A new way to game in Winnipeg

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This article was published 14/01/2019 (2651 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A made-in-Westwood business is set to become the first entertainment centre of its kind in Canada — and potentially the world — when it opens its doors later this month. 

Activate Games, located at 3338 Portage Ave., is the brainchild of husband and wife entrepreneurs Adam and Megan Schmidt. 

Pitched as an “active gaming” experience, the 13,000 square-foot facility has 11 rooms with a different immersive video game in each. During a 90-minute session, players have two minutes to complete the tasks in each room — which range from shooting targets to rock climbing to ducking laser beams — and accumulate points based on their success.

“It’s a video game, but you’re in it and physically interacting with the room,” Megan said.

Activate isn’t the Schmidt’s first foray into real-life gaming. They also own The Real Escape Canada, an escape room just down the road at 3137 Portage. 

Owning a business was a longstanding goal for Adam, a former commercial pilot, and Megan, a former physiotherapist, but getting into the entertainment centre industry was a bit of a fluke. The couple tried out an escape room for the first time during a trip to Ontario — an outing Adam was reluctant to attend. 

“I thought it was one of the funnest things I’ve ever done and that wasn’t my expectation going into it,” he said. “We thought, ‘Why don’t we bring this to Winnipeg?’”

“We both ended up quitting our full-time jobs,” Megan said. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Since opening The Real Escape in 2014, the business owners have realized there’s an appetite for indoor activities in Winnipeg, where the winters are long and cold. With dreams of expanding and the escape room market quickly becoming saturated, they started brainstorming a new kind of entertainment facility.

“We definitely wanted it to be more physical because the escape room is so mental,” Megan said.

“There’s a generation that grew up on video games that are sick of playing in front of their TV,” Adam added. “Here’s a way to get out and play (in) real life.”

All of the games at Activate are original concepts built from scratch at the owners’ workshop on Brookside Boulevard. The Schmidts employ about 65 staff members, including three computer programmers who helped bring the ideas to life. Many of the games in the facility rely on touch activation and motion sensing technology.

The last two years of game mock-ups and product testing turned into a reality when they found the large commercial space in Westwood Village shopping centre. 

“When we got this facility we were ready to plop the rooms that we had designed in,” Megan said, adding that the space is also ideal because it’s close to their Westwood home and a stone’s throw from their other business.

Activate is expected to open to the public by the end of January, but Adam and Megan are already looking forward to taking the brand across Canada. 

“We wanted to go national with the Real Escape, but there’s escape rooms everywhere now, so that’s the point of (Activate),” Adam said. “This is nowhere else in the world.”

Visit activategames.ca for more information.