In Montreal apparently: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/73680 

Nice to see companies expanding / investing in these economic though times. Sometimes I wished I studied games, but I went with web-development, as there seem to be a lot more jobs out there for web-developers..

sounds interesting...wonder how much of the Conan development will be done there now?

This thread belongs in the TSW-forum

I would like to point out one PR factor that is from this offical Funcom statement...  

"The company is responsible for the best-selling MMO ‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’ that shipped over 1.2 million copies to retail in 2008, as well as the pioneering sci-fi MMO ‘Anarchy Online’. "

See...  they kinda forgot to mention that less than 5% of the those ppl that bought the game acutally still play....

This is PR... Its like putting "DX10" on the box and then having it in BETA version ingame for ..... 4 months now ?  and counting... Oh well... who cares. Its not like those 1.2 million ppl cared about Dx10 anyway...

But you get the PR point...

As a Canadian i can tell you that the Montreal area is not as well known for its computer science (although im sure there are some fine schools.) But it's really the high quality of artists that is pumped out of there.

Disney has been drawing from that pool for years.

Well if they are expanding, we can rule out all those doom and gloom threads.

Canada isnt exactly the cheapest source of labor globally.

The money has to be comming from somewhere, and i doubt anarchy is really holding up aoc and tsw, while providing funds to expand into canada.

Could it be that AoC is profitable?

*rings the troll bell*

Originally posted by Blackwell99

As a Canadian i can tell you that the Montreal area is not as well known for its computer science (although im sure there are some fine schools.) But it's really the high quality of artists that is pumped out of there.

 

Disney has been drawing from that pool for years.

 

 

They might be better known for their artist, but other game studios are also in Montreal. I guess they have a good reason for that. 

"Montreal houses Ubisoft's largest development studio, as well as an Electronic Arts studio, the independent developer Artificial Mind and Movement, and numerous other game companies"

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25103

Originally posted by crunchyblack

Well if they are expanding, we can rule out all those doom and gloom threads.

Canada isnt exactly the cheapest source of labor globally.

The money has to be comming from somewhere, and i doubt anarchy is really holding up aoc and tsw, while providing funds to expand into canada.

Could it be that AoC is profitable?

*rings the troll bell*

About 60% of the revenue generated from AoC go to pay cash costs associated with the game, the rest is pure profit. It's the development of games pre-launch that eats cash, which is something got a good amount of currently.

Fact that the Quebec Goverment will pay part of the salary of the employes located in Montreal will help i'm sure. (And i'm sure all those stripper bars helped too)

Tax incentives, salaries partially covered by the Government (for the initial periods of new employees), those are the main reason why Montreal has established itself as such a powerhouse of game development. It's not just Ubisoft - there are plenty of others as well (including Eidos and EA). Quebec is definately on the right track there (just look at tax incentives movie companies get all over the world - it's great to see at least some governments realising that games fall into the same entertainment category).

It remains to be seen if Funcom will actually hire a lot of new staff to man this office, or if they will simply move personal from their Norway office initially (similar to what Eidos has done). Oslo is rather expensive, compared to Montreal, so i would not be surprised if they shift numbers across, rather than grow an entirely new studio.

If both studios (Montreal and Oslo) work on TSW and AoC that can be an advantage and disadvantage. The good side is that development can be almost 24 hours a day (China, then Oslo, then Montreal) - so you have someone working on the game at all hours, which could be fantastic if a deadline process is followed. The negative thing is obviously communication due to time difference. There are only a few hours on each end of the day where office hours will overlap and effective communication is possible. The problem is, when 2 offices so far apart work on the same project, you can't just walk down the corridor to, say, a tools programmer, and ask for help with an issue. That tools programmer might be sitting 3000 miles away and could be sleeping at the time you have a problem.

It would make more sense to have Montreal work on one title (best bet: TSW as it's still in production) and keep Oslo as a smaller studio and company HQ working on released titles, expansions and casual games (AO, AoC and the Free to play MMOs), with China continuing to offer art support.

