From GameIndustry.biz (image from Reality Panic):

Here, president and CEO Ian Kelso discusses some of the recent successes of Interactive Ontario, and also shares his views on the growth of the wider videogame business, how to foster a community of business and creative talent, and why convergence with traditional film companies is the future of the interactive market.

Q: Can you begin by giving us an overview of Interactive Ontario, and how it fits into the the Canadian games business?

Ian Kelso: We’re a trade association like Tiga, but at a regional level. And we’re part of an umbrella organisation called the Canadian Interactive Alliance, consisting of seven new media organisations that includes Alliance Numerique and speaks on federal issues, and consists of the heads of the different associations together. I’m also the current president of that.

We have about 220 companies in Ontario in the interactive digital media space. About a quarter of those are in the videogame business, and that’s grown substantially. We started the organisation in 2001 with nine companies and we grew incrementally for a few years. For the first three years we were mostly just a volunteer organisation and we ran a few lunchtime events and speaker series’.

But in 2005 we really took off, we started a multiplatform interactive conference and grew year over year doing more events and things like trade missions – going to markets, networking and working with the government on policy stuff. We started as a provincial organisation, and we’d like to see more activity at the federal level, but unfortunately that hasn’t been forthcoming. And we’ve certainly seen a lot of change in the province in terms of growth in the sector, the gaming industry has got huge momentum behind it right now.

[…]

Read the rest of the interview on GameIndustry.biz.

Related posts:

1. Developer layoffs and closures have been "staggering", Ontario becoming leader
2. Canada gained surprising 79,000 jobs in November
3. Canadian government is buying the video game industry
4. Ontario Continues to Back Games, Calls Out Europe
5. Ontario creates $10-million fund to aid ‘screen-based’ companies

Tags: alliance numerique, Ian Kelso, Interactive Ontario, Interview