Montreal Tech Watch

TechnoMontreal points out a study made by TechnoCompetences about the video games industry, showing that jobs rose +26% between 2005 and 2007. (PDF report here – in french) The study reports that the Quebec video games industry has 4500 jobs in 2007, if you also count companies specialized in quality assurance and service software companies.

TechnoCompétences also predicts a 28% raise for 2007, with a 44% raise for Quebec city.

I have made a quick (read: google) study of the state of the video games companies and found out these figures:

Note: x is for undisclosed/unknown.

Those numbers need to be completed, but they do show us that the Quebec province is now a technopole for video games. I have read previous articles where representatives said they loved the creativity and the artistic profiles they can find in Montreal and in Québec.

For me, this also shows that this industry is now mature. A company like Ubisoft Montreal with a head count of 2700 can’t be counted anymore as one new media company that needs support for growth, and it may be time to reconsider the 37.5% funding of wages in the multimedia industry by the provincial government. And instead give some of it to startups.