Jay Leon Hart, on 07 January 2018 - 09:01 AM, said:
MWO will die when 1 of 3 things happens.
1. MW5 gets MP support (it's going to happen eventually)
2. MWO2 gets released
3. PGI no longer makes enough money from MC.PT/Mech pack sales to keep it running
I have to laugh at this topic and some posts MWO could keep running even if not 1 mech pack is sold read below Canadian game company's are almost tax free and basically MWO is a write off for PGI along with all the free government subsides they receive.
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Canada recently surpassed the United Kingdom to become the third largest industry in the world in terms of employment in the field – after Japan and the United States – with 16,000 employees, 348 companies located throughout the country and an economic impact of $2 billion.
According to a survey by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC), about 59 percent of Canadians play video games. Approximately 61 percent of Canadian households have a video game console, 80 percent own a mobile device and about 95 percent own a computer. With these high percentages of ownership, many Canadians play games on these devices; but what a lot of Canadians may not realize is that many of the games they have come to know and love are made right in their home country.
Some of the first successful video games produced in Canada include Evolution and BC’s Quest for Tires, developed by Vancouver-based Sydney Development Corporation in 1983. Evolution was created by teenagers from Vancouver and sold 400,000 copies upon its initial release three decades ago.
Other companies began to develop in the area and by the 1990s, British Columbia became the centre of the video gaming industry in the country. According to ESAC, the province employs about 6,100 people today – approximately 44 percent of the total for the entire country. However, recent layoffs in the region at video game companies such as Microsoft Studios and Radical Entertainment, as well as Rockstar Games (developer of the Max Payne series of games) moving its offices from Vancouver to Toronto, have put a dent in the industry in the province. Montreal surpassed Vancouver in number of companies and people employed in the field years ago.
Furthermore, British Columbia doesn’t offer the tax breaks that Quebec and Ontario give to video game companies, which has had an effect on where companies choose to locate their offices in the country. High rents for office space in Vancouver don’t help. On the other hand, many startup companies have been locating to Vancouver to create games for mobile / smartphone apps, and Microsoft plans to develop a new game at a new studio being built in the city.
Recently, Quebec has emerged to become a major centre for the industry due to tax breaks and incentives that have attracted video game companies to locate to the province. Today, about 5,200 (about 37 percent) employees in the industry call Quebec home. About 70% of the country’s large video game studios (employing more than 151 people) are located in Quebec.
Ontario is home to more gaming companies (96) than BC (83) or Quebec (86); these are primarily startups based in Toronto and Waterloo, employing fewer than 45 people each. The Ontario Technology Corridor is projected to see a growth rate of 21 percent for video game companies. Electronic Arts, Arkadium, and Gameloft are just a few of the video game companies that have offices in the province. Tax breaks such as the Ontario Computer Animation and Special Effects Tax Credit, the Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit, and the Interactive Digital Media Fund are credited with bringing growth to the video gaming industry in the province.
Many factors are cited for the success of the gaming industry in the country, including not only government subsidies, but a highly educated talent force, desirable cities to relocate to, and a favourable exchange rate of the Canadian Dollar. Postsecondary institutions throughout the nation have programs for computer programming and graphic design to fill the positions that video game companies offer.
However, Canada is facing some new challenges to its status in the gaming industry. Other countries, including France, Australia, and South Korea offer some form of tax relief for digital media companies, and the number of countries who offer the same is likely to increase as more countries look to attract skilled workers and offer the high wages often associated with the video game industry.
Additionally, 21 U.S. states also offer tax breaks for video game companies, and with the American Dollar more or less on par with the Loonie, the U.S. may prove to be serious competition for Canadian companies in the future.
Other shifts include a downward trend in the sale of console devices (such as Xbox, Playstation, or Wii) and the increase in mobile apps and free-to-play games that people play on mobile devices. According to a report from technology research company Gartner, global video game-related spending is expected to reach $112 billion by 2015, up from $74 billion in 2011 (in U.S. dollars). But over the past three years, retail sales of hard-copy console games have been stagnant after a peak in 2008 and have been in decline ever since. Meanwhile, the amount spent on mobile games worldwide has increased, projected to go from $5.6 billion in 2010 to $11.4 billion by 2014. According to a survey by ESAC, approximately 50 percent of Canadians play video games on a computer, 36 percent on a console and 5 percent on mobile or smartphone devices, and the number of people playing games on mobile devices is expected to increase in the future.
This shift in gaming habits has a profound effect on the gaming industry in Canada because at least 68 percent of Canadian gaming companies work on traditional console-based games. Respondents to a recent survey by ESAC cited this shift to mobile devices as the biggest threat to the industry in Canada and questioned whether companies in the country will be able to adapt to creating games for mobile smartphone devices.
Indeed, the quick development lead times of mobile games has been seen as a threat to many companies that create console games. One of the reasons why mobile game development has grown so rapidly is due to the lower cost of development – the average cost of creating a game for a console device can cost around $20 million while the average cost to develop a mobile game is around $166,000. Also, an independent mobile game developer can pay a $99 developer fee to Apple to distribute their product on an iPhone versus having to battle for shelf space at a Game Stop or Best Buy. A recent study by Deutsche Bank estimates that just 5 percent of traditional console games released since 2001 (with an average price of $60) have sold more than a million copies while Finland-based developer Rovio’s mobile game Angry Birds has been downloaded more than 700 million times.
With that sort of growth, gaming companies in Canada have been taking notice. Montreal-based Ubisoft (the video game publisher that created Assassin’s Creed) recently created its first mobile game, Monster Burner. Ubisoft also owns Gameloft, a mobile-game division based in Paris.
In the meantime, most game developers seem to prefer using mobile apps as a marketing tool to attract more console players. For example, Electronic Arts (EA) has a mobile version of its popular FIFA Soccer game and Ubisoft has a mobile version of Assassin’s Creed.
The emergence of mobile gaming may be seen as a threat to the major game developers in Canada; however, the country can reap the benefits of this trend with startup companies headquartered in the country developing apps. London, Ontario-based Slightly Social started developing mobile apps in 2009 and has created games such as A Ninja Adventure and Steampunk Death Race while teaming up with other mobile app developers to expand even further. Toronto-based Capybara games developed popular mobile apps Critter Crunch and Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery.
A reflection on Canada and its significant impact on the gaming industry, many U.S.-based companies have been releasing mobile games to Canadians to test how they’ll be perceived before introducing them to the larger American market. The reasons cited for this include a common language and shared time zones as well as a smaller population, which is beneficial for the controlled beta test that many of these companies rely on.
Whether playing on a console device, a desktop or laptop computer, or a smartphone, it seems likely that Canadians will always be at the forefront of video game development.