Another big publisher has made the move to open a dev base in subsidy-supported Quebec, Canada – with THQ  the latest to establish a Montreal studio. The Canadian studio will become the biggest among THQ’s studios, which employ about 1,200 people. Other game companies who got tax breaks in Quebec to hire lots of game developers include Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Eidos, Funcom and Activision Blizzard. Ubisoft also scored 263 million in Canadian dollar subsidies from the Ontario government over a 10-year period in exchange for creating a huge game studio in Toronto. Ubisoft’s Montreal studio has created big hits such as this year’s Assassin’s Creed II.

Smaller game companies are also getting funds. Steve Bocska, founder of Pugpharm in Vancouver, Canada, started his company in 2008. His team of nine is creating Snoget, an online social networking game that requires you to find and communicate with people who have similar interests to you.

The company received funding from the Canadian government’s National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program. It also got funding from Telefilm’s Canada New Media Fund, another government entity. The money adds up to about 75 percent of all of the company’s funding, and the remainder is eligible for tax credits. All of his British Columbia investors get a 30 percent personal tax rebate on the amount of their investment.

Source