Schmooples' Den! The DA News Discussion Thread

All the devs are agents of Fen’Harel, and the Solas art is a shrine to the lord of tricksters.

I assume the new one.

Chris Anderson @postmodernlocke
Unimplemented dev-exit? What happens if you no-clip through?

Sadly, we'll never know.




- You may recognize this weird hallway, they've tweeted it before. (In their old building)

Roberto Guedes 🐶 @robertosaguedes
Right! You’re going to the Elcor Tower, right? 😛



Chris Anderson @postmodernlocke
This will never get old. I already have trouble calling it Epcor

EA pick up the tab. EA executives even went to Bioware to announce the move last year.

Something similar happened in Montréal a few years ago when they moved all their studios in the city (EA Montréal, Motives and BioWare Montréal at the time) into their own building.

They're still in Edmonton, and I *suspect* that rent at the EPCOR Tower is actually higher than at the terrace building, since the EPCOR Tower is right downtown but the old studio at the terrace building is a bit out of the way in Edmonton South. So, moving to get more staff or for lower rent both seem unlikely. I suppose it's possible that there was some kind of deal on rent since I know our last provincial government was trying to diversify the Alberta economy and software developers definitely seemed to be one of their areas of interest. However, the EPCOR Tower is privately owned by an energy sector corporation, not by the government, so that seems unlikely.

That being said, the EPCOR Tower has some pretty cool amenities that EA and BioWare probably want to be able to offer to their staff to improve work/life balance (it might also help with recruiting new talent) - such as an on-site daycare. There's a gym at the EPCOR Tower, too, but I think the old studio probably had access to a gym as well, since the terrace building houses a hotel in addition to BioWare. EPCOR Tower is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold-certified, (that is, it's a "green" building) so that might also be a draw for businesses who want to improve their environmental track record (not sure that EA and BioWare need to!    ) 

I do know that the old studio, being in an older building, had some major heating and air conditioning problems - I've seen many dev tweets about it over the years. Being too hot or too cold have been demonstrated to decrease employee productivity. So a new building that doesn't have those issues would likely be preferable for employers with employees in a high-stress industry like video game development. 

All of which is to say that there may be other reasons for the move. And hopefully a big part of it is that they really are trying to improve work/life balance for BioWare employees.

If they are going to have more rooms in the new building, then you probably don't need to worry about the 'EA closing Bioware' thing.

Breaking a lease is expensive, but moving itself may not be so expensive. If they have less rooms in the new building, that could be a signal of downsizing the studio, which could lead to closure in the future. That's no fact, but just my analysis. I am definitely glad to see they improve their work place and hope they are expanding.

Starfang.... *sigh*

How I miss thee.

That's not Starfang. Starfang was silver and glowed blue. That's Maric's Blade. 

Fair enough.  It's been a while.  I rarely used Maric's blade and had completely forgotten they shared a model.

Thanks. That's really good news. Forgive me for not the lack of information. It is ... somewhat difficult to find English news in China.
By the way, I notice that even moving gets delayed, just like developing games.