Hello,
I was contacted by a sturdy anonymous source with the small piece of news:
The North American Wargaming office in San Francisco aka Emeryville is planned to close doors and relocate to Austin, Texas.
These changes are probably happening after the very end of March and the current staff will have the option to re-apply for positions under a new corporate structure.
It is not much to go on but I felt that you would be interested in knowing.
For those interested, there are plenty of positions available: http://wargaming.com/en/careers/
Wishing you a good Monday.
then what will happen to WoT Weekly
DOA
“…the current staff will have the option to re-apply for positions under a new corporate structure.”
Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark.
Well there bar for getting a job is going to be higher then a new staff person
Austin is an IT center and probably much cheaper to rent space. There will be more computer people available because it is also college town. There is an office there already so it makes sense.
Interesting fact to learn about Austin. I always immediately think of Silicon Valley (which is probably where they are now).
Maybe Silicon Valley is like Fort Knox. It’s for tourists, but the real power is somewhere else.
Silicon Valley by most definitions is a stones throw south of where they were in Emeryville, which is across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. Also real estate in the bay area is really pricey everywhere – even for the shared office space they were using. Gone are the memes where I can make fun of WG for sharing their NA headquarters with a cancer treatment center (IBM still has some offices in that building too). It does make sense to put HQ closer to the US Central server now that US West is no longer a thing, and the corporate tax rate is lower too.
Makes sense…
Main motivation there is lower taxes and cost of living. So for WG that lowers cost.
I believe you are correct in your assessment vis a vis costs. Austin is making it terribly attractive with tax incentives and deferrals, infrastructure capabilities and an IT rich environment.
Lots of software companies in that area in TX and vastly cheaper real estate. That’s a good move. Commiefornia is horribly expensive, taxed, traffic in the bay area is a monstrous nightmare day in day out.
Hopefully they use the opportunity of a new corporate structure to separate the grain from the chaff in their personnel.
Why did they even buy a office in San “2nd most expensive rent in US” Fransisco
Because its an “it” place to be.
Yep, same reason WG Eu is in Paris and has a hard time finding employees that are willing to spend most of their salary just for rent.
WG pay could be worse even tho it also could be much better considering how much some people work in the company but a few years back a guy from Paris lived with a hole in his bathroom ceiling directly into his neighbour.
WG did invite me more than once to work for them but as soon I heard overly expensive Paris I just said screw that…
in 2011 when they opened the local publisher offie it was not yet the most expensive place to be. That came soon after and their lease for the space is probably up for renewal. Also I understand Silicon Hills (Austin) is now much more affordable.
Please tell me that they aren’t going to get rid of Nicolas Moran. :-\
Im a South African player on wot eu.My ping in South Africa is between 190 and 250.On the NA server its over 300 unless you have fibre which is quite expensive here.I feel sorry for you guys and the inconvenience you have to go through.GL and Happy Tanking
That’s bad timing:
1. The update 1.0 is coming around that time
2. It’s not easy to shutdown a office and move all eqitment from one location to the next fast
3. Not easy to hire fast so expect a lack of support/communication
4.this may kill the game NA or at least make the player base a lot smaller
– which titles are you referring to? WoT, WoWs or WoWp (PC)?
The servers FYI are not located at their Emeryville offices or probably even in CA. Emeryville is just the location for the local publishers.
– they will not be moving server equipment, remember the Emeryville HQ is just for publishing the game and local content.
You will probably see no change within the game and since all the promotions, specials and events are planned months ahead… you might just see them jetlagged for a week as they adjust to rent being 1/2 what it is here.
the servers are in Chicago but a office has a lot of desktops,local file servers,active directory likely, dns,dhcp, firewalls and maybe even a NTP server on top of Mail servers (maybe) and that does not even show Networking (routers,switches) phones systems (handsets and or PBX or other IP Based Phone parts) so even a office of like 15 people your talking easily 100+ parts and there other parts to (scanners,printers,faxes, TV’s likely, cameras.)
Oh well, everyone seems to be moving from San Francisco anyway.
It has more to do with the location than with WG itself.
between fires, droughts and the arrival of the “Big One”, I think the move is wise.
“current staff will have the option to re-apply for positions under a new corporate structure.” – it’s like moving from Madrid to Warsaw in terms of distance. I wish you luck empleyees…
“re-apply for positions” – code for you don’t get to keep your California pay, we’ll give you a new lower salary adjusted for Texas cost of living and no state income tax. That’s kinda shitty. Many people I know loved the CA to TX switch because they kept CA pay and got TX cost of living. I mean why else would you do it?! There’s a reason why CA is higher cost…
Hopefully this won’t delay the EU transfers even more…
that’s got going to happen any time soon.
Commiefornia’s tax policy at work. Companies are leaving the state in droves. Let’s hope they don’t go to places like Texas and muck it up like they have in California for decades.
I should dig up some of my posts from over the last year where I predicted this.
WG outgrew it’s market on NA and the cash cow was slaughtered a few years ago.
It’s a huge reason why NA is what it is… a mess.
Pozdrav
WG finally got tired of all the illegal Criminals taking sanctuary.. :p
nothing “it” about anything sanfran
Hopefully things work out for the current employees. There are some good folks in that office. I’ll be curious to see of Meathead makes the jump.
Hope they get rid of nicholas moron , cause thats all he is
WG moving offices who gives a toss
WG dont listen anyway GG
jest remember someday that could be you getting fired.
Someone should apply to Game Balance Design position and fix the Gold ammo, OP tank like Defender…
I`ll watching your way and pray for glorious victory : (
some things can’t be “Balanced” not for technical reasons buy political reasons and the defender is not that big of a deal anymore as the player base ether gets replaced or moves on to the new flavour of the week.
What exactly the fact of NA office relocating have to do with game balance at all?
Well aint that a crying shame.
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This be old news meng! 👍🏻