Canada
You play a lot of Canadian-made games, but you'd never know it. Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six are built in Quebec, Mass Effect and Dragon Age in Edmonton, EA Sports FC and NHL in Burnaby and, sadly, almost none of it is owned by Canadian companies. Ubisoft answers to Paris, EA to California and, since August 2026, to a Saudi led consortium. The happy exception: Dead by Daylight, which is still independent after ten years. All of it adds 5.1 billion dollars to GDP, a little under half what film and television manage. About 20 million Canadians play, roughly half the country, though that number is a much softer estimate than the studio figures. Canada is better at counting its studios than its players.
Photograph Games from Quebec
Market size
$5.1 billion GDP contribution2024
The best available Canadian anchor sizes the industry rather than consumer spending. The video game industry contributes 5.1 billion dollars to Canada GDP in 2024, up 3 percent since 2021, per an economic impact study by Nordicity for ESAC.
Source ESAC and Nordicity industry report release via CNW, trade body commissioned study
Each market states its size in its own currency, for its own year, and on its own definition of what counts, which is consumer spending in some and industry revenue in others. These ten figures cannot be compared with one another.
Player population
23 million
- Not recorded
Each figure comes from a different source, a different year, and a different definition of a player. The bars show rough scale only. No free source measures every market on one method.
Trends here
Trends tagged to this market come first. Most trends in games are global, and those apply here too.
- Culture & audienceOrganized game laborLabor is becoming a durable counterparty on layoffs, AI disclosure, and crunch, with legal precedent now in play.Dominant
- Money & business modelIndustry layoff eraNearly every business, labor, and creative-risk story of 2023 to 2026 traces back to this contraction. Indispensable for context, as it informs almost everything else.Dominant
- Regulation, safety & ageChild safety enforcement in game platformsThe defining child safety story in games right now, and the wedge that will push age verification from platform policy into binding law, hardware, and parental trust for years.Dominant
Research yourself
1 of 1 sources
These rows
| Name | What it lets you find out | Type | Cost | Markets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Circana (ex-NPD) | US physical+digital games retail tracking. Monthly US charts via analyst social posts. US-centric, and digital coverage depends on publisher participation Enterprise pricing is custom. Some free press releases. | Sales tracking | Paid | US, CA |