A true Montreal experience is when you roll down the bike path through Mile End and realize that every second person is wearing something from Ubisoft. Montreal may be the only place on earth where you can see someone riding a unicycle while carrying a bicycle Assassin’s Creed– hooded hoodie. In the middle of winter.
You may not realize it, but Montreal is big on video games. Numerous AAA studios such as Ubisoft, EA, WB Games, Eidos, Epic Games, Gameloft, Take-Two, Behavior Interactive, and Rovio have studios here, with many of the biggest titles (including Assassin’s Creed, We Happy Few, Deus Exeverything Tom Clancy, Mass effect, Tomb Raider) come from the city.
Montreal is home to more than 200 studios and publishers with 20,000 people working in the industry — the city ranks fifth in the world and first in Canada for games, according to economic development organization Montréal International. It is also the fourth most livable city in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index.
Games as art
What makes Montreal different is that it is a city where art is central. It caters to whimsy and imagination and rewards playfulness.
Most Montreal residents agree that the city’s chill contributes to this creative energy. One of the coolest indie studios in town is KitFox Games, the developer behind the genre-crushing title Friend Dungeon: A dungeon crawler/dating sim where your weapons become characters you can date. From Montreal, KitFox co-founder Tanya X. Short comments: “I love that there are so many strong traditions of fine arts – not just the museums, but things like Nuit Blanche or the Quartier des Brillen and the anarcho-communist groups that they create micro-communities of people who are really thoughtful and ambitious in their creativity.I wish the games side wasn’t so entrepreneurship-oriented, but I think that’s a sign of the times.”
Short is also a founding member of Pixelles, a volunteer-run non-profit organization dedicated to helping marginalized people play games. “Most of our programs are deliberately local and tailored to the specific requirements of the Montreal game development scene,” explains Short. “It’s for people in the game industry as well as people who just practice making games as an art form.”
Experimental games creator Raphaël Maïwen founded le Dépotoir de recherche in 2020 as a collective for non-commercial game developers and creators who challenge the norms. “I believe that making games is a very creative craft, regardless of scope or purpose,” says Maïwen. “People used to criticize Ubisoft for releasing a… Assassin’s Creed every year, because according to them it meant that (the studio) was lazy and unoriginal. But for each individual episode, artists had to draw and model new characters, composers to create new songs, writers to create new stories, and programmers to implement and optimize new systems.”
Montreal’s art-forward attitude extends to immersive galleries and experimental spaces where interactive works can be discovered. Art spaces such as ZU, PHI Centre, perte de signal, SAT and ELEKTRA often have exhibits that test the boundaries between games and art.
Join the community
The best way to support as a player is to keep playing! Wishlist, buy, review and support the creators, studios and games you love. Short recommends “joining a game’s community – whether it’s on social media or newsletters or forums, wherever you can connect with other fans of that game, it’s great for the developer! We make our games for the fans, so when they get involved, it really energizes us.”
But how can you get involved on the industry side? “I’d say GamePlay Space should be your first entry point,” said Jason Della Rocca, co-founder and prominent game industry consultant, of Execution Labs.
At the heart of Montreal’s indie developer community, GamePlay Space hosts a wealth of events, workshops and playtests, while offering desk rentals and business development advice to startup studios. GPS was founded as a space where small studios and freelancers can network, share, learn and create together. You can join for free or paid, but access to the community is invaluable.
“Next up is attending MEGAMIGS,” continues Della Rocca. MEGAMIGS is the gaming conference in Montreal (October 19–22) where studios showcase their latest projects and social opportunities.
“The overarching message is: network,” said Astrid Rosemarin, Communications Director at New World Interactive. “And GPS and MEGAMIGS are the prime places to do it. Rosemarin also introduces the FB group L’Extension (aka Gang of Devs), which often hosts in-person events in the area.
Hannah Cartmel, program manager at GPS and former instructor at Champlain College of Vermont, always advises her students, “Volunteering for events, including GPS events! It’s a great way to meet people and take the stress out of ‘networking’.” Cartmel also recommends attending events at Concordia’s TAG MTL and programs from Pixelles.
Game Jam is a monthly column about Montreal’s video game community. Are you a studio in Montreal releasing a game soon? Please contact me here.
For more information about Montreal art, visit the Arts & Life section.
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