The founder of Canada's largest independent game maker is looking to expand.
The founder and CEO of Canada's largest independent game maker isn't looking to give up his company any time soon despite a flurry of acquisitions.
Why sell when there are already opportunities? The Toronto office of Behaviour Interactive Inc. was opened in September. I think Ted Rogers had the chance to sell many times. It is the same... He would like to build something. I want to build something rather than sell it.
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The firm famous for the game Dead by Daylight decided to open an office in the downtown core of Ontario's largest city. The Toronto base currently has about 70 employees, but with the video-game sector sizzling at home and globally, the company wants to fill the office with 300 more designers, programmers and marketers.
A bit of a juxtaposition to the pall cast over numerous Canadian sectors, especially technology, by high inflation, increasing interest rates and the spectre of recession is what Stephen Mulrooney, Behaviour's chief technology officer, and the company's founder, John Racine seem to be saying about the
Mulrooney said that the game industry is a good value for a discretionary dollar. The amount of entertainment you can get for your money is higher with video games.
Video games can take up to four years to make from idea to market, so it's important to avoid knee-jerk reactions.
When the economic cycle will be different, we will release those games.
The Entertainment Software Association of Canada is a trade lobby. The number of active companies increased by 35 per cent from the year before. The sector's revenues grew 20 percent over the two-year period to an estimated $4.3 billion.
The executives said that Behaviour brought in record revenues of $260 million this year and that it acquired its first studio in Seattle.
The Behaviour team wants to be strategic and won't go on a buying spree to get smaller studios. The Heritage Ministry, which has jurisdiction over the entertainment sector, is more likely to scrutinize foreign purchases of Canadian studios. According to the report, the number of Canadian-owned studios declined from 84 to 75 over the course of the next two years.
The increased scrutiny from Heritage is a good thing. It might be easier for us to buy those studios if they became available.
The email is bbbharti@postmedia.
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