The cover image from last week’s Georgia Straight has been appropriated to make a pointed comment about the latest developments in the Vancouver video game development sector.

The illustration, by Kristian Guevara, refers to my feature article looking at the connectedness of the Vancouver scene. In the days before the article published, a number of studios made staff reductions and one studio was suddenly shuttered.

The modified illustration and cutline pay respects to those who lost their jobs. I’m not sure who created the revised graphic, but I think it is a brilliant commentary.

I’m optimistic that the video game sector here is not about to implode the way the dot com sector did ten years ago.

In fact, I suspect that, as a few new games being developed in Vancouver move from pre-production into full-scale production, that up to 200 people will get rehired. Somebody’s got to make those games.

I also expect to see a few start-ups and new studios come from the fallen. As Alex Garden, from now defunct Humanature Studios told me, these are exactly the circumstances that led to so many of Vancouver’s venerable studios.