Ubisoft gets millions to move to Toronto

Knowing Ubisoft they'll only make a half-baked move over and take forever to patch the problem.

Yeah but would you create 800 jobs?

FYI

The last few Rainbow Six games as well as all Prince of Persia games were developed at Ubisoft Montreal.

Not wise to put Montreal and Toronto in the same article, let alone the same thought. Toronto does not deserve the privilege.

But............. how many know C++ and Visual Studios, 3dmax and maya from the auto Industry. Probably none. I guess those still out of work are still, well........out of work.

I don't know about a move( from Montreal ), but an expansion perhaps?

"Yeah but would you create 800 jobs?"

Yup.

Average wage for a general office clerk in Toronto is CAD 30,000. So my total outlay for 800 jobs for 10 years is CAD 240 million.

But the .caian govt is paying me CAD 263 million. By my calculations, thats a profit of CAD 23 million.

So... where do I sign up?

What a hater.

Although, the government investment is a strange one... so offsetting auto industry job losses with... video game industry job creation??? I'm sure there are a lot of people who qualify to work in a studio in Toronto, its a big city, lots of people and great schools like OCAD. However, I do agree that for the wages paid and benefits reaped, developers and designers are more "productive" than auto factory workers, which is economically efficient. Good stuff to hear.

Last I checked, you need an income to put food on the table, a roof over your head and... oh, yeah, buy video games.

That's why this kind of corporate welfare is a complete waste (apart from providing a splendid photo op for politicians, of course).

These game industry jobs can be performed anywhere, and will be off-shored sooner rather than later.

Put the money directly into the hands of unemployed consumers, by paying them to make stuff that can't be offshored (due to shipping expense, for example).

Or flush it down the toilet.

Well it doesn't help the auto workers any, but bringing more jobs when the economy is sucking is still a good thing. you need working people to pay the taxes and employment insurance premiums to support all these out of work workers.... And if the government is smart, they're offering every successful company they can find tax incentives to move there.

So apparently the only expense would be wages to your employees... there would be no unemployment, medical, payroll taxes and other expenses when you employ people? Might want to stay away from the business world... as you would be in the red in your imaginary scenario. Leave the investing to the big boys.

I must say at roughly 300K/job created at least Canada is a bit smarter then the corrupt politicians in NY who gave the Middle East just under 1mil/job (1.2-1.4Bil/~1400 jobs) for the GF fab... now that's an efficient use of taxpayer money!

wonderful.

Many of the gaming companies I have dealt with in Montreal and Vancouver (heck event just outside of Toronto) are spending a lot of money to get talent from outside of their home cities... It's easy to brain drain a city...

There are not a lot of major gaming companies in Toronto... some minor studios and statups... plenty of room for a lot more studios.

There is a lot of talent in Toronto and the art/design/technology schools that will likely partner with Ubisoft will spit talent out quickly to feed the machine.

There are also a ton of movie production studios, graphics/animation companies, waiting for the movie industry to return to it's former glory...

Without a doubt, I think it's a smart move on the government's side and for Ubisoft. Besides, tax breaks are usually not blank checks... they are usually tax deductions once the office is running and staffed. Most companies don't pay a lot of taxes anyways due to the many loopholes in the system (especially if you R&D and a lot of production costs). The bulk of income from the goverment is via personal taxes... the 40% of the salary being taken from the employees. This is what the government wants.

Once Ubi is in Toronto, next EA, etc..

There's already a game company with a HQ there and in London ON, by which I mean Digital Extremes. (Yay Unreal fanboi?)

Anonymous smartee, note at by selling cheap enough you can usually get things sold.. Meaning at those levels of subsidies you could undercut Indian callcenters by being cheaper for example.

So, yes you would be other costs, but if you get your workers for free, you can really make a killing in selling ther work..