EA opening new DICE studio in Los Angeles
polycounter lvl 11
Some good news for the day.
http://www.destructoid.com/ea-is-opening-a-new-dice-studio-in-los-angeles-253767.phtml
http://www.destructoid.com/ea-is-opening-a-new-dice-studio-in-los-angeles-253767.phtml
Replies
This x1000
LA jobs are up.
DICE is just a name that they're abusing to sell games. The new studio is another EA studio - just like the other 'Bioware' studios that popped up.
That one got shut down a few years back.
DICE has weird names for roles. "tech artist" here is more like 3D/prop artist. World artist is a bit more technical and mostly involves actually building the levels in editor.
Ambershee: thanks for letting us know, that's new to me.
Doh. Missed that.
Ah. Interesting seeing job roles at various studios.
@ambershee: Yeah that was closed a while back. Apparently was really close to the old place Digital Extremes was at.
yeah....fuck that noise. The middle of nowhere is terrible. Sure cost of living in 1000times cheaper, but I would rather live near a big city with a million things to do, then own a house where the only thing to do is drink yourself to death due to utter boredem haha :P
I wouldn't consider Irvine the middle of no where. Especially when you consider Disneyland is there and such.
Middle of nowhere is basically any state that doesn't touch the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean. And even some of those states are pretty middle of nowhere.
Then again, being born in SoCal its hard to imagine anyone ever wanting to live too far from a major city or its surrounding suburbs.
Have you ever lived "outside of a city?" Sounds like AC and you really do not have any experience living in a nice quiet place other than perhaps what you see in Hollywood movies or hear in the media. If you think it is boring or people just get drunk for entertainment if they don't live in big cities then you have much to learn about life yet.
For the poster that mentioned wanting a house and saving money and for anyone else that thinks the area between the coasts is "fly-over zzzzz" land here is some food for thought. It is possible and there are small to mid-sized studios in many nice locations. How about a nice 3BR house on 3 acres with lots of woods (that would likely cost 1.75 million in LA, but is yours, including mortgage, taxes, and insurance for under $1100 per month). You have a neighbor with 5 acres and another with 2 acres of land with woods. You can't see another house from your backyard--just verdant peaceful green. You live on a cul-de-sac with hardly any traffic, but you can drive to work in 15 minutes wiithout crushing traffic delays and jams. Hardly any crime. You know your neighbors. You breathe fresh air and drink fresh water. If you like hunting, fishing, or boating you can load up your car and be there in as few as 20 minutes. You can see the f***ing stars at night without light pollution (all seven stars of the little dipper--something LA has not seen in decades and never will again). Your taxes are less than $1500 per year on above-mentioned property.
How about constant companions visiting from the wild such as deer, wild turkey, coyote, fox, and many more animals and wide variety of birds? Bald eagles are making a comeback and you can watch them fly from the cliffs and hunt fish in a nearby river. Ever seen a baby fawn nesting in your backyard and then grow up and graze nearby? You have internet, cable TV, many restaurants, movie theaters, minor league ballparks (you can drive 2 to 6 hours to a larger city for a pro game and then get the hell out of town). Lots of beautiful places to hike or beautiful rides on your motorcycle with little traffic to worry about. You can ski or snowmobile in the winter. Concerts (not as many as LA, but enough if you are into that). Much, much more. Never boring.
Keep your smog, traffic, crime, high-priced property and taxes, long lines, constant sirens, and all that other products of living an an artificial world. My brother-in-law lives in LA. It takes him over two hours to drive to work and he doesn't live that far away from where he works. Hell, most people in LA don't even know who their neighbors are because they go into their cocoons at night. I've been to most all the attractions in LA. I can fly to LA once a month if I wanted to, stay the weekend, rent a car, and still be better off than if I lived there. I've been in many of the largest cities in the U.S. and world. I'm actually happy that so many people want to live in them because it leaves the real world (natural) for us bored hicks. Excuse me now because I'm going to take my dogs walking in some beautiful woods and get some fresh air. What do you see when you go out for a walk?
as a young 25 year old single male, who grew up in a smaller town (which I hated) and that was my own personal view.
those are cool points, and personaly for me, thats something I would rather visit for a long weekend every now and then.
where I live in montreal there is literally a 4 blk massive park with gardens, tennis courts, a baseball diamond and running trails directly across the street (under 30 ft) which is amazing in summertime. There are also 3 other even bigger parks within 20 mins of my place.
so thats what I see when I go for a walk, or the scenic old port with super old buildings where it feels like you are walking down the streets of an old european city. it takes me 10 mins to get to work by bus, I dont need a car at all because the metro system can get me downtown in 30 mins and in general its a kick ass city, where you are constantly stumbling on music festivals, art installations and an amazing nightlife. and there are ski hills 40 mins-2 hours away depending on where you go in our god forsaken winters lol.
