When it launched 40 years ago, the Canadian Film Development Corporation was all about motion pictures. Today, the digital universe presents an entirely new space, and despite the platforms suggested by the agency’s ‘Telefilm’ moniker, it has also taken on interactivity, as evidenced by initiatives such as the Great Canadian Video Game Competition.

Since few Canadian-owned video game developers can front the $10 million or so needed to develop and publish a new title, even those floating the best ideas in this country’s high-caliber talent pool generally have to sell their intellectual property rights to multinationals. And that only happens if they can first get busy publishers to take a pitch meeting.

After evaluating the marketplace, Telefilm decided an intervention was in order, and thus the competition, announced last year.

‘There are lots of hot developers out there, and they can’t get the attention of the publishers. The barriers to entry are getting higher all the time,’ says Earl Hong Tai, Telefilm’s Western regional director. ‘It’s the homegrown properties that aren’t getting made,’ he adds, likening the video game situation to Canada’s feature film industry, where, ‘when you finally get it done, you still have to find a way to get it on the screen.’

A 2006 FAD Research report, submitted to the CRTC as part of a Telefilm submission, notes that ‘the vast majority’ of work performed by some 30,000 Canadian new media professionals – especially in the game industry – is fee-for-service labor headed mainly for export, rather than being controlled by well-capitalized companies. To increase Canadian control, it says, industry needs extensive research on establishing profitable business models in the rapidly changing world of new media.

Telefilm reckoned it was time to increase its presence in the game industry. At its heart, says Hong Tai, the competition aims to stimulate the development of IP and ‘to ensure that whoever participates… has some access to the publishing rights.’

Along the way, competitors will vie for up to $2 million in financing – no more than half coming from the Canada New Media Fund – as well as ‘invaluable industry mentorship,’ according to Telefilm.

The competition is structured ‘in line with the development timelines and processes used by industry,’ says Alastair Jarvis, producer with HB Studios of Lunenburg, NS, which is working on Trailer Park Boys: The Game.

The TPB game is one of 10 finalists out of 69 entries submitted to the industry jury last fall. All 10 received $50,000 from Telefilm to flesh out their gaming concepts, develop a visual ID and strike a plan to raise private financing. They’ll present this work to the jury at the Game Developers Conference, March 5-9 in San Francisco, after which only four competitors will remain.

The final four receive up to $250,000 each – with half from Telefilm and half raised privately – to create a playable prototype. At Vancouver’s Vidfest, Sept. 24-26, the winner will receive up to $500,000 from Telefilm – a figure that must be matched by private investment.

Telefilm’s industry partners are Electronic Arts, Radical Entertainment and Ubisoft. On the jury are: Yannis Mallat, CEO, Ubisoft Montreal; Ron Moravek, VP, COO, Electronic Arts Canada; and Kelly Zmak, president, Radical Entertainment (Vivendi Universal Games Canada).

www.telefilm.gc.ca/game/