Funcom Lays Off 60, Flees Europe For Rich Canadian Bounties

It's cool, he's ready for the fierce Canadian winters

It's cool, he's ready for the fierce Canadian winters

Probably inevitable given the disappointment of Age of Conan’s launch. What’s interesting is Funcom’s attempt to become Canadian:

Funcom, which currently employs around 300 staff worldwide, is attempting to shift the bulk of its workforce to Canada to take advantage of a 37.5 per cent salary reimbursement from the state of Quebec, and with salaries generally lower there the company could stand to cut around half of its wage bill.

That would explain all those studios in Montreal…

  • http://wowpanda.blogspot.com/ wowpanda

    37.5 per cent salary reimbursement??!! But since you said “That would explain all those studios in Montreal…”, I guess it is a wise use of tax payer money after all.

  • Tom H.

    If they relocated to Prince Edward Island, the salary reimbursements would be close to 50%!

  • http://teethandclaws.blogspot.com Andrew

    Cool…. Quebec is a state now…..

    (The correct word is Province… sigh)

  • Axecleaver

    Is that an offset against taxes or something more straightforward. Either way, those reimbursements come from somewhere… I did some business in Montreal 15 years ago as a consultant and was surprised at the income tax burden the developers had there.

  • Joe

    Axe, can you elaborate a bit more on what line of work you’re in? I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter, so to speak.

    Also, maybe this is just my growing up in Southern California, but you can’t put a price on being forced to endure Montreal weather. Might be an improvement on whatever Nordic hellhole Funcom crawled out of, though.

  • Goodgimp

    No, it’s not just SoCal, I live in Utah and the Montreal winter is just ugly any way you look at it.

    But you’re right, we’re talking about NORWAY, maybe it’s a step up?

  • http://www.mmotidbits.com Arnold Hendrick

    Norway has an extremely high cost of living, greater than Sweden or Denmark, and much greater than most of Europe. Prices for things like housing, food and transportation are all sky high. Furthermore, companies that grow and shrink periodically (like game companies, alas) suffer huge financial burdens after layoffs in Norway because unemployed workers are treated very generously than in North America.

    Quebec and especially Montreal (which is much larger) are very international places, with a lot more languages in common use than just French and English. Montreal has a remarkable “ex-pat’s welcome” attitude that is hard to understand until you hang out a bit with people living there. Given that a significant percentage of Funcom’s staff is non-Norwegian anyway, the Canadian option makes a lot of sense.

    From a climate standpoint, Montreal is at 45 deg north, while Oslo is at nearly 60 deg north. While an LA surfer dude might cringe at the idea of snow in the winter, a Norwegian might look a modern Montreal, sitting astride of the great rivers in the Hemisphere, and say “Wow, this place is SO much sunnier, warmer and nicer than Oslo, besides being a better place to run a business.”

  • Guy

    It gets damn cold in Montreal in winter… and the snow never goes away ’til the spring… but yes, there would definitely be more sun in the winter than in Oslo. And it’s a bigger, more vibrant city. And the summers are, of course, beautiful (but I imagine so is Norway, and with longer days to boot).

    Quebec’s been trying to attract gaming studios for a while now with tax incentives.

  • Vetarnias

    I’m one of the locals, and no, I don’t work in the industry. As pointed out above, it’s the province of Quebec, not the state; though using “province” is risky business when discussing Quebec independence. Trudeau loved to talk of the “province of Quebec”, because the bastard knew the Latin roots (from L. provincia “territory under Roman domination,” usually explained as pro- “before” + vincere “to conquer”), though we’re pretty forgiving of foreigners who might not be aware of this.

    And by the way, competition from Toronto is always fierce; and they’re clear winners if you like soulless cities with a navel-gazing complex.

  • Chris

    Well, “Joe,” if you’ve ever been to a country in Scandinavia, I’d be surprised. Compared to California, where you claim to have grown up, Norway is paradise. Roads in Norway aren’t falling apart, fire season doesn’t last year round, state workers aren’t forced to take 15% pay cuts, sick people can actually get medical care without bankrupting themselves, and little things like arts and education are valued there.

    And, incidentally, for all you pocket libertarians, how is Canada better for business than Scandinavia when, according to this article, the Canadian _government_ is going to be reimbursing Funcom for more than 1/3 of each worker’s salary? Sure sounds like buccaneer capitalism to me, eh?

  • JuJutsu

    And by the way, competition from Toronto is always fierce; and they’re clear winners if you like soulless cities with a navel-gazing complex.

