Thanks. The industry employs almost 16,000 people in a variety of highly skilled and high-paying jobs at nearly 350 companies across the country. Entry-level workers in the industry earn almost twice as much as the average recent college graduate. The average salary across all Canadian provinces is just under $75,000 per year, which is twice the Canadian median. The industry directly contributes $1.7 billion to the Canadian economy and billions more indirectly. Furthermore, game companies drive research and innovation, with 55% of all game companies developing proprietary technology and devoting 25% or more of their overall production budgets to research and development.
Canadian game developers and publishers are clearly world leaders in innovation and creativity, and they contribute significantly to the Canadian knowledge economy. These companies are in the business of creating, financing, and commercializing IP and of developing, marketing, and selling an array of entertainment software products and services to a wide range of customers. Consequently, intellectual property is the cornerstone of our industry, and strong protection and enforcement of IP rights are crucial to the continued growth and success of our sector.
In today's market, developing and publishing a best-selling video game title is a high-risk endeavour often requiring massive investment. A high-end title will typically cost $15 million to $40 million to make, with teams of 100 to 200 people working together for at least two to three years to complete it. It is expected that these development costs will simply continue as we introduce new gaming devices.
The vast majority of revenue in the games industry is earned from upfront sales earned immediately after a game is released in the market but, due to the highly competitive nature of our marketplace, there is a considerable risk that a game will not be able to sell enough units to recoup these million dollar investments. Consequently, game companies must use the revenues from successful titles to offset development costs for the less successful games. In this type of market, piracy of video game software is devastating because it siphons the revenue required to recover the enormous investments necessary to develop successful game products and, left unchecked, leads to studio closures and lost jobs.
By providing rights holders with the tools they need to protect their rights and pursue those who facilitate piracy, a robust IP regime enables creators and companies to choose for themselves the best way to make their products available to the marketplace. This encourages investment in the development of new products, services, and distribution methods, and supports a diverse range of new and innovative business models, which in turn fosters legitimate competition, more consumer choice, and ultimately, lower prices for consumers.
One example of this in the recently passed Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act, are the new provisions aimed at preventing circumvention of technological protection measures, or TPMs, that are used to protect copyrighted works. These are critical to the video game industry because our industry makes extensive use of sophisticated TPMs to protect our products, but in the absence of a legal prohibition circumventing this form of copy protection, a robust and lucrative but illegitimate market for devices and services specifically designed to break our copy protection and facilitate widespread piracy has developed. Indeed, in Canada, commercial operations selling these devices and services that enable piracy of our games operate openly and, consequently, Canada has had the unfortunate reputation of becoming a major transshipment hub for these devices.
Moreover, we are in the midst of a fundamental change in the way we consume our content. Creators increasingly use online platforms and other new and innovative distribution methods to obtain their content. Strong anti-circumvention measures such as those contained in the bill are essential, not only to prevent piracy and allow creators to determine how their works will be used, but also to ensure that the new platforms are secure and maintain the integrity of the nascent and developing digital marketplace. The bill provides urgently needed measures to pursue those who facilitate piracy by trafficking in these devices and services, and we eagerly await the coming into force of these new provisions.
We also strongly recommend the strengthening of civil and criminal remedies for commercial-scale copyright infringements, as well as the introduction of new border measures, such as empowering customs officials to make ex officio seizures of counterfeit and pirate products and circumvention devices at the border without a court order, which they're not presently entitled to do.
Similar measures have actually been introduced in the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement that is also currently under discussion.
Finally, law enforcement and prosecutors should be directed to give a higher priority to IP enforcement as part of their operations and to seek deterring penalties against those who are convicted of IP crime.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions.