The creation of original intellectual property in video games development is critical to the industry’s success in Canada, and the government has an important role to play in nurturing firms creating titles outside the mainstream of licensing and sequels, attendees to the Montreal Games Summit in Montreal November 3 and 4 heard. In a session hosted by International Games Developer Association program director Jason Della Rocca, the audience was presented with the conundrum of modern-day games development – whether to pursue established Hollywood properties such as Harry Potter and other movie and TV titles, or work from scratch to develop original games. The answer, says Della Rocca, is that the industry relies on established properties to generate reliable profits for shareholders, but that the industry will stagnate without the creation of new titles. Further, he noted, original IP is the surest path to spectacular success as compared with less risky titles with lower potential upside.

Montreal-based ITV Media Experts and Vidéotron ltée have announced a new service offering to launch in the summer of 2005 that will bring long-form interactive advertising on an on-demand basis to the cableco’s digital TV customers at the press of a button. The system, similar in some ways to the now-defunct-in-Canada Wink system (CNM, Oct. 6/04), is being touted as a breakthrough technology for advertisers, broadcasters and distributors as they each seek to exploit digital TV platforms and mitigate negative trends towards personalized, advertising-free TV made possible by personal video recorders and other technologies. While an unnamed advertiser and Vidéotron are pressing forward with the offering, called etc.tv, experts caution that its success will depend on the participation of broadcasters – a group that has traditionally been aggressive in seeking a share of the ITV revenue pie.

A new Rogers Wireless/CHUM Ltd. white label phone cell phone offering will come bundled with new a video content service developed by a spin-off from one of the country’s leading new media production shops. The service, by start-up QuickPlay Inc., will aggregate CHUM and other video content from sources including CBC and CTV Inc., and be available as a shortcut from the phone’s main screen.

Quebec new media coffers could be boosted to the tune of $2 million to $3 million a year if the province’s main lobby group is successful in a proposal to earmark some of Télé-Québec’s budget for interactive content. Quebec City is currently studying how the province’s main educational TV broadcaster might be put on a different budgetary footing, and the Alliance numériQC is pressuring the government to earmark 10% of its new budget for new media.

The Canadian recording industry is asking the CRTC to proceed carefully in licensing new digital radio services due to worries that the technology could exacerbate its current digital piracy woes. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) warns that the subscription radio ventures being proposed before the commission can be hacked into to build personalized playlists of music. Proponents of the technology counter that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is already looking into the problem in much greater detail, in a process that should be allowed to play out before Canadian regulators make any decisions. They note that satellite radio equipment will be built around the needs of other larger markets, and that a made-in-Canada solution to music piracy isn’t practical.