Finalist: the Great Canadian Video Game Competition made our company viable

With its inaugural Great Canadian Video Game Competition now over, Telefilm Canada hasn't yet decided if it will sponsor a second instalment of the event. One of the finalists, however, has already made up Telefilm's mind. "I absolutely demand that they do it again this year," says Jason MacIsaac, design director at Cerebral Vortex Games (CVG), whose Ambush! Trivia was one of four finalists in the competition. "It's an amazing idea and it should become a regular thing that Telefilm does every year. Even if we don't get to participate it should absolutely happen again." Sounds like a ringing endorsement, and it's not surprising given the source. Oakville ON-based CVG was founded only a couple of months before Telefilm launched the compeition. MacIsaac says the company had not planned to develop a game as ambitious as the fast-paced, head-to-head Ambush! Trivia right away, but the game contest removed some of the barriers that otherwise would have prevented them from doing so. "We would not have come this far so fast without the competition," he says. "We've made Cerebral Vortex into a viable company as a result of the competition." In addition to the funding CVG got from Telefilm to create a playable prototype for the mobile and Microsoft Xbox Live game, they've also received press coverage well beyond what they could have ever dreamed of if they developed the game through traditional channels. Damir Slogar, CEO of London ON-based Big Blue Bubble Inc., whose Hobby Shop game for Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS was another one of the four finalists, echoes MacIssac. "Without Telefilm we wouldn't have been able to, not just create the prototype, but also to get the media exposure that we needed for this particular project," says Slogar. In the case of Big Blue Bubble, that exposure paid off quickly; they found a publisher for Hobby Shop before Telefilm announced the winner of the competition. Slogar says instead of having to pitch its game to various publishers, as is usually the case, the publishers approached Big Blue Bubble because of its success in the contest. And while landing a deal before the competition was over may have hurt Hobby Shop's chances of winning, finding a publisher was, of course, the ultimate objective to begin with. At the Montreal International Game Summit last November when Telefilm launched the GCVGC, Danielle Michael a former VP at Radical Entertainment and a consultant on the competition said, "Our true goal is to have 10 commercial successes. Will this happen? Likely not....But this contest is about trying to eliminate the largest obstacles to developing a game." At the very least, it seems all four of the finalists are headed to the market. "As far as we're concerned, it's full steam ahead," says Joel DeYoung, COO of Hothead Games. "We believe that Swarm! is a compelling concept and we've got a great game on our hands." Gamers think so too. Although Swarm! was also beat out for first prize by Montreal-based MindHabits Inc.'s MindHabits Trainer, it was recognized as the People's Choice in a contest held on the Arcadia Festival's website. "That's just validation that our concept is one that's going to resonate with a wide variety of people, from hardcore gamers to younger kids and that gives us extra confidence that we've really got something good on our hands," says DeYoung. An action/comedy game, Swarm! features a unique game play proposition where gamers train herds of creatures called Swarmites to the polluted planet of Esalea. DeYoung says the requirement to create a playable prototype in the latter stage of the competition forced Hothead to focus on game play rather than getting lost in designing other, less crucial, areas of the game early on. As for the contest winner, MindHabits had been developing the concept for MindHabits Trainer - a suite of 20 stress-reducing mini games for a handheld device or PC - for years based on the research of Mark Baldwin, a psychology professor at McGill University and MindHabits' president and chief scientific officer. The GCVGC merely provided the perfect impetus to develop the game. "Having won the competition has elevated profile with a lot of people in the industry, so it was definitely a great help," says Matthew Mather, MindHabits' CEO. "Plus, getting the money from Telefilm has been very useful in driving the development of the product forward as well." Receiving the money via the competition also allowed MindHabits to develop the game the way it envisioned, without any control from an outside interest. Mather continues: "I think the contest was successful. I could see all of the finalists going forward they seemed to have really well developed games and ideas and I think they generated a lot of interest in the industry."

Finalist: the Great Canadian Video Game Competition made our company viable

Broadcast | September 28, 2007

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