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 Features
Army of Alain - Inside EA Montreal
 Crunch Times
EA Montreal does, however, outsource jobs locally. “We outsource testing locally,” Tascan revealed, with the positive spin. “If you include indirect work, we’re creating over 600 jobs here.”
“But these are just numbers,” Tascan added. “What is most important is that we create IP that are relevant and important.”
With a total staff of 300 people, team sizes are between 35 to 85 people, a size that might surprise many that expect the average size of an EA team to be 300. Peter Nguyen, the public relations manager of EA said, “A lot of people have this conception of EA as this giant; but we actually have a lot of studios that of only about 100-150 people, like EA Chicago.” And despite the small team sizes, Tascan claimed that EA now did everything in their power to avoid crunch times across the entire company.
Artists At Work
“It was an issue, and I think that there was a big wake up a few years ago, that EA really, very drastically changed the situation, especially at the studio where there were all of the problems," said Tascan. "Even if there was bad press I feel that we reacted fast in a measurable, tangible manner. We get it, and now we manage it far better.”
“It’s hard, though, as soon as you work out a method of working with a system, there’s a new system and you have to learn how to work with that one. It’s like a new start up all over again. And if you’ve worked at a start-up you know that the hours can be crazy, because the pipelines are not set. So you spoil time with things that have to be trashed, but as soon as you start using the same engines on different games, the hours start to be better, and the routine of game making removes the pressure.”
Designers
EA Montreal vs. Ubisoft Montreal
EA Montreal is the “fourth or fifth” studio that Tascan had been instrumental in the creation of, a list that includes EA’s largest competitor in town, the monolithic Ubisoft Montreal, which currently has a staff of around 1400. Tascan had, like on most things, his own personal take on the situation.
“We’re both big companies for different reasons, I guess. You have a family based French company, started by five brothers, against an American company who belongs to nobody. Ubisoft was until recently completely owned by the people who started it, and I think they still own about 90% of it. Compare that to a company that is about 95% public. So while in EA everyone has to report to somebody, at Ubisoft, there is a level where if they want to do it they could do it, and nobody can tell them different, so sometimes they’ve reacted differently to the market than EA would.”
“The interesting thing that I notice is that now Ubisoft sounds like it’s trying to be more like EA, to be more aware of the market, while EA is trying to do more original things, like Ubisoft.”
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