The general consensus these days is that Ottawa’s game development industry is booming. Last May, the first Ottawa Games Conference attracted over 420 attendees, exceeding its organizers’ expectations and boosting the hopes of those trying to market the city as a gaming centre.To a certain extent, the success of Ottawa’s industry is mirroring Canada’s as a whole.

In 2010, Canada passed the United Kingdom to become the third-largest employer of game developers in the world, behind only Japan and the United States. The Entertainment Software Association of Canada estimates there are 16,000 game development jobs across the country and predicts 17 percent growth over the next two years. Although the vast majority of these jobs are located in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, the cluster of a few dozen smaller companies in Ottawa is growing steadily.

Much of that growth can be attributed to determined efforts by provincial and federal governments to attract game companies through tax incentives. The Ontario government provides a tax credit of up to 40 percent on labour expenditures for game companies, and uses other subsidies to help start-ups get established. Quebec and British Columbia provide similar benefits, as do many other provinces.

“These are high-paying jobs; the average salary in our industry is $62,000,” says ESAC’s Julien Lavoie. “And generally speaking, it’s young people who work in our industry, who are upwardly mobile and willing to live and work in downtown locations. They can sometimes rejuvenate neighbourhoods, we’ve seen that in Montreal and Toronto.”

Furthermore, Lavoie says, game development jobs have proven to be relatively recession-proof.

Another key for attracting and keeping game companies in Ottawa is the labour supply. Over the last decade, game development programs have started up at Algonquin College, Carleton University, the University of Ottawa, and a handful of other colleges in the region.

Tony Davidson, a professor at Algonquin and the program coordinator for the game development stream, says education programs in the city and the growing industry share a good relationship.

“It’s a very close-knit community, very supportive—and very pro-Ottawa, too,” he says of the companies located here. “We want to see Ottawa succeed as a gaming technology city.”

Those efforts seem to be bearing fruit. Jonathan Simon, the director of marketing at one of Ottawa’s biggest gaming companies, Magmic, ended up in Ottawa after starting out in Florida and moving to Montreal.

“I like Ottawa because it’s a big town, but it still has that small-town feel,” says Simon. “I was able to make connections very quickly.” He says companies will often promote Ottawa’s low cost of living as a big benefit to relocating here.

RocketOwl has also had success drawing employees to the city. “Along with the talent here, you can also approach people in Montreal and Toronto,” says Barlow. “We’ve pulled talent from both cities.”

But Ottawa’s proximity to those larger gaming centres means it can also lose talent there. Montreal and Toronto have large studies like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts and Eidos, and it’s the hope of many in Ottawa that one of those companies will eventually open an office here.

“The biggest thing that’s hurting Ottawa right now is not having one of the big companies here. I hope we’ll see that in the next few years,” says Barlow.

Yet those studies can actually create instability, says Paul Butler. Butler has been in the Ottawa gaming industry for longer than nearly anyone else, having first established Artech Studios here in 1981.

“If you’re in [a place like Montreal], there’s all kinds of churn, people jumping from one company to another. You don’t have that in Ottawa, it’s much more stable,” says Butler. “When you have a company like Ubisoft come in, it’s great for the business in general, but the little developers lose all their people.”

For now, one thing everyone agrees about is that after years of being the scrappy underdog, Ottawa’s game developers are starting to build some real momentum.

“Companies haven’t been paying enough attention to this city,” says Davidson. “Next year the conference is going to be bigger, it’s going to be better…I think it’s just a matter of time before we see one or two of the larger studios put in a presence here.”