    That’s the other side of town; my side of Toronto has lots of soul. ;)

    I don’t know about the pocket libertarians but I would point out that, using the 2008 Human Develoment Index from the UN Canada comes in third, only .001 behind Iceland and Norway who tie for first place. Canada is a great place to live and work; except maybe for backwaters like Winnipeg and Montreal :)

  • http://wowpanda.blogspot.com wowpanda

    @chris: according to this article, the Canadian _government_ is going to be reimbursing Funcom for more than 1/3 of each worker’s salary? Sure sounds like buccaneer capitalism to me, eh?

    That is very true.

  • http://wowpanda.blogspot.com wowpanda

    sorry that is a quote from Chris. tried to put “” marks but didn’t work

  • http://adingworld.wordpress.com Sente

    @Arnold: You cannot judge the climate by just looking at the latitude. The gulf stream helps making the climate much milder than you might expect at that latitude.

    Winters in Oslo (or Stockholm or Helsinki, roughly same latitude) would generally be warmer than you find in Montreal or Toronto. There would be snow usually in the winter, but at the Stockholm/Oslo/Helsinki latitude sometimes there is limited or no snow in the winter, due to it not being cold enough.

    But yes, us Scandinavians would likely not be that bothered with the winters as people from sunnier and warmer places.

  • http://blog.weflyspitfires.com We Fly Spitfires

    They may be able to cut half of their wage bill but I bet they’ve never considered the non-tangible losses such as experience, motivation and morale.

  • Guy

    Exactly Sente. I figured Oslo was at worst about as bad as Montreal in winter; not surprising that it’s actually milder. Toronto is milder than Montreal; big plus is it doesn’t get nearly as much snow, due to lake effect weather. (Buffalo, on the other hand, gets a s**tload of snow *because* of lake effect weather.) The temperature in Montreal is consistently very cold in winter, whereas Toronto snow is as likely as not to melt in a few weeks due to a warm streak before the next batch comes in.

    Toronto’s interesting parts (and there are many) are a little more spread out, unlike Montreal, but they are there. In Montreal, you practically can’t miss them, and they’re all close to each other. But really, a city is what you make of it; there’s millions of people in each, there’s plenty of room for all kinds of styles.

  • Njal

    Or you can try Ottawa. Second coldest capital city in the world after Ulan Bator. It has the best gaming store in Canada though.

  • Matt Mihaly

    If you guys don’t like Quebec, you might try Hawaii. Much better weather. Lots of state tax incentives/reimbursements available there too. There’s a reason Lost is filming there, and why the Final Fantasy movie was produced there despite the isolation from a broader talent pool and the high cost of everything in Hawaii.

  • Guy

    Really? You’d think there were more really cold capitals… guess not. Ottawa and Montreal have about the same temperatures…

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    I didn’t have too much to about this other than I briefly “worked” with Funcom as a volunteer CSR and they’re pretty good people – sorry to hear they had to let a lot of their folks go.

    So, why other to post anything? I might have found Lum’s next video in what the Goons inflicted upon Champions Online.

  • Goodgimp

    I lived in Ottawa. It was cold. It was brutal. Then I moved to Thunder Bay.

    Loved Ottawa though, I miss that town!

  • Gx1080

    Company fucks up, employees pay the broken dishes.

    News at 11.

  • Vetarnias

    “I lived in Ottawa…. It was brutal.”

    Yeah, I know. I watch Question Period.

  • Bleaktea

    Yes, there’s always Ottawa. Let me elaborate on what “almost as cold as Ulan Bator” means: the city basically freezes into a single solid block of ice between December and March. Even spring is a little dismal, since we invariably find at least one dead little old lady who’s been buried in a snowdrift all winter. This once happened downtown. I apparently walked past a dead guy every day for months and never noticed. In other cities this would be a sign of a cruel and unfeeling population; in Ottawa it’s because anything that stops moving for five minutes gets two feet of snow on it.

    My point here is that Ottawa is grim. Although I will agree about it having the best gaming store in Canada.

    Montreal is fairly pleasant (once you accept the fact that Quebecois drivers brake for nobody) – and the province has definitely been working at setting the place up as a tech sector hub. Someday those government grants will go away, but by then hopefully the industry will have put down roots. For now, there’s a bunch of gaming companies in the area hiring along with Funcom; Bioware, for example.

  • Guy

    ‘Yeah, I know. I watch Question Period.”

    lol

  • http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

    When in the north, drink. Drink heavily. Moose Head with a shot of Canadian Mist. Trust me.

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    The consensus has yet to be established if drinking heavily would improve Funcom’s MMORPG production capability.

  • FrozenNadir

    Wusses! You want cold… move to Winnipeg. ;p