Write the code behind video games. Canada is one of the biggest game-making countries on Earth.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $100,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $62,000 at the lower end to about $160,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$800 to $60,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$100,000
Lower end
$62,000
Upper end
$160,000
Job Bank's national median is $48.08 an hour, about $100,000 a year at 40 hours a week. Job Bank pools game developers with all software developers (NOC, the National Occupational Classification, code 21232), so these figures are not for game studios alone. The lower and upper ends ($30.00 and $76.92 an hour) are the bottom and top of the range for everyone in the group.
$52.40 an hour
The median in British Columbia, about $109,000 a year, the highest in Canada
Ontario's median is $48.08 and Quebec's is $45.67. Prince Edward Island's is the lowest, at $38.46. These are Job Bank medians for all software developers, not game studios alone.
Roughly, all in
$800 to $60,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is teaching yourself on free game engines such as Godot and Unity, joining game jams, and shipping small finished games as a portfolio. Godot is free for good and Unity Personal is free until you earn $200,000 US a year, so the bill is a computer good enough to build on and a few paid courses. The high end is a four year computer science degree at a pricier university, which is also the safest route because it qualifies you for ordinary software jobs when studios are not hiring. The twelve month Vancouver Film School diploma costs about $33,000 on its own. The cheap door is harder: studios do hire from it, but with no credential your finished games carry the whole application.
A computer science degree is the safest bet: it qualifies you for game studios and for every other software job if the game industry has a bad year.
Salary at a studio
Most developers. Benefits and sometimes a bonus when a game ships.
Contract
Common late in a project when studios staff up, then let people go.
Indie
Your own game on Steam or a console store. Most earn little, a few earn millions.
Tax credits
Ontario refunds 35% to 40% of eligible game studio labour costs and Quebec has a similar credit. This is why studios cluster here.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Learn to program properly, then learn games. Studios hire programmers first and gamers second.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Math and physics matter more here than in most software jobs: games are physics and geometry running 60 times a second. Make small games in Unity or Godot now.
Computer science degree or game program
1 to 4 years
A 4-year computer science degree is the most common route for programmers. Game-specific programs exist too: Sheridan's 4-year Honours Bachelor of Game Design, or a 1-year Vancouver Film School diploma.
Build a portfolio
During school
Finished, playable games, even tiny ones. Game jams (48-hour build events) are the standard way to get them.
Internship or co-op
During school
Many studios, big and mid-size, take co-op students for 4 to 8 month work terms.
First studio job
After graduation
Junior gameplay programmer, tools programmer or QA (quality assurance) tester who moves into code.
Computer science
You need to program well before you can program games.
Advanced Functions and Calculus
Required for computer science degrees, and used constantly in 3D math.
Physics
Movement, collisions, light. Games are physics simulations.
Visual arts or writing
Helps if you lean toward design rather than pure code.
No licence, no exam, no professional body. Studios hire on your portfolio, a coding test and an interview. Because the title engineer is protected in most provinces, job titles are usually programmer or developer even when the work is engineering.
Quebec adds the CEGEP (public college) years, and the provincial computer science diploma can include game programming.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Take Secondary IV math in the Technical and Scientific or the Science sequence. It meets the math requirement for the computer science DEC (Diploma of College Studies) and keeps university science programs open.
Computer Science Technology DEC (420.B0)
3 years
3 years, with no tuition for full-time Quebec residents. Colleges can add a course in gaming and simulation apps, and John Abbott and Vanier list games. Also in English at Dawson, Champlain and Heritage.
Bachelor's, if you want one
3 to 4 years
Concordia's Bachelor of Computer Science takes 3 to 4 years after CEGEP. Its Computer Games option closed to new students in 2020. The Computation Arts and Computer Science joint major is the creative route now.
Design rather than code
About 2 years
Dawson's Independent Video Game Design AEC (Attestation of College Studies, NWE.33) is 900 hours of evening classes over 2 school years, aimed at small indie studios.
Portfolio and job title
Ongoing
Studios hire on a portfolio and a coding test. Your title will be programmer or developer, since engineer is reserved for members of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec (the Quebec order of engineers).
Things you don't need, but that help.
Engine and graphics programming
Rendering, shaders, performance. Deep math and scarce skills.
Network and multiplayer
Making 100 players see the same thing at the same time.
Tools programming
Building the software the artists and designers use. Less glamorous, very steady.
AI (artificial intelligence) and gameplay systems
Enemy behaviour, pathfinding, procedural worlds.
Game jams
Global Game Jam and Ludum Dare happen every year. A finished jam game is a portfolio piece.
C++ and one engine deeply
Big studios run on C++ and Unreal. Indie and mobile lean on Unity and C#.
French
Montreal and Quebec City have many studios, and many of them work in both languages.
Tools cost nothing, stores are open to anyone, and a few Canadian indies have made fortunes. But thousands of games launch every year and most sell almost nothing. The honest way to go indie is with savings or a day job, a small scope, and a finished game in under a year.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Stand-up with your team (programmers, artists, designers, producers), then coding a feature: a jump that feels right, an inventory system, a loading screen that loads faster. Playtesting your own work, fixing bugs QA (quality assurance) found, reviewing teammates' code. Late in a project, days get long. Between projects, they get quiet and sometimes studios shrink.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit refunds 40% of eligible labour spending on games a studio makes and sells itself, and 35% on games made for another company, with no yearly limit. It is a big part of why Toronto has a growing studio scene.
Godot is free and open source: anyone can use it for anything, and the games you make with it belong only to you. Unity is free too until you earn $200,000 US a year. A high school student can build on the same tools as a studio.
Klei Entertainment, the Vancouver studio founded by Jamie Cheng, has been making games since 2005. It made Don't Starve and Mark of the Ninja.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Software first, then the rest of the field. See every career in tech.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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