Frima Studio is a Canadian video game development company founded in 2003 and based in

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. In 2010, Frima was noted as one of the fastest-growing companies in Canada by

Profit Profit may refer to: Business and law * Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market * Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit * Profit (real property), a nonpossessory inter ...

History

The company was founded in

Quebec City Quebec City is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area (including surrounding communities) had a populati ...

in 2003 by Steve Couture, Philippe Bégin, and Christian Daigle amid the dot-com crash. Originally, the name Frima comes from the French word
frimas
" which is the layer of frost that forms around windows during winter. This is due to the fact that the studio made its debut in the poorly-insulated apartment that the three founders shared. Frima has notably developed flash games for many famous intellectual properties, including

Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven Fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...

and

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American media franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The franchise began as a series of animated short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, alongside its spin-off series ''Merrie Melodies'', during t ...

. In 2008, Frima acquired Humagade, a mobile game developer. Shortly after, the studio was merged with the main Frima office. In 2009, with the opening of a second studio in

Matane Matane () is a town on the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, Canada, on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River at the mouth of the Matane River. The town is the seat for the La Matanie Regional County Municipality. In addition to Matane itse ...

, Frima had an estimated 265 full-time employees. Later that year, they became the beneficiary of a $2 million joint investment between the company and the Government of Quebec to fund employee training. This resulted in the creation of 147 new jobs over the next three years, and the maintenance of 201 pre‐existing production‐oriented jobs. In June 2011, the Matane studio was shut down. Frima cited the difficulty of attracting talent to the area as the primary reason. In August of that year, Frima acquired Volta, an animation, concept art and design studio. The division was sold to Keywords Studios for $5.25 million in 2016. Frima stated the profit would allow them to further focus on internal animation. During Frima's ownership, the two collaborated on several projects, such as the 2015

Bionicle Bionicle (stylized all caps) is a discontinued line of Lego construction toys marketed primarily towards 8-to-16-year-olds. The line was launched in 2001, originally as a subsidiary of Lego's Technic series. Over the following decade, it beca ...

relaunch, where Volta handled the

animated television series An animated series, or a cartoon series, is a set of Animation, animated films with a common title, usually related to one another. These episodes typically share the same main heroes, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series ...

while Frima developed the mobile video game. In 2014, the company's Quebec City head office moved to the former television studios of TQS owned-and-operated station CFAP-TV in the Saint-Roch neighborhood. By then, Frima had grown to over 350 employees. In April 2015, the company received a $7.5 million investment from

Média-Participations Média-Participations () is a French media concern, controlled by a Belgian holding concern, specialized in Franco-Belgian comics. It has some forty publishers in its portfolio, including Dupuis, Dargaud, Le Lombard, Fleurus, La Martinière, a ...

and

Fonds de solidarité FTQ The largest development capital network in the province, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ was created on the initiative of the FTQ, Québec's largest central labour body. As of November 30, 2022, the Fonds held $17.8 billion in net assets and had m ...

. The following November, Frima opened an additional studio in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

. On February 22, 2017, the Montreal studio was shuttered as Frima laid off 60 employees. The company's total headcount was reduced to 250. The following April, Couture stepped down as CEO. Daigle replaced him until Martin Carrier was appointed as ''CEO'' and president in August 2017.

Softography

Original productions

Console games

Virtual worlds and CMMOs

Social and web games

Smartphone games

Animation

Development services

Virtual worlds and CMMOs

Social and web games

Console games

Smartphone games

Animation and special FX

Technologies

Frima has been working with the latest version of

Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is a discontinuedExcept in China, where it continues to be used, as well as Harman for enterprise users. computer program for viewing multimedia ...

. Frima was selected by Adobe as a Molehill pre-release partner. The SnowStorm Gaming Grid allows the creation of customizable social games and MMOGs. The NorthStar Dashboard is a set of data-tracking tools used to monitor key metrics linked to an online application. The IceField 3D Engine allows the creation of in-browser 3D experiences using hardware acceleration. The IceWave 2D Platform is used to easily and seamlessly deploy a project on multiple platforms.

References

External links

Frima Studio's official website

An article on A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks!
{{Animation industry in Canada Canadian companies established in 2003 2003 establishments in Quebec Companies based in Quebec City Video game companies established in 2003 Video game companies of Canada Video game development companies Canadian animation studios