Becoming an Esports and Video Game Industry Hub

Did you know that back in 2019, the League of Legends final had almost 100 million unique viewers? That’s more viewers than the Super Bowl in the same year. The Esports audience is expected to grow to just under 500 million in 2024.

If you are unfamiliar with Esports, it’s a part of the video game industry which has continued to grow massively over the years. The video game industry already surpasses the movie and TV industry and we see its impact on our world every day.

I believe that Edmonton can be an Esports leader in North America.

Knowing that Edmonton already has a very strong video game industry and culture and Alberta already hosts weekly community tournaments, it’s time to take the next step and start hosting mid-sized tournaments and major events.

Last week, I made a motion related to Esports and the video game industry. The following motion was approved unanimously by Edmonton City Council.

“That Administration facilitate an engagement session and work with the Edmonton Screens Industries Office and any other relevant stakeholders to:

1) Review the Alberta Esports Strategy for the actions identified in the report that fall within municipal control and within the existing municipal budget and provide a report back on the status of implementation including identification of the lead(s) responsible for implementing municipal actions.

2) Develop a plan for Edmonton to host a mid-sized Esports event in the next one to two years and a major Esports event in the next two to three years and report back on the proposed plans that include identification of the lead(s) responsible for implementation of the Esports events.

3) Review existing high-level interactive digital media investment attraction strategy for Edmonton and provide recommendations for programs and incentives to support the strategy and potential funding strategies.”

This motion did not come out of the blue, this was a direct result of the excellent work by groups like the Alberta Esports Association, the Edmonton Screen Industries Office, Edmonton Global, Explore Edmonton, Digital Alberta, and many more. Late last year, the Alberta Esports Strategy was released. You can read the full report here. This report shows the opportunity available to Edmonton and as you will see in the report, different groups have different roles to play to make this happen.

The motion I made is meant to bring all the stakeholders together. That includes the groups above as well as Edmonton Unlimited, Interactive Arts Alberta, the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, the provincial government, post secondary institutions, and others so that we can each take responsibility for the areas identified in the Alberta Esports Strategy and also determine who will be the lead going forward.

As long as we are working together, we have great potential to attract major Esports events to Edmonton. Not everyone knows but the City of Edmonton has access to Rogers Place for up to 28 days per year. This arena has the technology in place to support major Esports events and using some of our 28 days, which have never been fully used, would be a great opportunity to build our City’s reputation for Esports.

Esports is a major opportunity for Edmonton and I’ll close on points 1 and 2 of the motion above by quoting my colleague Councillor Aaron Paquette when he said the following during our debate last week, “I would be ecstatic to see E-town become the home of esports to bolster our economy.” It may be a corny dad joke, but I truly believe that Edmonton’s reputation for hosting major sporting events can easily make us the best place in North America for Esports as well.

For the third point of the motion, Edmonton is fortunate to have small and large developers in the video game industry. While many know of BioWare, we also have groups like Beamdog and Inflexion Games that have developed, or are developing, large scale video games. Beyond these larger developers, we have a strong indie games scene and seeing how large the video game industry has become, we have great potential to attract even more development studios to Edmonton.

I believe that Edmonton can be a leading hub in North America for video game development similar to how Calgary and Southern Alberta has become a leader in Canada in film and TV.

The Edmonton Screen Industries Office already does great work in this area but I’d like to make sure we are working in a coordinated manner with Edmonton Global, the Chamber of Commerce, the provincial government and others on a joint investment strategy as we have a lot to offer in Edmonton.

There is great potential to expand Edmonton’s economy through Esports and interactive digital media. Bringing everyone together to work on these areas will only increase our opportunity and I can’t wait to see where Edmonton will be in just a few years.