By Jon Scarr
Canada’s video game industry has a new policy idea on the table. After Video Games on the Hill 2026 in Ottawa, Entertainment Software Association of Canada president and CEO Paul Fogolin raised the idea of developing a National Video Game Strategy for Canada.
That doesn’t mean a federal strategy is underway. No plan, timeline or policy package has been announced, and Fogolin hasn’t outlined what a strategy would contain. The question, then, is what a coordinated national approach could realistically address.
At this year’s event, industry and government discussions focused on competitiveness, talent development, commercialization and safety. Those discussions came as companies across Canada’s video game industry were already facing different barriers to growth.
Canada’s Video Game Industry Is Big, but Its Challenges Differ by Company Size
ESAC commissioned Nordicity’s Canada’s Video Game Industry 2024 study. It estimated 821 video game companies were operating in Canada in 2023–24.
Nordicity also estimated 34,010 direct full-time-equivalent jobs and a total GDP contribution of $5.1 billion. Those numbers establish the size of the industry, but the pressures facing individual companies aren’t the same.
Discoverability was a challenge across company sizes. Smaller companies reported difficulty accessing funding and outside financing, while very large companies cited talent and lower demand.
That range of challenges is one reason a national strategy wouldn’t simply be a matter of creating a single new funding program. The needs of a small Canadian studio trying to finance its next game can be very different from those of a major company hiring hundreds of developers.
Federal Policy Already Reaches Canada’s Video Game Industry
A National Video Game Strategy also wouldn’t be starting from nothing.
Video games already intersect with federal policy in several areas. Canada’s cultural-sector investment rules explicitly include interactive digital media, covering PC, console, cloud and mobile gaming. That gives video games a place within the federal framework used when reviewing certain foreign investments in cultural businesses.
Creative Export Canada also includes interactive digital media within its funding framework for eligible export-oriented projects.
Those programs matter, but they serve different purposes and operate independently. They don’t add up to a National Video Game Strategy simply because video game companies can use them.
A coordinated strategy could instead create a clearer federal framework for the industry. It could bring competitiveness, commercialization, talent and investment into the same policy conversation.
Exactly what that would look like hasn’t been proposed.
The UK and Australia Take Different National Approaches
Other countries provide examples of how national governments can support video game development without relying on the same policy tool.
In the United Kingdom, the government has announced a £30 million Games Growth Package aimed at supporting the sector. Most of that funding is going through the UK Games Fund, alongside additional support for the London Games Festival.
The package sits within a wider effort to support company growth, investment and development across the UK games industry. It’s one example of government using direct funding and industry programs as part of a national growth approach.
Australia has taken a different route with its Digital Games Tax Offset. Eligible developers can receive a 30 per cent refundable tax offset on qualifying Australian development expenditure. The program requires at least $500,000 in qualifying expenditure.
Neither model tells Canada what it should do. They do, however, demonstrate that national video game policy can take very different forms. One country may focus more heavily on development funding and company growth, while another uses the tax system to encourage production and investment.
A Canadian approach would have to reflect the structure of Canada’s own industry rather than simply importing a program from somewhere else.
A Canadian Strategy Still Needs a Framework
Right now, the biggest unknown is what Fogolin means by a National Video Game Strategy beyond starting the conversation.
The Video Games on the Hill roundtables give us some idea of the issues currently being discussed between industry representatives and government. Competitiveness, talent development, commercialization and safety were all on the agenda in Ottawa, but those discussions haven’t been turned into a proposed national framework.
There’s also a difference between industry advocacy and government policy. ESAC, which will become Video Games Canada later in 2026, can push for a national conversation and bring industry concerns to decision-makers. Creating an actual strategy would require federal participation, defined priorities and concrete policy decisions.
That process could eventually involve funding, investment, exports, talent or other areas already affecting Canadian studios. For now, though, none of those elements has been announced as part of a National Video Game Strategy.
Fogolin has put the idea into the conversation while Canadian companies face very different challenges. What happens next will depend on whether that discussion moves from industry advocacy into a formal government process.
Jon Scarr
Enjoying our coverage? Add 4ScarrsGaming as a Preferred Source on Google.
Comments
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated. Please stay respectful and on topic.