Originally posted by Akiiras

It's funny how some people think this is good news for Funcom and they are somehow expanding. Unfortunately that is not the case. Funcom is trying to save money so they are moving to a place with more tax benefits and more government funds. Companies do this all the time when they are in financial trouble.

Well yes and no Akiiras. Not all companies that move to cheaper areas are in financial troubles. I would not think that EA or Ubisoft are in financial troubles and they have massive operations in Canada. Consider all the development houses that have studios in Easter Europe, Malaysia and China - most of these companies simply make that move to save money: running costs of offices as well as salary costs. It's to increase their profit, rather than help ease financial troubles (it still costs quite a lot to initially set up a new studio).

Funcom most certainly is doing this to save money, but that does not necessarily mean they are in big financial troubles.

Originally posted by Akiiras

It's funny how some people think this is good news for Funcom and they are somehow expanding. Unfortunately that is not the case. Funcom is trying to save money so they are moving to a place with more tax benefits and more government funds. Companies do this all the time when they are in financial trouble.

so they open a new studio in the western world, no lay offs, and they are not expanding? :D laughable

Originally posted by Akiiras

Originally posted by 3on1

Originally posted by Akiiras

It's funny how some people think this is good news for Funcom and they are somehow expanding. Unfortunately that is not the case. Funcom is trying to save money so they are moving to a place with more tax benefits and more government funds. Companies do this all the time when they are in financial trouble.

so they open a new studio in the western world, no lay offs, and they are not expanding? :D laughable

 

I should have used the word "grow". This new studio might be 2 guys (already employed by Funcom) and one computer, we don't know. So while you could say they are expanding, they are not growing. Had they hired new people, this article would have mentioned it.

This was a move by Funcom to save money, nothing more. You really need to learn how to read this PR propaganda.

How exactly would moving 2 guys and one computer offset the cost of leasing a building and maintaining IT infrastructure, in order to save them money? Opening a new studio in the western world is painfully expensive. The most probable reason in my mind is that they want to start hiring some experienced personnel, and Oslo is pretty much tapped out. Then after doing the research, they decided it would be better to open a new studio in an area with a large talent pool rather then just paying to relocate every new hire to the 3rd most expensive city in the world. There's a difference between "cutting costs" and "making sure that new spending is as efficient as possible." Just my speculation.

Originally posted by Akiiras

Yeah, it's all speculation. But I haven't seen any news on Funcom recruiting new staff so I'm assuming some of the old devs are just moving to this new studio. Funcom is not in a financial situation where they could hire tons of new devs.

And like previous posters said, moving to this new studio has tax benefits etc. Funcom did it just to save some cash.

I guarantee that the tax benefits alone do not entirely offset the studio cost. They have to lease a new building, get the infrastructure up (full time on-site operations team), and then get all the computers and equipment necessary such as local servers, build machines, personal machines, etc. This is not cheap. You do not open a new studio strictly to ship existing people there, unless it was somewhere like China or Eastern Europe. If they were looking "just to save some cash" I can think of a 100 places cheaper to go than Montreal.

I'm also curious how you know that Funcom is not in a financial situation to hire a ton of new developers? The quarterly report came out, and there is sufficient cash on hand (IIRC it's 30-40 million in the bank). Much of this is probably already allocated to their new MMO, and new MMOs staff up continually until launch.

If you take a quick look at FC page they have been hiring new personnel (for different positions at different times) all this time, mainly for TSW, and they still are doing it, while at the moment only 2 vacancies are open in their Oslo offices.

I would think they would be doing it out of financial problems if they had been closing offices somewhere else, but to expand or grow Montreal does seem like a great spot right now.

So far it has been stated that some key personnel is gonna be relocated to Montreal, we will only know if they plan to staff the new studio with new hirings mainly, relocations or a mix of both until they actually start doing so, and seeing how futile have so far being the speculations on FC financial future up to this point and for the foreseeable future, i'd think it's better to wait and see.

