29 replies to this topic

[maniac78]

The market is hot for programmers in this town right now so I don't know why people seem to think this is a bad place for IT work. I've always found the wages here to be only slightly less than Vancouver and it's way cheaper to live here. I bet MS will pay probably over 100k for someone with like 5 years of experience. You can buy a house on that.

My company regularly recruits people from all over Canada to move here. It's not hard if you pay. Even at the height of the recession it wasn't really hard to get a gig here.

[spanky123]

Except your making up a bunch of logical hoops to jump through to try and prove some ideal you have in your head about Victoria's failings.
And you still haven't stated whether you actually have any experience in this field to justify your claims that "it is next to impossible to get really good game developers to live here." It sounds like you're just going to come into any discussion and try and make the same tired, untrue points about Victoria being a place that no-one wants to live in.

This is an article about a giant tech company setting up a development shop in Victoria. It's literally disproving everything you're trying to say in advance.

One of the stated reasons for them setting up shop here (from the article) is that housing costs are so much less than in Vancouver.
Of COURSE you can get a house here on 80-90k a year. It's absolutely ridiculous that you're trying to say otherwise.

No "idea in my head". I quote Government statistics and market trends, not annecdotal info based on what my employer tells me. The fact is that employment in Victoria has been declining and is back again to its lowest level in half a dozen years without even factoring in population growth. Another 3,000 jobs were lost last month alone. The net impact has been a continued migration out of working professionals. Sure you see lots of ads for programmers and technical positions but that is because companies can't find / recruit people. If companies were rapidly growing then employment wouldn't be declining!

Sticking your head in the sand and pretending there isn't a problem won't solve it.

[ZGsta]

Last time I'll ask. Do you actually have any experience in the field to justify your pulled out of thin air claim that "it is next to impossible to get really good game developers to live here"?

[maniac78]

Yeah construction is suffering right now but IT is booming so there you go.

[Hotel Mike]

Yup, plus you're only a Kenmore Air flight away from the Lake Union seaplane base and a 20 minute cab ride from there to the Redmond campus.

You are so right Bob. That's a key element in why this works. Kenmore is literally across the street from the office.

[Mike K.]

Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in the world with resources to locate into markets where they'll know they'll profit, would just pick Victoria randomly simply because they "think" they'll be alright here?

Plenty of Microsoft's workers are from Canada and would love to move back, and plenty of them would love to work in Victoria.

[Bob Fugger]

Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in the world with resources to locate into markets where they'll know they'll profit, would just pick Victoria randomly simply because they "think" they'll be alright here?

Plenty of Microsoft's workers are from Canada and would love to move back, and plenty of them would love to work in Victoria.

I'm just waiting for the Mayor to inevitably suggest that his regime and economic plan are responsible for luring Microsoft to Victoria.

[G-Man]

Yep it was the Tectoria campaign for sure!

[spanky123]

Last time I'll ask. Do you actually have any experience in the field to justify your pulled out of thin air claim that "it is next to impossible to get really good game developers to live here"?

To answer your question directly, I do not work in the development industry. Statisticians, market researchers and reporters don't work in the industries they write about either!

[spanky123]

Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in the world with resources to locate into markets where they'll know they'll profit, would just pick Victoria randomly simply because they "think" they'll be alright here?

Plenty of Microsoft's workers are from Canada and would love to move back, and plenty of them would love to work in Victoria.

As the article referenced, the head of Microsoft's gaming division lives here. If nothing else he has a local office to go to now!