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Overview
GameBiz Lab is bringing education and consulting around the business side of video games to Manitoba’s video game community.
For new and aspiring video game studio owners: Apply to be part of a cohort that gets priority access to consultations with industry experts, the ability to book NMM’s space, monthly coworking sessions, and more.
For expert speakers: Meet with an engaged video game community in person in Manitoba, Canada while sharing about your expertise on business of video games topics
For anyone interested the business of video games: Meet with other like-minded Manitobans for in-person talks by industry experts and ask your burning questions.
Want to get in touch with Corinne or Viktoriia? Reach out at [email protected] or [email protected].
Join our Mailing List
Join the GameBiz Lab mailing list to keep up to date with our Business of Video Games events and announcements!
Cohort Benefits:
- Priority access to consultations with industry experts
- The ability to book NMM’s space, subject to availability
- Monthly coworking opportunities*
- Additional benefits as confirmed
*New Media Manitoba will organize opportunities to meet in our training space during times designated for the cohort to be able to work alongside each other, mingle, and ask questions.
Apply for the Next Cohort
The application window for the 2024 cohort is closed. You’ll be able to apply again in Summer 2025. To learn more about the application program follow this link.
Please contact Corinne Gusnoski if you have any specific questions.
If you’d like to view an example of the application form and what things you may need to consider before applying, we have a sample form available below:
Upcoming Events:
Completed Events:
Pierre Moisan is a pioneer in the Canadian interactive entertainment industry, a seasoned manager and entrepreneur, Pierre Moisan has developed, over his twenty-five years in business, a sought after expertise before joining the CEIM team in 2015.
He acted as Vice-President of Megatoon (Behavior), CEO and founder of ArtMedia Studios and producer at Ubisoft. For nine years, he was also Vice-President, Corporate Strategy at Frima which has become Canada’s largest independent studio.
Astrid is the Community Director at Saber Interactive, heading up the social media and community team working on games like Jurassic Park: Survival, Insurgency: Sandstorm, Teardown, Wild Card Football, and World War Z: Aftermath.
Previously, she has worked at studios New World Interactive, Rogue Factor, and Hololabs, as well as at the agency Evolve PR, indie studio accelerator Execution Labs, and trade association Interactive Ontario.
Sarah has been in the video game and tech industry for about a decade, working in different areas such as marketing and production. With an educational background in business, she fell in love with project management and decided to pivot careers.
Currently, Sarah is the Live Ops Senior Producer for Age of Empires 4 and has worked on titles such as FIFA 21 and Homeworld 3.
Kellen Voyer is a US and Canadian lawyer and founder of Voyer Law, a boutique law firm focused on advising video game studios on legal matters from a cross-border perspective.
Kellen has a passion for video game publishing agreements and levelling the playing field between publishers and developers, with his latest work being videogamepublishing.com, a crowd-sourced, data focused website aggregating data on publishing agreements. He has been quoted in articles on PCGamer, Gamesindustry.biz, Bloomberg and more.
Sasha Boersma is a 20-year veteran of funding and budgeting for digital content in Canada. As Co-Founder/Producer at Sticky Brain Studios, she leads business affairs, including human resources, accounting, and funding proposals.
Sasha is an ambassador for Women in Games and a member of the Board of the Disability Screen Office, a national, not-for-profit that works with the Canadian screen industry to foster authentic and meaningful representation. Sasha also works as contract faculty at Centennial College’s Story Arts Centre, where she has developed and taught post- graduate-level business courses for creatives in film, television, and interactive digital media.
Jennifer McIlroy has been training professionals, students, and colleagues for over 25 years. Owner of “The Managers’ Mentor”, and The Deployability Index® she works with clients in the interactive media, financial services, government, and cultural not-for-profit industries as leaders at all levels seek to optimize their effectiveness and operations acumen.
In addition, she is a professor of Project Management and Business Strategy in Interactive Media at Centennial College and Sheridan College in Ontario, and lead the Centre of Entrepreneurship at Centennial College where she worked specifically with over 250 small and startup businesses as they formulated their business plans and launched their dream projects.
Mark Smith has been a professional game developer for 15 years and has experience working in AR, VR, Web3, and game console ports. As CEO and Co-Founder of Bacon Bandit Games, he’s designed and developed several titles that have over 10 million installs combined. Mark has been coding for over 30 years in many languages from COBOL, RPG/RPGLE, and Assembly, all the way to newer languages like TypeScript and Rust.
He has given talks and attended career fairs at many high schools to help students that are thinking of pursuing a career in game development, and has mentored several game developers on game development, game design, and business.
Speakers: Manitoban Delegation for GDC 2024
Hear from 5 video game industry leaders:
- Noah Decter-Jackson, Head of Studio and Games Director at Complex Games
- Khal Shariff, CEO and Creative Lead at Project Whitecard
- John Luxford, CEO of Flipside XR
- Kyle Schmitz, Founder, Game Designer, and Developer of Teenage Astronauts
- Diana Olynick, Studio Director for M4 Method
Moderated by Corinne Gusnoski, Business Development Manager at New Media Manitoba.
Apply to be a Speaker
Moreover, we are looking for speakers with expertise in the following topics:
- Creation and structuring of a business
- Development planning / project management
- Budgeting / financing / accounting
- Funding sources and supplemental income (contract work, crowdfunding)
- Successfully applying for CMF
- Attending and promoting at video game conferences
- Team management and hiring (employment standards)
- Marketing, public relations, and building a community
- Launching on different platforms
- App Store Optimization
- Pitching
- Legal
Through GameBiz Lab, we are supporting the next generation of local video game studios. Join us and be part of the future of game development in Manitoba!
GameBiz Lab is supported by:
