Edmonton’s video game industry is seeing a boom in size, international influence Achi-News

It’s shaping up to be a big year for Edmonton’s independent game developers.

Caldera Interactive was selected out of hundreds of submissions from around the world to bring their game concept The Sun Rabbit to pitch competition at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“The next day we were pitching and then we were upgraded to the winner,” said Isael Huard, the co-founder and one of the producers.

“You play as a cute little bunny, and you spend the day farming.”

Huard explained that it was like a Cozy Tower Defensese-style game. You plant things like strawberries during the day, but at night you protect your “sun” from raccoons.

They are about halfway through game development. “We’re just starting to come out publicly and talk about it and try to build a community around it,” Huard said. They recruit players to join their Discord to playtest the game every month and provide feedback.

“You can really help shape what is Sun Rabbit will,” said Huard.

Caldera Interactive is a newcomer to the independent games industry in Edmonton. They started in 2019, as a group of friends coming out of their University of Alberta game development certificate program.

This is their first game, and they hope to launch in 2026, if they can find the funding or be picked up by a publisher to get to the finish line.

Crimson Herring is a local indie company that launched in 2020. They just released their first game Sovereign Syndicate in January and it’s picking up steam.

“We’ve sold well over 10,000 copies. Now, we’ve just signed a deal to bring the game to Xbox and PlayStation and localize it into some other languages,” said Isaac Otway, CEO and president.

It’s an idea that became a multi-million dollar project. Otway hopes to continue creating.

“If we want to stay in this business, we have to adapt to the realities of the investment environment,” Otway said.

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Kyle Kulyk joined the industry in 2011, and has had a first-hand look at the booms and busts of the industry.

“Right now, in Edmonton, it’s pretty exciting,” Kulyk said.

In 2018 the province implemented the Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit which saved developers money on salaries.

“At that point, a bunch of bigger studios decided they wanted to come and set up shop in Edmonton,” Kulyk said.

But in 2019 the new UCP government abolished it.

“For that year that we had it, the expansion of the industry was literally overnight,” Kulyk said. “Immediately after that tax credit was eliminated, everything shrank just as quickly.”

“It was something that was encouraging for us to put us on a level and more even playing field with the rest of Canada and it feels like a missed opportunity,” Kulyk said.

There is other support from the municipal and federal levels such as the Edmonton Screen Industries Office and the Canadian Media Fund.

“We’re one of two provinces in Canada that doesn’t have any kind of incentive tax credits for the industry, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to expand in Edmonton,” said Kulyk.

Since then, the minister of technology and innovation, Nate Glubish, was forced by the prime minister in 2022 and 2023 to find a new incentive program.

The minister refused to comment, but so far there has been no movement.

Even with this success, “I think we’re still a little bit of the underdog,” Huard said. “Still in Alberta we were at GDC but a much smaller presence than some of the other provinces. We’re not seeing that growth on that scale yet and of course a tax credit would help with that but I think we’re still making waves.”

& copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.