A report released by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (PDF) has revealed that Canada’s online game industry generated over CA$2.3 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) for the country’s economy in 2012.
Gross domestic product is a figure that represents the market value of all officially recognised final goods and services produced in a rustic within a definite period of time. In accordance with the report, the online game industry also generated a complete of CA$1.7 billion in labour income for Canadian residents.
Prepared by Nordicity, the report outlines the scale of Canada’s online game industry, and states that developers made up 97.4 percent of the revenue made by game firms. Approximately 2.5 percent was credited to game publishers, and zero.5 percent was attributed to “middleware development”.
The report indicates that “expenditures on game development, which happen today, not just generate wages and GDP within the economy today, but additionally provide the muse for higher economic growth at some point”.
Several game developers currently have studios in Canada, including BioWare, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and the newly formed Hinterland. Earlier this year, crowdfunding website Kickstarter begun accepting project submissions based in Canada.