EA/Bioware setting up 200 jobs in Galway

"As well as supporting customers, the new Galway centre will also be involved in developing online games."

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/16347/business/electronic-arts-to-create-200-new-galway-jobs

That’s good news, I presume it’s related to supporting the new StarWars MMO.

Great news pity its not a proper development house. When will these big companies open an actual dev house. I remember when Blizzard moved into Cork ppl thought development would happen but it didnt AFAIK, similar for Actvision QA in Dublin.

I presume by online games they mean facebook/website games to compliment existing EA IP. EA is now doing a massive push to get into this market. Also John I think your probably right its most likely to support the Star Wars MMO Bioware Austin has been making for some time.

I think attracting smaller or growing companies to actually create studios in Ireland would be much better for long term investment.

These call centers are going to move to India eventually when they get too expensive.

"As well as supporting customers, the new Galway centre will also be involved in developing online games."

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/16347/business/electronic-arts-to-create-200-new-galway-jobs%5B/quote:46dd7712b7%5D

As was mentioned this is more than just support – this has GOT to be good news! Also with every major developer busting a gut to get into web games dev, the age of Facebook and FarmVille etc is it really fair to say that a online games developer is not a proper development house any more?

Go on Galway! :)

As long as it isn’t just localizing games…

Also with every major developer busting a gut to get into web games dev, the age of Facebook and FarmVille etc is it really fair to say that a online games developer is not a proper development house any more?

Go on Galway! :)[/quote:b46cb1d998]

I dont think anyone is saying its not proper development, its just not console development i.e. AAA/AA which i think is what most ppls aspirations are on this site. If it wasent they’d all be making facebook games in their spare time. Instead they are asking about the best course/route to take to get into a development house to make the next Splinter Cell/Call of Duty/Need For Speed etc.

But it is good that EA have a presence in Ireland, perhaps another big publisher might decide to jump in fully and start full development. Although I think it would be really hard to get a publisher to move to anywhere but Dublin:( Simply because 90% of your initial staff for about the first 2/3 years will be foreigners (most likely from across the water UK/France or maybe even ppl from Canada/USA) and its hard to sell them on anywhere but a big city with good international airport access and a city structure similar to what they are used to. Only problem with Dublin is the ludacris prices which in turn require much higher salaries.. Its a tough one.

Is there any confirmation that there is actually any development jobs going in Galway, no matter what platform?
A couple of the articles I’ve seen mention it, others don’t. Check out the EA jobs page and there are no development vancancies, there are all customer service positions.
Anyone in the know?

The competitive reasons for setting up in Ireland will never be about low wages. It currently is about low tax and access to European market expertise/localisation/legals etc.

So how do high-tax high wage places like New York or San Fran do it? It’s mostly down to the cluster effect. Previous companies invest in the infrastructure and training of talent and the talent often doesn’t move. VC’s come after the fact (I don’t believe they come first). The system is a feed back loop strengthening itself on each success and even exploding companies scatter talent in diverse ways around the surrounding area.

It takes a lot of luck, talent and enthusiasm to kick start the process – and it gets harder as other hubs improve their situations in a global world. Catalysts are good universities and guilds, government tax breaks (btw I’d argue that too much government investment leads to incompetency and weak output) and local community networking. Oh and games jams help too – http://www.theshindig.org

The EA Galway support thing is good thing – but it tends to happen fairly orthogonally to the creation of games studios or the training of people for games studios. But it does make games a more palatable subject in the eyes of the press and it does keep investors looking this way.

I did an article for indievision about 6 months back talking about the business environment for setting up a small indie studio in Ireland and the pros/cons. It’s sort of relevant to this discussion: http://www.indievision.org/?p=1069

Personally I’ll be very surprised in there are any development jobs in Galway beyond developing customer support tools (For account tracking, banning players, etc….)

I’ve read through the job descriptions on the site and the Project Manager one is the most telling of them:

"Build, develop, and manage the CS reporting product working closely with the CS Technology, Platform, and Data Warehousing teams."