Edit: ZeGerman1942 the TSW game director stated that a large and important part of the TSW development team is gonna be based in Montreal, so probably what you posted is their plan, to keep most of the already existing projects in Oslo and start working, partially or fully, the newer ones in montreal, keeping Austing as CS Zurich as whatever admin. thing it is now, and Beijing on the art dept.  Tho as far as i know the China studio is working only or at least mainly in TSW, they could be also working on the Asian themed Aoc expansion, however.

Originally posted by Gargola

If you take a quick look at FC page they have been hiring new personnel (for different positions at different times) all this time, mainly for TSW, and they still are doing it, while at the moment only 2 vacancies are open in their Oslo offices.

 

I would think they would be doing it out of financial problems if they had been closing offices somewhere else, but to expand or grow Montreal does seem like a great spot right now.

 

So far it has been stated that some key personnel is gonna be relocated to Montreal, we will only know if they plan to staff the new studio with new hirings mainly, relocations or a mix of both until they actually start doing so, and seeing how futile have so far being the speculations on FC financial future up to this point and for the foreseeable future, i'd think it's better to wait and see.

 

Edit: ZeGerman1942 the TSW game director stated that a large and important part of the TSW development team is gonna be based in Montreal, so probably what you posted is their plan, to keep most of the already existing projects in Oslo and start working, partially or fully, the newer ones in montreal, keeping Austing as CS Zurich as whatever admin. thing it is now, and Beijing on the art dept.  Tho as far as i know the China studio is working only or at least mainly in TSW, they could be also working on the Asian themed Aoc expansion, however.

I laugh at some people (not directed at you Gargola) who see this as a sign Funcom is doing it because they are broke. For every business it makes sense to go where the talent, tax breaks and cheap labor is. Norway is not cheap and there are more strict work laws (over time, summer vacation etc.). Funcom already has a team in China to make their grahic designs, so it makes sense to go where more people educated in computer games. And it increases their North American presence.

All in all it bodes well for AoC and The Secret World. It shows they believe they have the finances to finish the game and that they believe in their investment.

Oh and the China studio has been heavily involved with the expansion. It made sense for Funcom they said to use them to make Khitai and they wanted to try something more Chinese/Korean inspired and not Japanese. And that is yet another decision I applaud. At any rate they did the graphics for AoC already (just look in the CE art book, there is even a large picture of the large Asian team).

Good luck Funcom with this new project and expansion towards the West - I hope you learned from past mistakes.

Famine potential Canada move?

Would of been nice to have the studio in Edmonton, no provincial taxes, and Bioware for competition.

"The company is responsible for the best-selling MMO ‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’ that shipped over 1.2 million copies to retail in 2008, as well as the pioneering sci-fi MMO ‘Anarchy Online’. "

1. The company is also responsive for the biggest drop in active player numbers after the initial free 30 days, then again after another 30 days (1st month of sub).

2. "shipped" means nothing. Saw the game for 6 Euros today and the reportedly "sold out" CE for 10 Euro. This is where about 400k of the 1.2 millions are: collecting dust in the stores even on the discount pyramids. If a poor soul buys or preorders the addon, he'll probably get the base game for free in additiion.

Remember were you heard it first when you see Funcom's commercials here and on their page like "Buy one, take two",  "Buy the godslayer and the King will grant you Hyboria" or whatever.

This is my Opinion!

Nooooo, Dont even try and feel sory for those ppl at Funcom, While I was with AO, in a position to speak to the main devl boyz, Me and basically most other "helpers" sugested some changes to the game that would make the constant Harassment pettitions stop. However the developers simply could not even comprehend the solution and eventually the situation got so far that we pushed them a bit - got banned for it , yeh Anycase they endevoured upon such an mammoth task as Conan, oh boy, what a mess, all the same coding junk and mistake, the same bad desicions all over again.  Can somone please FIRE the developers there and hire a new crew!

I better stop now, before I lose it totally.  I cannot stand Mediocre ppl making money on bad promiseds, there should be a law that make them pay back to all the players for the Time and cost wasted!

They say, you can fool most people most of the time, but not all the people all the time.

narph said: 

Some more info on the move from a Norwegian business daily, translated by Google:

http://bit.ly/14u1q2