Indie game studios seize moment to lead

A contraction in the games industry that especially affects heavy hitters has helped spur a boom of indie studios led by top talent, attendees of an Edmonton Startup Week event heard. A panel on Edmonton's chance to lead the games industry featured Ronnie Villanueva of Edmonton Screen and Digital Alberta; Nathaniel Rossol of vrCAVE; Mark Darrah from Triage Games and formerly BioWare and parent company Electronic Arts; and Kris Schoneberg of Studio Reset. The latter's studio has a paranormal investigation game called The Eventide available to wishlist on Steam. Finishing the game, which has a distinctive visual style, will take a few years; the studio is seeking production funding right now, Schoneberg told Taproot after the Oct. 7 panel at Edmonton Unlimited.

She, Kaelin Lavallee, and Francis Lacuna launched Studio Reset after a series of layoffs, including at BioWare and Inflexion Games. "All three of us looked at each other and were like, 'Do we want to go apply to a AAA studio right now? Or do we want to take the talent that we developed over the last 20 years, and try to found our own thing?" she said. Fellow panellist Darrah, whose Triage Games consults on game development, said that because BioWare doesn't suck up all of Edmonton's junior talent anymore, newbies in the industry have been pushed to make their own stuff. "Edmonton is in a sad-but-good position right now," he said. Given the US$55-billion acquisition of Electronic Arts, it's hard to know what will happen to BioWare, but regardless, Darrah said, the ecosystem needs to demonstrate Edmonton's ease of use and cost-effectiveness compared to other markets.

Edmonton Startup Week features another event about building games in Alberta on Oct. 8, with NAIT instructors who are also founders, as well as Lavallee of Studio Reset and other industry reps. Starting on Oct. 18 comes the first Edmonton Games Week from Interactive Arts Alberta, which includes IAA's long-running Game Discovery Exhibition conference on Oct. 23 to 25. Further out are the industry-facing North American Games Industry Summit and consumer-facing Game Con Canada in June.