Originally Posted by R I C H

+1 Here's one example of my experience that illustrates your point:

In the 90's I worked for a Govt. agency in the UK as a marketing manager. We employed IBM to maintain our website. IBM's contract supplied us with 4 staff, located at our site, plus external contractors. It cost over 1 million pounds p/yr to maintain the site in terms of infrastructure and staffing.

I wrote an RFP to look at alternative ways of resourcing and redeveloping the site. IBM lost the contract and I spent a third of the previous years budget implementing a content management system that all relevant agency staff could access to maintain their area of responsibility online. Apart from the reduced overhead, we gained additional office space that the IBM team used to occupy and more immediate publishing ability, rather than a lengthy process of submission and approval by IBM.

To suggest this is dumbing down is fatuous - it''s implementation of IT to assist processes and reduce cost, not to de-skill IT staff.

Originally Posted by michelle101

I just wondered what peoples experiences were of cost of living in Canada compared to the UK in terms of groceries, utilities, insurance, eating out etc.

I know everything seems more expensive at the moment due to the bad exchange rate and my OH works in IT and I think the pay is lower in Canada. We're hoping to move to Vancouver.

Thanks for your help.

Originally Posted by Alan2005

I don't know anything much about games development. I do know that the industry is quite big in Vancouver and my comment was in that context.

Originally Posted by johnh009

This is what probably shapes people's opinions on this forum. I have always said that Canada can be the greatest place in the World if you get a government job, but, at the moment and the foreseeable future, those of us in the engineering/manufacturing sector in Ontario are seeing a completly different picture.

Originally Posted by dboy

I had a tour last week of EA Games in Burnaby - holy shit!! They have free cafeterias, that even serve beer (for free), 2 cinemas, an indoor basketball court, soccer pitch, volley ball (with sand imported from southern california of course). I'm surprised they get any work done.

Originally Posted by DigitalGhost

Manchester doesn't pay too badly but retains a fairly reasonable cost of living, although I am deeply opposed to the level of council tax in this city since Manchester City Council are at best incompetent and at worst, extremely corrupt.

Originally Posted by R I C H

The companies I worked for in England had similar - chill out rooms for the over worked code monkeys (most of whom we had to kick out and send home at night), 'duvet days' for the poor souls that wanted the option to stay in bed some mornings, frisbee afternoons, pinball machines etc etc. Any bitching about salary was soon quashed when they were reminded about the cushy work environment they enjoyed.

Originally Posted by dboy

I had a tour last week of EA Games in Burnaby - holy shit!! They have free cafeterias, that even serve beer (for free), 2 cinemas, an indoor basketball court, soccer pitch, volley ball (with sand imported from southern california of course). I'm surprised they get any work done.

Originally Posted by R I C H

The companies I worked for in England had similar - chill out rooms for the over worked code monkeys (most of whom we had to kick out and send home at night), 'duvet days' for the poor souls that wanted the option to stay in bed some mornings, frisbee afternoons, pinball machines etc etc. Any bitching about salary was soon quashed when they were reminded about the cushy work environment they enjoyed.

Originally Posted by dbd33

The places I've seen in the US with such facilities provide them because they don't expect the staff to leave the premises during the whole decade span of their careers.

Originally Posted by Alan2005

I think you are taking this a little too far. I wouldn't work in an environment that had low salaries justified by the existence of pinball machines or other ultimately worthless benefits - it's always about the money.

Originally Posted by R I C H

I didn't say their salaries were low, or compensated for by such fripperies. They were paid market rates, but enjoyed fringe benefits far beyond what the majority of businesses would normally consider necessary, because they worked in 'IT'.

There was a prevalence of those sorts of quirky benefits being provided for a number of years, as businesses tried to out-do their competitors and attract the best staff, at a time when that industry (games development) was experiencing strong growth.

Originally Posted by dboy

I had a tour last week of EA Games in Burnaby - holy shit!! They have free cafeterias, that even serve beer (for free), 2 cinemas, an indoor basketball court, soccer pitch, volley ball (with sand imported from southern california of course). I'm surprised they get any work done.

Originally Posted by Alan2005

I think you are taking this a little too far. I wouldn't work in an environment that had low salaries justified by the existence of pinball machines or other ultimately worthless benefits - it's always about the money.

Originally Posted by dboy

I had a tour last week of EA Games in Burnaby - holy shit!! They have free cafeterias, that even serve beer (for free), 2 cinemas, an indoor basketball court, soccer pitch, volley ball (with sand imported from southern california of course). I'm surprised they get any work done.