grouped tasked with economic stiumlation is going to flip head over heels for a big, successful employer in the province. Of course a trade association is happy about having a major industry player included in its membership. i don’t begrudge them that.

Finally – a REAL Studio

But who is upset about UbiSoft coming to Toronto? Before the announcement, whenever anyone had to rattle off the video game studios in Toronto, they’d try their best to name all of the triple-A’s (the only studios that count): Silicon Knights, Bedlam Games, Koei, Rockstar North, and Digital Extremes. If i were one of those guys, i’d be quaking in my boots right now. As Nathan mentioned in the Star article, UbiSoft will help to keep the talent in town, but they’ll also be a major force for sucking the talent away from other companies like … like something that sucks very very much. (Let’s say Horsez 2)

i’d also be upset if i were among the companies you don’t name when you’re listing Toronto game studios: Alien Concepts, Longbow Digital Arts, Fuel Industries, Drink Box, Phantom Compass, Vast Studio, e-axis, Head Games, Cerebral Vortex Games, Untold Entertainment Inc. (hey – that’s us!).

Here’s the deal: when i tell people that i make video games, their faces brighten and they say “Wow! For which system??” And when i say “PC. Online. You know – casual games. Flash stuff.”, their faces fall, as if i had just told them that i was A) Santa Claus and that i had B) testicular cancer. Rule number one here in Toronto, a place packed with indie casual games studios, is that if you don’t develop for a console or mobile, you ain’t a thought in anyone’s mind. One of the greatest online casual Flash game success stories of all time, Webkinz, is headquartered an hour up highway 400 from the downtown core, but you barely hear anyone make mention of them here in Ontario. But if you call yourself a triple-A developer, even if you haven’t released a single game, you’re lavished with love. And money. Lots of taxpayer money.

The indie studios that are spoken of – Metanet, Capybara Games, and Jonathan Mak (who isn’t actually studio, but you might think he is the way some folks gush) – are spoken of because they’ve enjoyed some degree of success. Metanet had their Flash ninja game ported to XBox Live Arcade. Capybara swept E3 2009 with their puzzle game. Jon Mak one-man-banded his way onto the Playstation Network with a creative shooter.

And that makes sense, too. How can i complain about that? Of course people are only going to talk about the successful studios. Why would they talk about the seldom-heard-of ones?

So … geez. It’s getting harder to drum up outrage on this issue. Why am i upset about UbiSoft moving to Toronto, exactly?

Mighty Oaks by Small Acorns are Sniped

i guess it’s just the view from the bottom. Start-ups are always looking for ways to get ahead, to get a break, and to be well-thought-of. One major tool in the toolbelt has now been dulled by the entrance of a sparkly-pantsed triple-A studio. Best believe that not a single grant, tax break or incentive will go by without UbiSoft being a guaranteed recipient. Sure, it makes sense, but it also leaves less at the plate for the small dogs to squabble over. i have a hard enough time already putting together the quadruplicate, 70+ page applications with detailed (and oddly television-skewed) production budgets for the OMDC grants as it is. UbiSoft has only to snap its fingers to devote a third of its accounting and legal departments to a proposal.

That’s the tangible stuff. Intangibly, Ubi’s presence will just foster the attitude that triple-A console games are the only games that matter. We don’t hold that opinion in any other media field in Canada – not least of all film, where i day say Canadians are culturally rebuked for attempting anything close to a blockbuster Hollywood-formatted flick. If it’s a documentary about lesbian Inuit women fighting for wheelchair access to the houses of parliament so they can protest excessive cod fishing, we’re all over it. (Bonus points if it’s in subtitled Inuktitut.)

My colleague Tony Walsh over at Phantom Compass is building a game about, of all things, theatrical Greek tragedies. i worry that the real Greek tragedy will occur when he gouges his eyes out Oedipus-style if the game doesn’t find the same highbrow Canadian audience who bought tickets to the lesbian Inuit movie.

Man, i’ve had a lot to say here without saying a word. In short,

Dear Ontario,

The new UbiSoft studio is great and all. It really is. But please remember that before you landed your big catch, your video game contingency was comprised of a comparitively large group of scrappy start-ups trying to scrape a living in a challenging industry. Yes, some of these start-ups have arrived, and you are right to crow about their (your) successes. However remember that your new crew of entrepreneurs, some of them very talented and of respectable industry pedigree, need your help and support to grow themselves to where they’re worth crowing about too.

These companies can often only survive if they perform service work, so please stop tooling your programs to solely favour majority-owned content creation. Please stop penalizing or denying companies whose main source of revenue is service work. Please stop burying small 2-5 person teams in mountains of paperwork such that it takes two solid weeks to write a single grant application. Please recognize that start-ups may only have the vaguest notion of revenue projections, particularly on their maiden voyage into a new market or platform. Very few companies share their numers, and it can be downright dastardly trying to track down that data. So please don’t be too haughty if the projections are unrealistic.

Also, contrary to popular opinion, it is possible to play video games on your computer.

Sincerely,

Ryan Henson Creighton
President, Untold Entertainment Inc.
One of the many (many) small indie game development studios in Toronto who were here before UbiSoft, and who must pave the way for the small start-ups who will come after

P.S. Santa is in remission and is currently enjoying a spacious private room at Mount Sinai.

Update: be sure to read Jason Krogh’s take: Supporting the New Media Plankton

Ryan Henson Creighton is a Toronto-based game developer, and founder of Untold Entertainment Inc., specializing in online games for kids, teens, tweens and preschoolers.

Ryan Henson Creighton

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