Ubisoft expands to Saguenay
French video game giant intends to create 1,000 jobs in province during next decade
Quebec’s finance minister is defending a tax credit that subsidizes salaries at video game companies, saying the program has helped make the province a leader in the video game industry.
And with similar credits in other jurisdictions, Carlos Leitão said, Quebec needs it in order to stay competitive.
“It’s a mechanism that’s used everywhere on the planet,” Leitão said. “We can’t play the boy scout of the planet and disarm unilaterally.”
Leitão made the comments at a press conference in Saguenay on Tuesday morning, where French video-game giant Ubisoft was announcing plans to expand its operations in Quebec.
The company said it intends to create 1,000 new jobs and invest an additional $780 million in the province during the next decade.
That expansion will include a new studio in Saguenay.
The company plans to hire 30 to 40 people in the city by the end of the year, said Yannis Mallat, the CEO of Ubisoft’s Montreal, Toronto and Quebec City studios. Within five years, it’s expected to employ 125 people.
Mallat said the company wants to help build the talent pool in the video game industry outside of Montreal and Quebec City. While it looked at several other regions of the province, it decided on Saguenay because of an existing training program at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.
The Saguenay studio will be focused on developing technology around online games, Mallat said.
“The video game industry is transitioning from a pure product industry to a service-based industry,” he said.
Also part of the 10-year expansion plan will be another Quebec studio, though when and where it will open is still up in the air.
The company also plans to create 200 additional jobs at its Quebec City studio during the next decade, along with 675 jobs split between Montreal and the to-beannounced studio.
Ubisoft, which has been operating in Quebec since 1997, currently employs 3,600 people in the province.
During the past 20 years, Mallat said, the company has invested $3.5 billion in Quebec.
Ubisoft’s Quebec studios have been behind some of the firm’s most popular games, including Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry.
Quebec’s multimedia tax credit gives game developers up to 37.5 per cent of the salaries they pay to technical employees.
During the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2017, Ubisoft received $90 million through the program.