Game industry and living in Canada
polycounter lvl 7
Hopefully I'm not being too vague but I have very little experience with Canada but have been curious about moving there. I'm wondering what the quality of life is like there, cost of living, that sort of thing. Currently I'm between jobs and was thinking of applying to the neighbor up north. Insight?
Replies
i pay splits at around $1200/mo for rent with a roommate in the west end rite by ubisoft's new studio. tack on another 100$ or so every couple months for utilities.
Cant really comment on the quality of life deal since all i've ever known is ontario. Good health care, clean streets, minimal crackheads, decent pub. transit.
Toronto has a lot of smaller studios, but if you're looking for a consistent full time position then montreal might be a better choice. Rumor has it ubisoft is gonna be doing a major wave of hires around march of next year though
feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions
I love both vancouver and montreal, montreal for the wicked nightlife, smokin' hot women party atmoshere etc, and vancouver for the nice scenery and the fact there is so much to do like skiing/snowboarding, hiking, hitting the beach etc.
the vancouver job market is almost all contract for artists right now, while most places out east are still hiring fulltime employees which is nice.
There are a few game studios here.
Quality of living is great, for the most part housing is cheap (to rent or buy). It is a small city (350,000 population) that tries to be a big city.
You get the quiet, safe, and overall atmosphere of a small city. But the big city stuff is there when you need it.
-40 degrees celsius/fahrenheit will render your bare limbs/body parts numb in seconds
:poly127:
You have been warned
The problem is the price. The cost of living is pretty ridiculous. Housing in particular. I've been looking for housing lately and it's expensive. I don't have a very high paying job, and for me and a roommate we're having to look a bit out of our price range to even get available places to show up on the map. We're not looking downtown either. Just centrally located in Greater Vancouver.
Rainy weather. I guess it's probably fairly similar to what you have now in Redmond though. So if you were to come here it would be mostly the same. Lots of rain.
I'm not a very outdoorsy type, so I don't get anything out of the hiking/skiiing stuff but the scenery is still awesome. Looking over rivers and mountains on the way to work everyday is definitely a plus.
Seems like good people in general(if you can keep out of Surrey) and the transit system is bad but not the worst.:)
Lots of game studios, lots of VFX studios and lately a lot more open positions. As PixelMasher mentioned, mostly contracts.
learning already :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD