Thank you.
Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak about the importance and the impact of cultural hubs. I will be speaking specifically in relation to independent video game development and digital creatives. My name is Liv Lunde and I'm the Executive Director of GamePlay Space. Prior to working in video games, I built my career in the Canadian music industry, and I grew up surrounded by immense amounts of cultural opportunities because I had two parents who were arts administrators. My role here today is as personal as it is professional.
GamePlay Space is a not-for-profit organization that operates a 10,000-square foot co-working space in downtown Montreal specifically for independent game development. Three years ago, we opened our doors, thanks to a small investment from public and private enterprise. We're currently home to 100 creators across 20 different studios, and we more broadly support our local gaming community of over 2,000 independent game creators across over 100 studios, the majority of which, I might add, are Quebec-owned small businesses creating Canadian intellectual property.
Today I want to highlight the value of and the need for funding and support for cultural hubs such as ours and the critical role we play to foster innovation, collaboration, and economic development. I need to begin by establishing that video games are a cultural economy. They are art and they are culture. The strength of GamePlay Space as a cultural hub is that we focus our efforts solely on the independent game community in play spaces, not just walls and desks. It's a platform for success.
Independent game creators work in precarious conditions. In contrast to the large foreign-owned studios, their situation is much more unstable due to lack of funding, a competitive market, long development cycles, and a lack of business and marketing skills. A hub like ours allows for resource sharing to a critical mass of developers working side by side. This is true not only for the studios that work in our space every day but also for the community organizations that use our space for meet ups, workshops, showcases, etc. By honing their art in our community space, they inspire and mentor each other every day.
I want to highlight two of our most notable success stories. One is a studio that came out of our space, and another is an organization that uses our space regularly.
Outerminds was one of the original studios at GamePlay Space. They literally helped us build tables and chairs. The team started as four co-founders and, within two years, grew to a staff of 25 people. They've had two number one games on the app store, the second of which was so popular that it crashed all their servers on day one and quickly saw over 25 million downloads.
While their company flourished, the guys kept their eyes on the community that surrounded them on their hardest days. The intangible value of the community within GamePlay Space has kept the team in our space long after they could afford to move out. They didn't stay because they had to; they stayed because they wanted to. Their success has become the success of us all as they continue the cycle of support through mentorship and financial aid to smaller studios, organizations, and community events.
One of those organizations is Pixelles, which is another success story out of our space. They are dedicated to empowering women to make and change games. We've allowed them use of the space as often as they need for the last three years. They operate monthly workshops and have a writing program and a game design cohort for women who have little to no experience in video games. Almost all of their graduates from their narrative program have found jobs in the industry after their training. Many of the women who graduate through Pixelles end up returning to volunteer and mentor the next round of women coming up through the industry. Having a stable and safe physical space for their programs has been a key to their success. We have more examples, but we're limited on time, so I'll leave them out.
If we're seeing all this success, then where's the problem?
Not all of our studios achieve financial and critical success. You can aim to achieve Outerminds' victories but, in what the industry has coined the “indiepocalypse”, most studios will fall short. Most artists are inherently bad business people, and they need support. The Canada cultural spaces grant is all about collaboration between entrepreneurs and creative types. What are video games, if not that?
When producing a ballet, there are composers, musicians, costume and set designers, choreographers, and dancers all working together to produce a final product. When producing video games, there are musicians, visual artists, designers, historians, animators, writers, and choreographers. It's the same thing. These people are artists. They are highly trained and highly skilled at their artistic craft in exactly the same way that dancers and actors are great at theirs. We need to stop ignoring that and taking it for granted. We need to stop seeing the final product as the only part of the equation that matters.
Having a singular focus in our hub is our strength: a critical mass of talent and business that can prop each other up, learn from peers, and attract industry gatekeepers and influencers. Yet it's our weakness when applying for funding. We don't tick all the boxes. It seems like a counterproductive requirement to force already established, singular-focused hubs to change their mandates in order to be eligible for funding.
We respect and value the support that has gone into the arts. However, the definitions need to be broadened as to what constitutes culture in Canada and how this funding will truly be helpful to the communities that it claims to serve. The Canada media fund experimental stream is still the single funding body in Canada that we can apply to for financial support, and by “we” I mean our studios because I am ineligible as a cultural hub.
Currently there's no place to apply for financial help for cultural operating costs. There are no funding options for the cultural intermediaries, the administrative staff that holds up these organizations every day. We are the invisible scaffolding of creative industries and we, too, need support.
I'm here today asking this committee to reassess how cultural spending is distributed. When our cultural hubs receive proper support, we will surely see our industries flourish. We can't support cultural industries if the cultural intermediaries that provide everything from community to training to literal shelter disappear themselves due to lack of funding.
Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for your time.