Montreal firm wins inaugural video game competition

Ten months after it was launched, Telefilm Canada's first Great Canadian Video Game Competition ended with Montreal-based MindHabits Inc. being awarded up to $1 million to support the commercialization of its handheld game MindHabits Trainer. MindHabits was revealed as the winner at the opening gala of Canada's biggest annual digital content event VIDFEST in Vancouver. For beating out the other 68 entries, MindHabits will receive up to $500,000 from Telefilm, which will be matched equally with private financing. "The competition was tight, but MindHabits best demonstrated the Canadian creativity and innovation that our panel of esteemed judges was looking for," said Telefilm's executive director Wayne Clarkson in a news release announcing the winner. Canadian NEW MEDIA was at the Montreal International Game Summit last November when Telefilm announced it would begin taking pitches from independent video game development companies interested in competing for a piece of the approximately $2 million up for grabs in the contest. Sixty-nine companies pitched game ideas and in January an industry jury - Yannis Mallat, CEO of Ubisoft Entertainment's Montreal studio, Ron Moravek, VP and COO of Electronic Arts Canada, and Kelly Zmak, president of Radical Entertainment - awarded 10 finalists $50,000 to continue developing their games. That list was trimmed again in March to included only Big Blue Bubble of London ON for its Nintendo Wii game Hobby Shop, Cerebral Vortex Games of St. Catharines ON, for its PC/Mobile/Xbox Live Arcade game Ambush! Trivia, Hothead Games Inc. of Vancouver for its PC game SWARM! and MindHabits, all of who received up to $250,000 to create a playable prototype. Telefilm called the contest an intersection between its mandate to create Canadian content and the needs of the Canadian video game industry. It added, however, that games didn't have to feature distinctly Canadian game play. MindHabits Trainer is a stress-reducing and self-esteem building game based on the notion that "playing a specially-designed computer game might also help to improve your thoughts and feelings about yourself," according to the MindHabits website. Also announced at VIDFEST was the winner of the People's Choice Award, which allowed fans from across the country to vote for their favourite finalist at the Arcadia Festival website. Hothead's SWARM! took home took home people's choice honours. While the support MindHabits receives for winning will no doubt go a long way to making the its game a commercial success, the overall goal of the competition was to foster as many commercially viable games as possible by eliminating the largest obstacles to developing a game. CNM will be catching up with some of the finalists later this week to find out if this vision will be realized.

Montreal firm wins inaugural video game competition

Broadcast | September 25, 2007

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