The government of PEI (through PEI Business Development) has identified the video game industry as an ideal fit for the island’s economy and actively works to attract companies to set up shop here. A competitive program of initial inducements and on-going tax benefits, combined with a low cost of living for employees, make the island a highly attractive location to base game development studios. Combine this with a long history of cultural development (including well-known animation studios) and new industry support programs being developed by UPEI and Holland College (i.e. the video game programming specialization and digital art program), and PEI is already attracting both established and emerging development studios. Here is a brief run-down of companies likely to employ programmers that already call Charlottetown home.

Bight Games
http://www.bightgames.com/
Bight has a long (for this industry) history of developing games for cell phones - an area of potential explosive growth. As cell phones become smarter and their use becomes ubiquitous, this platform will become a primary target for game development. Bight is also branching into developing games for the Nintendo DS. They are always looking for talented programmers.

Longtail Studios
http://www.longtailstudios.com/
The newest entrant into the local industry (setting up shop in late 2007), Longtail has the potential to be the largest local industry player yet. Longtail’s parent studio is in New York City and was founded by Gerard Guillemot, co-founder of Ubisoft, one of the world’s foremost video game makers. The studio will grow with the availability of skilled workers, but plans to grow big.

Magnet Mobile Media Inc.
http://www.magnetmobile.com/index.asp
Magnet Mobile is primarily a marketing company that uses small cell phone-based games and interactions to deliver advertising campaigns.

Other Ocean Interactive
http://www.otherocean.com/
Other Ocean Interactive was established in Charlottetown in March 2006. It was originally known as Backbone Charlottetown, an addition to the Backbone Entertainment family of studios under Foundation 9 Entertainment.
In May 2007 Other Ocean Interactive separated from Foundation 9, under the leadership of video game veteran Andrew Ayre – a founder of Foundation 9, and became wholly Canadian. Since that time it has more than doubled in size. Other Ocean develops licensed and original games for major publishers such as Konami, Sega, Midway, and Disney Interactive, among others. They also make games on home and portable consoles, like the Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, and Xbox 360, to name a few. Currently the largest studio in town with 30+ employees, they too will be ready to expand as soon as they find the right people.

Sculpin QA
http://www.sculpinqa.com/
Sculpin QA is a video game testing company that provides quality assurance, pre certification and functionality testing for games developed for all consoles including Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii, as well as other platforms like PC, mobile and the Nintendo DS.

Telos Productions
http://www.telosentertainment.com/index.htm
A start up company featuring almost exclusively PEI talent, Telos is an up and coming independent studio that develops its own game ideas. They presently develop games for PCs, but are planning to develop for the Wii and mobile platforms. Sean Yeomans, the president of Telos, is an instructor within the video game programming specialization at UPEI.