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Preview: GameON Finance 2011

Interactive Ontario's Ian Kelso outlines plans for the Toronto event

GamesIndustry.biz I wonder how much, in terms of new attendees, social network games will account for this year?
Ian Kelso

I know there are a few developing companies here, and one that's still in stealth mode - they're doing some very mature games on Facebook. There's a company that's already gotten angel funding - it's not as big here as, say, the iOS platform scene... there are five new iOS developers popping up every day... But I've been surprised by the maturity of some of the things I've seen for Facebook.

I don't think it's a platform that's been fully explored or exploited yet. There have been a few developers in the early stages of the cycle that have remarked "Oh, that's not a real game or distribution platform..."

GamesIndustry.biz The keynotes were announced yesterday - take us through the line-up.
Ian Kelso

Well, people really value our case studies, where you get to really peek under the hood and see how a game was made - what the financial mechanisms were, how it was pulled together. We'll have Dino Patti from Playdead Games talking about a fairly independent game in Limbo, and their ability to raise quite significant private financing for it.

And on the other end of the spectrum for Canada, a company like Behaviour, which really started as an animation company run by an ISP - but had a very long arc into development. Now that BioWare is owned by EA, I think Behaviour is Canada's largest independent developer, and Remi Racine is the president there. He'll give that perspective of the growth and scaling of a company, from a very small group of people that were playing in a few different industries, to really pulling it all together.

We'll also be looking at transmedia strategies for the first time, and we've got John Carmody - who's Canada's biggest producer of films. He specialises in service production, so he does a lot of international - especially Hollywood - production here in Toronto, but he's been involved in a couple of game franchises, most notably Silent Hill and Resident Evil.

GamesIndustry.biz Obviously networking is pretty important for these kinds of events - how many people are you expecting along?
Ian Kelso

Last year we were at about 180 people, so probably somewhere a little over 200 this year, based on how things are tracking right now. The event started with under 100 in the first year, so it's bumped up by 20-30 per cent each year.

We're starting to get a little bit more international each year, both in terms of speakers, but also delegates as the reputation of the event starts to rise, and we've had excellent feedback each year.

It's pretty unique to have such a tight focus on the business of the industry, and looking at the financial structures - having that venue for people to be able to come and share information for a couple of days is important.

There's a list of things you need to grow your studio. One is great talent, one is access to capital.

Ian Kelso is president and CEO of Interactive Ontario. Interview by Phil Elliott.