Canadian Heritage committee  Who wants to take that one?

Canadian Heritage committee  First, when you are talking about the program, I am not sure that I know which one you are referring to.

Canadian Heritage committee  For us, as I mentioned in my opening statement, 30% of our hires last year were from abroad. The reason for this was that in Quebec we had 1,000 jobs to fill for people with two years' to seven years' experience. For us, being able to bring in people from abroad is important. Canada established itself as having the biggest number of video game developers in the world per capita.

Canadian Heritage committee  There are lots of reasons. We work a lot with core teams—a producer, a creative director, an art director—and sometimes you want to keep the creative team together. Sometimes they've just finished a game. There are lots of reasons. There are as many reasons as there are people.

Canadian Heritage committee  In the past 10 years in Quebec, it's been an annual rate of 23.4% in terms of jobs. For us it went from zero to 3,000 in 15 years in Canada.

Canadian Heritage committee  There are about 16,000 jobs.

Canadian Heritage committee  Oh boy, I don't remember.

Canadian Heritage committee  If I could make a small comparison, and I'm the king of cheap comparisons, so follow me on this one, when we were building small stuff, one or two guys could do it. Now we need a guy specialized in every single detail. That's why it's a cheap comparison because at the same time, the more our games are specialized with foreign people working on them, you need one guy who will take care of the animation of the face, one guy who will do the animals, one guy who will do the walking cycle, one who will do the idle behaviour.

Canadian Heritage committee  We try to. At our company we're developing about 15 to 20 games at the same time. Some games will go well. Some games will have some challenges, as in any creative process. Sometimes you plan that one game will ship, let's say, in Q4 of this year, but there have been some changes in the business, for example, a new game has come out which changes the scope a bit, so you need to change the scope of your game.

Canadian Heritage committee  For us, even if we're a big studio, it's still important. R and D is critical. We're the flagship studio for the company. We're the biggest one. We do a lot of R and D. Having less money to do R and D can hinder our ability to invest and remain on top of the hill and remain in the top players in the world.

Canadian Heritage committee  I won't comment, because I don't know if there is an impact. For us, it's the labour, since we don't sell physical products. We sell digital, and it's manufactured all over the world, so I don't know what kind of impact it can have on our costs.

Canadian Heritage committee  Of course, that could be something that would interest our teams in terms of recognizing the games or the accomplishments. Celebrating the fact that so many millions or so many hundreds of thousands of copies have been sold in Canada would certainly interest people.

Canadian Heritage committee  A key factor is that the next generation of people who will be writing and making television will have grown up with video games. So it will become second nature more and more. I mean no disrespect to the people who are making television now, but they have not grown up with games.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's what I heard.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a combination of the two. It takes an interesting world, a captivating universe and the technology to support it. Some very simple games do very well, but I am considering the overall picture. If the world is interesting and the technology supports it, all this together will provide a winning recipe.