There was a story a couple of weeks ago about a PEI animation company moving to Halifax. This article seems like a defensive move.
A recent funding announcement from the Canada New Media Fund shows PEI is dominating the industry, says a provincial group. Eight projects were announced for funding from the Canada New Media Fund, six of them from Island-based companies. “PEI really, when it comes to video game development and design, is the leader. Nova Scotia hasn’t caught up with us yet. New Brunswick and Newfoundland aren’t really in the picture,” said Mark Sandiford, president of the Interactive Media Alliance of PEI. Sandiford credits the PEI government with recognizing the potential of the industry early on, recruiting video game development companies. PEI’s six video game and animation studios employ 110 people.
Mark. Don’t be so hard on New Brunswick and Newfoundland – but I do like his comment about recruiting video game development companies as a part of developing a video game industry in the province.
It’s also a little unfair since just ONE animation company in NB at one time employed almost as many people as all the companies in PEI put together, and surely there are SOME other companies in NB. But most important is what it says about government-we see just how much ‘work’ the NB government does to pony up to suffering companies like Atcon, yet when FatKat hit the skids they pretty much shrugged their shoulders. Once again it comes down to policies, Fatkat had said for years NB needed to match Nova Scotia’s ‘cultural’ industries tax credits, yet I’m pretty sure we’re still waiting on that.
The last 10 to 15 years have been riddled with government industrial bailouts of old declining industries while small business and high tech start ups are left to rot with a couple of government scraps at their feet.
And who do you think pays for the corporate welfare handouts to big business? That’s right, companies like Fatkat (and others who receive even less at the government trough). Sad.
It seems to me that PEI is all of a sudden actively trying to justify its digital media industry in Atlantic Canada. What I can’t seem to understand is how they feel that some games getting Telefilm funding means they dominate? Nova Scotia has over 400 people working in video game development and animation and New Brunswick has a few good video game companies as well. I read that article about the game company moving to Nova Scotia. It makes sense to me. Halifax seems like the logical city for video game development, not Charlottetown. I am sure each province can develop their own industry without the need for press releases slagging the others. I haven’t seen other provinces slag PEI so why do they feel the need?