The video game sector has experienced significant growth in recent years. We take stock of some fundamental issues. First case: the proliferation of independent studios.
CH players often started skating before kindergarten. OSM musicians have been rehearsing their scales since their early youth. Chloé Lussier, co-founder of the Lowbirth Games studio, designed her first video game (JV) with her sister, Raphaëlle, and her cousin Olivier when the trio was still in primary school.
“We have always been very active and creative,” says the young woman. But it was a hobby and nothing professional, we agree. » Their first game, very simple, was produced using the free RPG Maker software, which appeared in 1992 and is still on the market.
Video game enthusiast and entrepreneur Chloé Lussier is in fact one of the first pure products of Quebec’s fun, digital and educational ecosystem. She graduated from the specialized program at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) just before the pandemic. As soon as she completed her baccalaureate, she followed a practical summer micro-program for marketing businesses in the sector, showing how to apply for grants or put together a business plan.
Lowbirth Games was quickly launched, in the fall of 2019, with the two other Lussiers, the sister and the cousin. “I was therefore fortunate to have university training in game creation while many owners of independent studios are veterans of large companies in the sector,” summarizes the CEO.
This is the case of David Fugère-Lamarre, co-founder and CEO of Illogika, a Montreal studio born in 2009. “We were at the start of the independent wave,” he says. There were four of us who worked for Behavior, which was then called Artificial Mind and Movement. Two elements played a role in our choice. First, the launch of the Apple App Store, which completely democratized the distribution of video games and which later expanded to other platforms. Then, the brand new Unity game engine, the first real technical solution available to an independent developer. »
Mr. Fugère-Lamarre was also attracted to the digital games sector when he was very young. “My father told me that I was already talking about it as a profession when I was six years old,” he says, while confiding that he has kept his historic consoles. He graduated with a degree in computer engineering in 2004 and did a master’s degree in management.
Illogika brings together some 65 employees who execute contracts for partners (Spongebob, Cuphead, etc.) and also develops its own games (Beyond Earth, Rogue Racers…), again according to the lesson learned at Behavior, but on a smaller scale.
For now, the Lowbirth Games company is focusing on its own creations. The first result, This Bed We Made, appeared in November after more than three years in production. The very original framework is organized around Sophie, a chambermaid who leads an investigation in the luxury Montreal hotel Clarington in 1958. We are very, very far from Call of Duty…
“It was not our objective to make an activist studio with stories with a social vocation,” says the CEO. “We first want to tell good stories. But as the majority of our team is made up of women and queer people, we offer games that resemble us, non-competitive, non-macho and non-violent games. We are in narration, fantasy, with strong characters. »
As the majority of our team is made up of women and queer people, we offer games that resemble us, non-competitive, non-macho and non-violent games.
The young growth also reflects values of inclusion and respect. The fifteen employees work from 9 to 5, four days a week, in a very united and friendly team spirit, assures the boss. “We are a little more than the three from the beginning, and at the same time we are still a family. »
A haven of toys
The smala is installed in the center of the immense open space of Indie Asylum, in a building in Montreal’s Mile End. The Lussier company was even the second to join this business incubator and accelerator, officially founded in 2019 precisely to support the growing number of small independent studios. Today, Indie Asylum is home to a dozen studios, and 120 people are on a waiting list to get in.
“We allow small studios to dream big,” summarizes Pascal Nataf, co-founder and president of Indie Asylum. We met him in the large loft that served as the very first headquarters of the giant Ubisoft in the 1990s, at the time of the creation of the Montreal video game industrial cluster. The Indie Asylum occupies 30,000 square feet of space and has reserved double that for expansion.
Of the 87 companies in the sector in 2011, barely 9 had fewer than five employees. On the other hand, there were 148 out of 291 in this category in 2022. In total, SMEs not belonging to foreign multi-billionaire consortiums now number in the hundreds in Quebec. Mr. Nataf, who has just returned from a professional trip to France, offers comparisons with this market: there would be around 18,000 jobs in the JV sector there compared to 15,000 in Quebec, and 600 studios there for 400 here, for a population eight times smaller.
“For Quebec’s independents, there have been many missed development opportunities over the last thirty years due to a lack of business knowledge,” explains the president. The industry has made a lot of bad business decisions. We are very good at producing games, but the intellectual property of these creations too often remains in Paris or San Francisco. We, at Indie Asylum, bring together entrepreneurs who accompany others to grow studios from two or three people to ten or more while avoiding too many mistakes. »
Mr. Nataf helped set up the UQAT JV entrepreneurship microprogram followed by Chloé Lussier. Indie Asylum takes the logic even further by pooling canvassing, accounting and marketing services. Mr. Nataf explains that the highly competitive global industry launches dozens of new games daily. Quebec creators must therefore learn to stand out, to ensure their discoverability, to even boast.
The NPO defends values of mutual aid, cooperation and well-being, including in the type of games developed. “We want to ensure that the games we make have a positive effect on the world,” summarizes the president. Development plans posted on the Indie Asylum website call for adding a workplace daycare, an innovative school, a fleet of car-sharing vehicles, a pub, community gardens, “and why not collective chalets,” says the prospective text.
“I think that neoliberalism is just not viable,” explains Pascal Nataf. We are trying to have something lasting and fairer here. It remains capitalist, to the extent that we bring together private companies. »
He himself arrived at this more participatory and caring vocation after a personal shock. A graduate in biochemistry, researcher in neuropsychology, he was struck down by a devastating illness at the age of 29. “I was lucky to have cancer,” said the man, now recovered. I’m talking about luck, because I was forced to get off the rails and think about my life. I chose gaming. I went back to university and found a place in this environment where I could mix my knowledge of science and creativity. »
In 2012, he co-founded the independent studio Affordance, initially specializing in serious games and gamification. He then got involved in the Quebec Video Game Guild, which brings together all the key players in the sector, then in Indie Asylum, where Chloé Lussier and her gang continue the work started in early childhood.