Gaming summit brings industry leaders and hopefuls to Montreal

Gaming leaders gathered at Marché Bonsecours this week for the Montreal International Game Summit's 20th edition.

It's a check-in with the gaming industry, of which Quebec is a world leader.

"We have the largest group of international studios anywhere in the world, here in Quebec," said Jean Jacques Hermans, general director of the La Guilde du jeu vidéo du Québec (Quebec video games guild).

The summit brings together the best in the industry -- if you have a video game idea, here's where to launch it.

The Xbox Developer Acceleration Program can help.

"There's a really large concentration of talent in Montreal and in Quebec," said Xbox's Chloe Giusti. "It makes sense to come and talk a bit more about the programs we have to support in the indie community, work with independent developers and look at great games."

And great games cost money.

"There's a massive gap in the funding market for games and apps," said Ritesh Thandani with games finance firm Triple Dragon Ltd. "Our business is predicated on the fact that we understand financing and we understand games, so we can fulfill a niche that exists in the market and give these companies the opportunity to get the capital they need to really grow."

A delegation of producers from Indonesia attended, such as Brandoville studios, which showed off its animation and academy.

"I think it's excellent to have more talent to join the industry, training the next generation to be able to build up the games' quality, the animation quality as well," said Brandoville's King Liu.

One topic of discussion at the summit was the changing uses of artificial intelligence.

"AI has always been at the core of gaming," said Jason Lepine, CEO and founder of XP Gaming, which connects businesses, investors and workers in the video game industry.

"When you're playing a multi-player game, you're not always playing against other humans, so there's AI there. But now what we're seeing is with the advance of AI technology, there's more and more opportunities for tools to help take away the menial tasks and make the production more streamlined."