Video game design and production are big business in Canada, very big business indeed. In fact, it does account for most of the digital media revenue of the country itself. There are some huge game producers and also plenty of innovative up-and-coming designers. The offices of these companies are dotted all around Canada, with the vast majority of them being based in the urban hubs of Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Today we are going to look at the top 5 biggest gaming companies currently located in Canada, the size of each of them and some of the top titles that have come from these gaming companies. In fact, the population of Canada is also an avid fan of gaming online and try the ultimate online slots sites on Casinos.com when new titles appear.
Electronic Arts
EA is by far one of the biggest game production companies in the world. They were founded back in 1982 and currently have offices in the likes of Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Montreal. They are responsible for some of the biggest game franchises that have graced the industry, including FIFA, the football/soccer game that started back in 1993 and is still one of the biggest sports games in video game history. Other noticeable franchises that EA has produced also include The Sims and Apex Legends. The company itself also bought over a game company called Distinctive Software, which later went on to become EA Canada. To put into perspective just how big the company is, it was reported that they had a staggering $7.4 billion in net revenue in 2023.
Rockstar Games
Best known for its hugely successful franchises of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, one of the company’s nine worldwide offices is located in Toronto.
Rockstar has referred to the team based in the organisation’s Toronto offices as a team that would make for “a powerful creative force on future projects.” It was responsible for moving Grand Theft Auto V, the biggest game in the franchise thus far, over to Windows. In fact, the team has been solely responsible for the port development in most of the games, including other hit titles like Max Payne, Bully, and Red Dead Redemption.
Relic Entertainment
This innovative game company has been around for 17 years and, in fact, has its head office based in Vancouver and over 400 employees. They have various noticeable franchises, which the team in Vancouver has contributed massively to. These include Homeworld, Dawn of War, and Company of Heroes. It’s also reported that the team is working on the exciting Age of Empires IV, a big-name franchise in itself that has enjoyed considerable success in the past.
Ubisoft
When you think of big names in the video game industry, Ubisoft should be synonymous and leap to the forefront of your mind. The game production is absolutely massive and is also one of the leading supports of implementing blockchain into game development, processes, and experiences. They have a large studio based in Quebec, the team of which has contributed to some of the biggest titles to have been released by the company, which include best-selling franchises such as Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry.
Jam City
This games studio is best known for producing free-to-play mobile games for smartphones. It was founded by some of the co-founders of the now-defunct but, at one time, hugely successful social network MySpace. It has studios in both Montreal and Toronto and is best known for publishing games using licences from the likes of Warner Bros. and Universal Studios.
Some of their best-known games they have developed for smartphones include Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery and Jurassic World Alive. The team at Jam City is responsible, in fact, for some of the highest-grossing mobile games to have ever hit the app stores.
Beenox
This game production company has an office based in Canada and is responsible for over 300 people. Their specialty, when it comes to game production, is porting. The team has been responsible for one of the biggest porting challenges, which was that of the Tony Hawk franchise and porting the games from consoles over to PCs and Macs and has been responsible for this since the early 2000’s. Their reputation over the years has built up and solidified itself and now speaks for itself as they are the go-to for porting.
In Summary
Canada and its cities are a popular destination and base for some of the biggest established and up-and-coming game studios. And the population of Canada loves to play games across all platforms, too. And the games design industry in Canada is also a huge employer, responsible for thousands and thousands of jobs across some of the major cities in and across Canada and we can only expect to see the industry continue to grow.
