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Activate Games plans to open its first location in Ottawa early next year, the company’s vice-president of operations, Sébastien Piché, confirmed to OBJ on Tuesday.
One of Canada’s fastest-growing entertainment companies is expanding to the National Capital Region.Activate Games plans to open its first location in Ottawa early next year, the company’s vice-president of operations, Sébastien Piché, confirmed to OBJ on Tuesday.The Winnipeg-based company is taking over an 18,000-square-foot space at the Pinecrest Shopping Centre that was formerly occupied by Ottawa retailer Terra20. Activate signed a long-term lease at the mall, which is owned by Ikea, last month.“We’ve been wanting to open for a long time in Ottawa,” Piché said. “It’s just a natural progression.” Founded in Winnipeg in 2017 by the husband-and-wife team of Adam and Megan Schmidt, Activate has become one of the hottest interactive entertainment businesses on the planet. The firm now operates 80 locations in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East and landed in seventh place in the Globe and Mail’s 2025 list of Canada’s top-growing companies with three-year revenue growth of more than 3,500 per cent and annual revenues in the $50-million range.“We’ve been going warp-speed,” said Piché, noting Activate has doubled its number of locations in the last two years. Consumers are changing their leisure habits and are hungry for “more active experiences” than they were in the past, he explained. As alcohol consumption has declined, demand for “experiential” services like Activate’s has risen, he added.Activate Games offers a range of physical and mental activities. Photo courtesy Activate Games“Back 20 years ago, people had social outings like cocktail hours and happy hours,” he said. “Now, people are a little bit more cautious about their health. They want to stay active, they want to find a way where they can connect with each other and be social. You can bring your friends, you can bring your family or your co-workers and you can have an experience.” Activate is a leader in the burgeoning field of “active gaming” — experiences that test participants’ agility, reflexes and problem-solving skills using a variety of technologies. Locations typically range from 10,000 to 12,000 square feet and feature a dozen or so rooms that offer up to 80 different games with 800 different levels. Piché said the Ottawa location will have 14 games rooms and two party rooms.Players participate in groups of two to five people, and sessions typically run for 60 or 90 minutes. Participants can shuttle between rooms and try different experiences, which usually last one to two minutes each. Like video game players, Activate participants solve challenges to advance to higher levels, earning digital “coins” that can be exchanged for merchandise or online rewards. The company also operates a league that allows players to compete against teams in other locations for a cash prize.Popular games include The Floor is Lava, in which players must work together to jump across “reptiles” and touch multi-coloured tiles in a particular sequence.Piché said the games, which are developed and built at the firm’s headquarters in Winnipeg, are designed to test a range of mental and physical abilities. Some, such as puzzles, require more brain power, while others, like spy games, might call for activities such as running and jumping. “You can cater your experience with us,” he said. “You can definitely break a sweat if you are competitive. There’s an experience for everyone.”Retail broker Kevin Houlahan said a concept like Activate is “long overdue in Ottawa.” He said the Pinecrest location, which had been vacant for more than four years, is the ideal site for a gaming facility because of its easy access to the Queensway, ample parking and proximity to nearby businesses such as Ikea, Indigo and several bars and restaurants.“A family can go and basically land there and spend a lot more time,” said Houlahan, a sales representative with Colliers who helped broker the deal. “It's definitely something landlords are looking at. I do think we’re going to see more of this.”Jamie Boyce is a vice-president at CBRE, which represented Ikea in the lease negotiations. He said Activate Games is just the latest in a series of new entertainment offerings that have sprung up in Ottawa in recent years. Other examples include golf simulators and recreational facilities such as Splitsville, an 18-lane bowling alley that opened in Kanata last year.“People are looking for things that they can do outside of the home with friends and family,” Boyce said. “I think (Activate) is something that’s going to be well-received by the market.” Piché said the company hopes to start installing its technology at the mall shortly with the goal of opening in February 2027. The company could grow its local footprint in the future, he added, pointing to Gatineau as a potential expansion site.“We’re always looking at different regions,” he said. “It will really be dependent on how far players are coming from and where they are situated around the city.”
