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Army of Alain - Inside EA Montreal
“Well, I’m not from here, I’m from France, and I have an independent view. I swear; It’s just one of the best places in the world to work. Something that rhymes with university is diversity. As if in New York you can walk around this city and see people from any kind of origin; people from North Africa, from the US, the UK, France, all over the place. The difference here is that because of the competitive cost of living and the Quebec Canadian spirit, they don’t enter into the rat race that you have to enter when you live in New York. In New York you can say ‘I want to be a writer’ or ‘I want to be an artist’ but then after 6 months of living in the Bronx you say ‘I better start making some money or else I’m stuck.’ All your creative impulse, if it’s not successful right away or if you’re not brave enough to start it’s squandered."
"Here, in Montreal you can walk around and find the tiniest stores which sell the most specific things; you know I found one tiny store that sold books on medieval witches and nothing else, and first I wondered why? But no, that was the owner’s passion, and he can make enough money for a simple life and be happy. So when you have a whole city of people thinking and doing and living this life, imagine the content that you could be creating here if you give them the leverage.”
Tascan didn’t just consider the diversity of Montreal what was important, but the cultural context, arguing that “even things like the Cirque Du Soleil” were important. “When you see a show like that within five minutes you know it could only have been done in a place like this. It couldn’t be done in Portland or somewhere like that. But at the same time it couldn’t have been done in Dusseldorf or Paris; it’s this understanding of the North American culture, and at the same time this little twist that makes it special. And that’s why we’re here. That’s why Ubisoft are here, A2M are here, all of the animation companies are here; this energy that is understandable at a worldwide level but at the same time with a little twist.” Finally, Tascan described how important the support of the Quebec Government have been to EA Montreal. “They feel this is a business that is important to invest in, for several reasons; number one we export 99.9% of what we do here, and it’s exported as made in Quebec, made in Canada, that’s really important. Number two is the number of people we hire.” “When you think about outsourcing, we’ve lost the war against Asia,” Tascan hypothesized. “No matter what you do they’re going to be faster, smarter, cheaper, and you can send lines of code over there and that’ll be fine, but ask a Chinese person who has always lived in China to make you laugh, or love, or cry, and there’s a good chance that what they do won’t quite match up to what you know. Because there are subtleties specific to Western countries. That’s why jobs that rely on creativity or innovation will always be the last to be outsourced. So the government here has made the right choice in supporting us.” |
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