Personally, I like to go out 3-5 nights a week so living in a big city is awesome for that, finding some cool pub or a super underground house club around a random corner is killer. also being within 10-20 mins of taxi ride home from the main strip is good, especially if you are bringing a girl home and or hammered to not have to worry about drinking and driving.
dont get me wrong, LA is a lot different than Montreal which is super small by comparison, but ever since I moved here from vancouver I've never felt more alive, insipired and satisfied with my life.
like I said, this is all coming from somone in their mid 20s so I might have a change of heart later on, but I dont think so, I'm too jaded about small towns from when I grew up, and any time I visit outside of montreal im itching to get back into the city.
different strokes for different folks
thats just my personal view, on more of the studio side of things, I think a lot of studios are in these large cities purley for image, I know most of the studios in vancouver open in the most expensive areas of town to have this pimp swager image with multi million dollar interior design and shit, which is a bit of a waste of money but when investors walk in they are usually ooooed and awwwwed by "fancy game studio, so fun, look.......arcade machines and a view of the city!"
only partying 3-5 nights a week?
that's not enough! you're only 25. Go nuts.
And back to the topic.
Sweet DICE LA. Hope they'll be hiring juniors.
If you want to be able to live a good life on being an artist, i recommend going freelance,
I freelanced and lived in Taiwan, could live a rock star life on the money i got, which would probably be less then the norm in other countries.
now i live in the middle of Tokyo, sharehouse with 20 people, shared shower, shared toilet, shared kitchen, private room almost enough to fit 2 beds and still be able to open the door,
and that costs me 800$ a month, Could get a luxury apartment for that in taiwan hehe.
go work somewhere else and live life
Yeah... some people have to travel to the middle of nowhere to do the million of things they like to do. :icon15: Everyone always says "There's so much to do!" but rarely are they doing anything you can't do somewhere else. Depends what you're into... "going out" every night doesn't appeal to everyone.
Either way this is good for the industry. Hope they stick around a bit.
Cmon mash, us country folk can make symmetrical robots and choose dDo presets at random, too. :thumbup:
im still boggled at the final bill to move me from vancouver to montreal that ubi paid, so from a studio standpoint, its just good business.
I for one cant wait to see who is running the studio and if they grab a big name art director etc like 343 did, going from startup to elite studio before their 1st game is even out.
But I have to agree with PixelMasher on this one. As a young 25 year old male I dont want to be lounging back looking at some stupid animals all day in a quite town. I love the hustle and bustle of the city life. What you desercibed sounds great for a long weekend.
What do I see when I walk outside? Well I live 7 blocks from the Santa Monica beach, pretty fucking amazing. The coastal hills of Malibu to go hiking/driving through, the world famous Santa Monica Peir and Venice Beach and tons of art galaries, so yeah I will take that over furry little animals and knowing who my neighbors are
Going out dosnt always mean drinking and partying either. Small towns you go to the same places over and over again. No thanks, I would rather go out, try one of the hundreds of new places in LA to eat, drink, view art, fun event to do. Hangout with all my friends from the other close studios around here and swap stories wether there in games or in film. So much more alive and full of culture than out in the sticks.
To each his own though.
Ok thread derailed too long haha, awesome to see more studios opening here in LA. Will have to grab some drinks with some of the guys at the new studio (and force them to tell me what there working on!!)
Ahahah.. who was that aimed at..
Also I have to (regretably) agree with autocon
I wouldn't say so, I've always worked at studios that are in the suburbs of major cities and the staff broke down sort of 50/50. Nothing against people who like that, cities just fill me with anxiety and dread
haha I will agree with you on that. Cities are filled with so much anxiety and dread, especially LA. Dont even get me started on parking.... But being raised in the forest hah I've grown to find the beauty in the chaos
I too was mostly located in the middle of nowhere Midwest in Colorado for a year. I'm from Cali mind everyone reading. So for me, yeah the rocky mountains are there... but that's about it. Its dry, no color to the setting, and plenty of metal factories for useless metal junk to drive from mile to mile to view about.
Not to mention, everything costs a good arm and leg out there, and there isn't much you can do for "FREE". In California, I could find over 30 things really fun to do that didn't require me to fork over money for. #1 would be surfing.
Sure you could mention Colorado the great state for snowboarding, but guess what? It aint free. It goes around somewhere in the $100.00's to get a "seasonal pass" to do what you love, not to mention the long ass commute to drive to the mountains.
2nd thing that largely sticks out from my experience. Is that in the middle of nowhere. Food Sucks! I cannot put it in any other way, than to say the food has no freaking flavor of authenticity, or something special for the prices they offer. Anything far West to far East of the US, maybe South? (probably) with major cities and large ports for multiple ethnicity types, or immigration simply, etc. The food rocks your socks.
This is all I have to say.:poly124:
I don't think Irvine can be called a 'great city' when it's little more than urban sprawl for miles and miles broken up by strip malls filled with the same chain stores. Admittedly, it does have a good number parks and green spaces so it's a decent place to raise a family. But otherwise it's super dull and sterile. Not saying I'm a huge fan of LA either, but at least there's stuff going on in and around the city.
Depending on your age, a busy city is a tough place to raise a family but a great place for young folk.
I think a big city wins most of the time, due to image.
Great, ain't it. This happens a lot these days. Keeps wages down in the longer term.