After Ubisoft Halifax suddenly shut its doors a few months ago, George Greer and dozens of other former employees were left without any similar alternatives.
Ubisoft was the last major video game developer in Atlantic Canada.
But in January and February, Greer put together a prototype of a game and sent it to some people who were interested in putting together a small team.
Now, they have created Besszong, an independent video game studio in Halifax.
With so many developers looking for work, Greer said, it’s kind of the perfect time.
“We can snap up a few of them and we can start something that might bring us some success locally,” he said.
“The camaraderie among the team is really heartwarming. People are really jumping into stuff and working together.”
Studio closed shortly after staff formed union
Ubisoft closed its doors suddenly in January, just a few weeks after staff formed a union. After some protests, the union won a settlement for workers.
In 2024 Microsoft closed its Alpha Dog mobile games studio in Halifax, and in 202, EA P.E.I. also shut down.
Greer says they started development in early April, but for now, the nine team members are working on a volunteer basis. It’s a rag-tag group, in a way, according to Greer. They have some people form Ubisoft, some from Alpha Dog and some from EA P.E.I.
A game like a fun social event
Their first project is a multiplayer party game, and the goal is to launch first on PC. Playing it will be like a fun social event with your friends, he said, and very casual, letting players drop-in or drop-out as they go.
But their first hurdle as an indie studio, according to Greer, is funding.
They have a few options, including getting some money from the federal government, as well striking a deal with a publisher, who would fund the project and take a cut of their sales.
In those scenarios, they would have a development time of about two years, said Greer
If they fail to get funding, then that development time would be cut almost in half, he said. They would have to work much faster, putting out the game by the end of the fiscal year, which is April 2027.
Deliberately choosing Nova Scotia
The studio name comes from Greer’s great-great-grandfather, Georges Besszong.
“He came from France and he deliberately chose to come to Nova Scotia and build his life here. That’s kind of like what we want to do,” said Greer.
“We want to make sure that the industry doesn’t collapse after all these layoffs. We want to have the kind of homegrown success that Montreal has or Vancouver has.”
Greer, like many others at the Ubisoft Halifax studio, recently bought houses.
On top of that, he and his partner recently had a baby.
Those layoffs could not have happened at a worse time, he said.
“But I don’t regret any of it.”
