Vancouver has long been associated with film and television production, but the city’s entertainment economy now extends far beyond traditional screen production. Video games, visual effects, animation, streaming content, virtual production, and other forms of interactive media are increasingly connected, creating an environment where creative work and technology frequently overlap.
This transformation is changing the skills entertainment companies need as well as the ways audiences experience their work. Vancouver remains an important production centre, but its future increasingly depends on digital infrastructure and technical talent alongside cameras, sets, performers, and conventional production crews.
Film and Television Are Becoming More Digital
Film and television remain central to Vancouver’s entertainment identity, but the production process itself has become increasingly technology-driven. Visual effects that once appeared primarily in large science-fiction or fantasy films are now routinely used across television, streaming productions, advertising, and other screen content.
Virtual production is another important development. Digital environments can be incorporated into production workflows much earlier, allowing filmmakers to combine physical sets with computer-generated surroundings and real-time visualization. These tools can change decisions involving locations, lighting, camera movement, and post-production.
British Columbia remains a major production centre despite several difficult years for the industry. Creative BC estimates that motion pictures contributed $3.1 billion in total GDP and supported 41,999 jobs across the province in 2024, while noting that production activity has been concentrated in fewer, larger projects.
For Vancouver, maintaining its position increasingly means competing not only through physical production facilities and experienced crews but also through animation, VFX, post-production, and other digital capabilities.
Entertainment Is Expanding Beyond Movies and Television
Another major change is the growing variety of activities that now fall within the entertainment economy. Video games and interactive media have become significant creative industries in their own right, while smartphones have placed numerous forms of entertainment on a single device.
Someone can move from streaming a series to playing a game, watching short-form video, listening to music, or accessing a casino business within the same digital environment. These activities are very different in content and regulation, but they compete within an attention economy increasingly shaped by screens and on-demand access.
That competition has changed audience expectations. Digital entertainment needs to load quickly, work across devices, and provide interfaces that feel intuitive. A poorly designed platform is no longer competing only against similar businesses; it is competing against virtually every other application available on the user’s phone.
For Vancouver’s creative companies, this creates opportunities beyond traditional production. Designers, developers, animators, writers, sound specialists, and technical artists can increasingly apply their skills across multiple entertainment formats rather than remaining within a single medium.
Interactive Media Is Becoming Economically Important
Vancouver’s digital transformation is particularly visible in interactive media. Creative BC reports that interactive digital media generated approximately $2.5 billion in total GDP across British Columbia in 2024 and supported 23,787 jobs. It describes the sector as the province’s second-largest creative industry and notes that it includes video games, immersive experiences, and other technology-driven creative work.
Vancouver occupies an important position within that ecosystem. The region has developed expertise in video games, animation, visual effects, virtual reality, augmented reality, and related technologies, creating substantial overlap between entertainment and the wider technology sector.
These industries often require similar skills. A 3D artist might work on a game, an animated production, or a visual-effects project. A programmer experienced with real-time graphics may contribute to interactive entertainment or virtual production. Sound designers and writers can likewise move between different formats.
This overlap is significant because it makes the entertainment workforce more adaptable. Instead of film, gaming, animation, and immersive technology developing as completely isolated sectors, knowledge can move between them and encourage new types of production.
Streaming Is Changing How Content Reaches Audiences
The rise of streaming has altered entertainment on both sides of the screen. Audiences have become accustomed to choosing what they want to watch rather than organizing their evenings around fixed broadcast schedules. Producers, meanwhile, are creating content for platforms capable of reaching international audiences immediately.
For a production centre such as Vancouver, this has created both opportunities and uncertainty. Streaming services helped drive demand for large volumes of scripted content, but changes in spending strategies across the global entertainment industry have also demonstrated how dependent production centres can become on decisions made elsewhere.
Digital distribution has nevertheless widened the potential audience for locally created work. Independent filmmakers, musicians, animators, and other creators no longer depend entirely on traditional distribution channels to make their work available internationally.
Social media adds another layer. Short videos, behind-the-scenes material, interviews, promotional clips, and creator-led content can extend a production beyond the original film, series, game, or performance. Marketing is increasingly part of the entertainment experience rather than simply something that happens before release.
This has created demand for professionals who understand both creative production and digital distribution. Knowing how to make strong content remains essential, but understanding how that content moves through contemporary platforms has become increasingly valuable.
Vancouver’s Future Depends on Creative and Technical Skills
The most important long-term change may be the gradual disappearance of the boundary between creative and technical entertainment jobs. Modern productions need artists who understand software and technologists who understand storytelling, visual design, and audience experience.
That convergence can be seen across Vancouver’s film, VFX, animation, and gaming industries. Real-time graphics technology developed for games can support film production. Animation techniques can transfer between television and interactive media. Artificial intelligence is beginning to affect certain production workflows, while increasingly powerful digital tools allow smaller teams to accomplish work that once required considerably larger resources.
The transition is not without challenges. Entertainment production can be cyclical, international competition is intense, and Vancouver’s high cost of living can make attracting and retaining creative workers difficult. Technological change can also eliminate some tasks while creating demand for entirely different skills.
Vancouver nevertheless has an important advantage in the variety of its existing creative industries. Film and television production, animation, visual effects, gaming, music, and interactive media create an ecosystem in which different forms of expertise can reinforce one another.
The digital age is therefore not simply replacing Vancouver’s traditional entertainment industry. It is broadening what that industry can include. The city’s future as an entertainment centre is increasingly likely to depend on how successfully it combines its established production experience with the technologies shaping games, streaming, immersive media, and the next generation of screen-based entertainment.