George Greer was one of 71 staff members laid off in the Ubisoft Halifax shutdown in early January.
As he saw colleagues look for work outside of Nova Scotia, Greer took note of the opportunity in front of him: to start a video game development studio that makes games that are unequivocally Atlantic Canadian. With that idea in mind, he and his wife started besszong.
“I was applying to jobs every day and not having a lot of luck,” says Greer, who worked with Ubisoft Halifax for seven years. “It’s always kind of been my own dream to have my own studio.”
Unfortunately, it is a difficult time for the video game industry in Nova Scotia. Despite provincial and federal programs that can bolster studios with grants, funding and tax credits, there are only a few developers left in the province—primarily independent studios—after the closure of Microsoft-owned Alpha Dog Studios in 2024 and Ubisoft’s recent mass layoff.
While Greer recognizes the risk, he also thinks it’s important to show Nova Scotia is still a player in the industry.
“I wouldn’t say it’s the perfect time for it because the industry is exploding, but like, it kind of is the perfect time because of that,” Greer tells The Coast. “All the talent is here and now they want to stick around, but they need help. I’m trying to give them that help.”
Inspired by the Nintendo 64 games he played as a youth, Greer turned to video game development after completing a psychology degree. He attended the Nova Scotia Community College’s animation program in Truro post-university, crediting it and the game design program for contributing to video game talent in Nova Scotia. In his time with Ubisoft, he filled a number of roles over his seven-year career with them, starting as an animator and moving on to a technical artist position before transitioning to programming.
Named after Greer’s great-great-grandfather, besszong is in the early stages of developing its first video game. With besszong, Greer has taken on a creative directorship role, but he has the help of several part-time volunteers with hopes of acquiring funding to hire them on, having applied to the Canada Media Fund and other programs.
Their unnamed initial project is expected to be a multiplayer party game, with Greer saying it will allow players to explore Canada’s regional and national parks. A teaser trailer posted online of the progress so far gives the impression that natural environments will be a focal point of the game’s aesthetic and design.
For Greer, it’s about instilling a sense of Nova Scotian spirit within his games.
“We’ve had companies come in and, like, they make work, we’re very lucky to have this. That’s the sort of presence here,” he says. “But we don’t really have a lot of homegrown stuff. So, to build a premiere, homegrown games studio who builds worlds and tells stories about our neck of the woods… I think that’s our main mission statement.”
There is currently a Ko-fi page set up for besszong as the studio attempts to acquire funding. In the meantime, they’ve been posting progress reports of their first game on their Instagram page.
