Tag: Telefilm

Competition Rules

The Canadian federal agency, Telefilm, has announced the four finalists in round 2 of its video game developer competition. The finalists are:

• Mindhabits of Montreal for Mindhabits Trainer
• Hothead Games of Vancouver for Swarm!
• Big Blue Bubble of London Ontario for Hobby Shop
• Cerebral Vortex of Toronto for Ambush! Trivia.

The finalists were chosen at this years’ Game Developers Conference.

In the prior round, each finalist had won $50,000 to explore their proposed game, seek venture capital etc.. In this round 2, each of the four finalists received a further $250,000 to develop a prototype of their game. In September a winner will be chosen at Vancouver’s VidFest. The winner will receive a further $500,000 to launch their game.

In addition to the four finalists above, on January 15, 2007 the following additional $50K round 1 winnners were announced:

• Dark Matter Entertainment of Toronto for Vertical Ascent
• HB Studios & TPB Productions of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia for Trailer Park Boys: The Game
• Hop To It Productions of Toronto for Create-A-Date
• Humagade Studios of Quebec City for Tamano
• LiveWires Design of Vancouver for Reckless
• murmur of Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal for Echelon

Good luck to all.

Sources: Gamasutra | GameCareerGuide.com | CBC.ca | PlayBack | Canada.com

Competition Rules

Today, the Canadian federal agency, Telefilm, invited new Canadian video game developers to compete for Cdn $2M (U.S. $1.8M) in financing. The ten projects voted most likely to succeed in the “Great Canadian Video Game” competition will receive $50,000 each to further explore their proposed game, seek venture capital etc.. Two months later the field will be winnowed to 4. Each of those will receive a further $250,000 to develop a prototype. At next year’s Vancouver VidFest, a finalist will be given a further $500,000 to launch their game.

Click here to apply! Applications are due by December 15, 2006.

Dale’s Comment: I am of mixed-emotions about this. I have no problem in principle with tax incentives to favor emerging industry. But I have always argued against Canada’s ubiquitous Canadian content rules and preferential treatment for Canadian-owned businesses over foreign-owned businesses. I’m also not so sure Canada actually needs these incentives because it is disproportionately represented on the global stage by its extremely successful video game development community – Montreal’s Ubisoft, Edmonton’s BioWare, Vancouver’s EA and Radical, London’s Digital Extremes, to name just a few.

All that said, if one of these new developers requires a place to spend this money on first rate legal services – look no further!

Sources: Reuters/Hollywood Reporter | City News | ZDNet | Washington Post