Vote in the Great Canadian Game-Off and win hundreds in gaming gift cards!

Canada’s video game industry is a global powerhouse.

Our national games sector is responsible for countless beloved games, from massive franchises like Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed and BioWare’s Mass Effect to indie darlings like Oakville, Ont.-based Studio MDHR’s Cuphead and Vancouver-based Extremely OK Games’ Celeste. 

The modern Canadian gaming industry began in earnest in the 90s with the arrival of Behaviour Interactive (Dead by Daylight) and Ubisoft Montreal (Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell) in Quebec, which paved the way for the province to become one of the biggest game development hubs in the world. At the same time, studios like Edmonton-based BioWare, London, Ont.’s Digital Extremes (Warframe) and EA Vancouver (EA Sports FC, formerly known as FIFA) continued to grow and release fan-favourite titles.

All in all, Canada’s gaming industry generates $5.1 billion to our GDP, employs over 34,000 people and houses more than 800 studios. For a country of about 40 million people, that’s no small feat.

To celebrate the Canadian video game industry’s storied history, MobileSyrup has partnered with the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC), the lobbying group that represents Canadian game makers. The ESAC is itself celebrating a 20th anniversary this year, making it a particularly fitting time to reflect on decades of Canadian video game history.

As part of those celebrations, we’ve put together a special contest called the “Great Canadian Game-Off.” From now until the end of August, you can vote on your favourite Canadian games to win prizes. The polls will be broken out into two rounds, and you can win gift cards by participating in each one:

• Round 1 Prize: $100 in your choice of gift card – Nintendo, PlayStation, or Xbox.
• Round 2 Prize: A full year subscription to Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, or Nintendo Switch Online (your choice!).
• Grand Prize: $600 in gift cards of your choice for Nintendo, PlayStation or Xbox (you must vote in both rounds to be eligible).

Round 1 runs until July 25 and will have you voting for your favourite game in nine different categories. From there, Round 2 will run until August 25 and challenge you to pick your favourite overall game from whichever titles end up moving past Round 1.

Voting can be done through ESAC’s website. Here are the nominees:

Role-playing game (RPG)

• Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (BioWare — Edmonton, Alta.)
• Dragon Age: Origins (BioWare — Edmonton, Alta.)
• Jade Empire (BioWare — Edmonton, Alta.)
• Mass Effect 2 (BioWare — Edmonton, Alta.)
• Sea of Stars (Sabotage Studio — Quebec City, Que.)
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (BioWare — Edmonton, Alta.)

Family

• Disney Dreamlight Valley (Gameloft Montreal — Montreal, Que.)
  Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Next Level Games — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Mario Strikers: Battle League (Next Level Games — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Punchout! (Next Level Games — Vancouver, B.C.)
• TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge (Tribute Games — Montreal, Que.)

Adventure

• Assassin’s Creed 2 (Ubisoft Montreal — Montreal, Que.)
• Batman: Arkham Origins (WB Games Montreal — Montreal, Que.)
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal — Montreal, Que.)
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Eidos Montreal — Montreal, Que.)
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Ubisoft Montreal — Montreal, Que.)
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Ubisoft Montreal — Montreal, Que.)

Sports/Racing Series

• FIFA/EA Sports FC (EA Vancouver — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Modnation Racers (United Front Games — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Need for Speed Underground (EA Black Box — Burnaby, B.C.)
• NHL (EA Vancouver — Vancouver, B.C.)
• PGA Tour 2K (HB Studios — Lunenberg, N.S.)

Puzzle/Simulation/Strategy

• Age of Empires IV (co-developed by Relic Entertainment — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Company of Heroes (Relic Entertainment — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Fez (Polytron Corporation — Montreal, Que.)
• Homeworld (Blackbird Interactive — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War (Relic Entertainment — Vancouver, B.C.)

Action

• Dead Space (Motive Studio — Montreal, QC)
• Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (Silicon Knights — St. Catharine’s, Ont.)
• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal — Montreal, Que.)
• Gears 5 (The Coalition — Vancouver, B.C.)
• The Simpsons: Hit & Run (Radical Entertainment — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games — Vancouver, B.C.)

Narrative

• Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games — Vancouver, B.C.)
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Northway Games — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Night in the Woods (co-developed by Infinite Fall, partly based in Winnipeg, Man.)
• 1000xResist (Sunset Visitor — Vancouver, B.C.)
• South of Midnight (Compulsion Games — Montreal, QC)
• Venba (Visai Games — Toronto, Ont.)

Indie

• Balatro (Localthunk — anonymous developer from Saskatchewan)
• Celeste (Extremely OK Games — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Cuphead (Studio MDHR — Oakville, Ont.)
• Guacamelee! (Drinkbox Studios — Toronto, Ont.)
• Rogue Legacy 2 (Cellar Door Games — Toronto, Ont.)
• Tunic (Tunic Team — Halifax, N.S.)

Multiplayer/Ongoing

• Dead by Daylight (Behaviour Interactive — Montreal, Que.)
• Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms (Codename Entertainment — Victoria, B.C.)
• The Long Dark (Hinterland Studio — Vancouver, B.C.)
• Project Winter (Other Ocean Interactive — St. John’s, N.L.)
• Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft Montreal — Montreal, Que.)
• Warframe (Digital Extremes — London, Ont.)

The full Great Canadian Game-Off rules can be found on ESAC’s website.

Image credit: Entertainment Software Association of Canada