MIGS 2009: Montreal is 30% Cheaper Than California for Developing AAA Games

By Paul Hunter

It's a well known secret in the video game community that Quebec offers a lot for video game developers that want to open studio there. Multicultural workforce, large pool of talented professionals, and great tax incentives are reasons many developers cite for their expansions to Montreal.

While we all know that the Montreal is economically an attractive city to open shop, the extent of the savings has never been revealed publicly. Until now.

In a very short, yet revealing post on the Montreal International Game Summit's (MIGS) blog, the organizers of the industry event say that Montreal is 30% cheaper than California and 10% cheaper than Europe for game development.

It's no wonder that Montreal is the sixth largest gaming industry in the world, and has attracted AAA developers such as Ubisoft, EA, Eidos, Activision, A2M, and Bioware. Earlier this month another huge AAA developer, Funcom, announced they have opened a studio in Montreal.

The British advocacy group for developers, named Tiga, has been trying to rally the U.K. government for over a year now to fight back against Quebec's generous tax incentives. Just recently the lobby group has begun gathering support for their request to the British government to support the U.K. games industry with aggressive tax incentives.