Canada's Economy: The Growth Gained Through Gaming

Video gaming has become a notable influencing aspect of Canada's economy. Consumer spending on video games in Canada amounted to 1.21 billion Canadian dollars in 2014. Since then there has been continued growth, which is set to continue, with predictions for 2019 totalling at a potential 1.47 billion Canadian dollars. With 32.4% of Canada's population engaging in video gaming of some sort (19.4% of which reportedly play for between one and three hours every week) and 15% of online activity on personal computers being spent playing video games, it is no wonder that the video game industry has had an impact on Canada's economy.

It is not only the purchasing of video games that is creating this impact, but also the design, production, testing and distribution of them. The contribution of the the video game industry towards Canada's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 2.3 billion Canadian dollars. The number of video game companies in existence across Canada currently stands at over 300 and more than 16,000 people are employed in the industry there, making it no wonder that Canada takes the place of the world's third largest industry regarding the development of video games (the US and Japan hold first and second places, respectively).

Globally renowned video game companies that have offices in Canada include Rockstar (the publishers of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption), Bioware, Ubisoft and EA. The province of Quebec is home to approximately half of the jobs in the video gaming industry; ninety-seven companies - including Gamelot and Warner Bros Games Montréal - are located there.

Warner Bros. Games Montreal está desarrollando dos nuevos juegos de DC Comics - https://t.co/XXsptfldhs pic.twitter.com/K4tbfzY3VW

— RegionPlayStation™ (@RegionPS) December 1, 2015

The genres of games that have proven to be most popular in Canada are action and adventure. These genres contributed to 59% of video game revenue in 2015; correspondingly, 60% of video game companies worked on producing games of these genres. There is speculation that EA Canada are currently involved in the production of a new open world Star Wars game. Although the EA Canada company are best known for their sports games (such as FIFA, NHL and NBA Live), the Star Wars speculation derives from the fact that EA has procured a licence for the Star Wars franchise for ten years, alongside the job specification on EA Canada's website detailing the search for an Animation Director "to help define and deliver on the vision for a major new next-gen open world action game". Live open world games occupy some of the most popular video game slots, such as World of Warcraft and Runescape. Live gaming is popular due to the sense of community it delivers, as well as the thrill of real-time interactions with other players. Live casino gaming - which this site explains in detail the technicalities of - has also proved popular in Canada for the same reason, and the increase in number and use of mobile games makes live casino games easy to play anywhere. Indeed, from 9.1 million in 2015 to an expected 13.5 million in 2012, the population engaging in mobile gaming in Canada is on the rise... and with it comes a revenue increase for mobile gaming, from 282 million US dollars in 2015 to 2021's anticipated 381 million US dollars.

#Microsoft: Global video-game market hits $65 billion, and consoles still lead the way http://t.co/wyvIELTUcQ #xbox pic.twitter.com/6rb6b8OF0H

— Philippe Sentenac (@psentenac) May 20, 2013

Canada's video game industry is growing exponentially, witnessing an increase of 11% between 2015 and 2017, with a predicted 17% between 2017 and 2019. Naturally, this indicates the continued growth of the video game sector of Canada's economy, which hopefully means that in turn more will be spent on the production and purchase of games, thereby renewing and increasing the cycle again and again.