Playing for the Future: The Critical Role of Skills for Canada's Video Game Industry

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
The Canadian video game industry anticipates more than 1,400 intermediate and senior level vacancies to be filled in the next 12 to 24 months.See it on page 9
02
Less than one quarter of the 820,000 workers in Canada's technology sector are women, and many are not employed in technical roles.See it on page 9
03
Post-secondary video game programs in the United States reported retention rates of 88.0 percent, compared with national averages of 69.8 percent for private institutions and 64.2 percent for public institutions.See it on page 7
04
Canada ranked 20th out of 23 OECD countries in STEM education in 2012, according to the cited PISA results.See it on page 8
05
The report argues that technical skills alone are not sufficient for industry success, because video games are developed in highly collaborative, multidisciplinary teams.See it on page 9
06
Most studios interviewed for the research reported that they do not have access to an adequate supply of candidates with the requisite mix of technical and soft skills.See it on page 9

Summary

The document is a March 2016 report by Dawson Strategic for the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC) on skills in Canada's video game industry. It draws on industry and government publications and on roundtable discussions with video game companies and sector stakeholders held in January 2016, covering studios of various sizes as well as public and independently owned developers. The industry contributed more than $3 billion to the Canadian economy in 2015, with 20,400 full-time equivalents employed in 2014, up 24 percent from 16,500 in 2012. The number of active studios rose from 328 to 472 between 2012 and 2014. The video game industry anticipates that more than 1,400 intermediate and senior level vacancies will need to be filled in the next 12 to 24 months. The report identifies a widening skills gap, with fewer than one quarter of the 820,000 technology sector workers in Canada being women. Participants described losing talent to the United States, where few Canadian companies can compete in terms of salary and benefits, while tech executives across a number of industries stated that the low Canadian dollar has made recruitment harder. The authors recommend a national computing and digital skills strategy, provincial coordination on curricula, and teacher training. They argue that STEM skills must be complemented by art and design skills.