EA Montreal Interview

Apr 20 2009

Published by Chris Comeau at 10:31 am under Interview, News

1UP talks to EA Montreal’s Alain Tascan about Army of Two: The 40th Day, Wii MotionPlus, PS3’s potential comeback year, and lots more.

EA’s Montreal studio has grown significantly over the past few years: it now employs over 400 people and serves as one of EA’s top development centers. After the recent announcement of Army of Two: The 40th Day, we took the opportunity to speak with EA Montreal studio head Alain Tascan about the sequel, his studio, the state of the game market, and lots more. The always-candid Tascan shared plenty of fantastic insight into what went right and wrong with the original Army of Two, where he thinks the industry is headed, and EA’s approach to new IP.

1UP: Because of the economic climate, EA has had to lay off quite a few people, yet EA Montreal appears as though it’s been relatively unscathed in all of that. Why is that?

Alain Tascan: It affected us in a minor way — I can’t give numbers, though. But Montreal is a place where the quality and talent is really good. The government has also been pretty supportive of us, and the cost of living is very reasonable. This doesn’t mean that we do things on the cheap, but it means we can invest more here. Plus we’ve always been very lean. Since EA Montreal is the first EA studio that’s been created from scratch, we could create a structure that’s very efficient and lean — and these days it’s good to be lean.