The Vancouver Business Thread

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Hourglass

Isn’t the idea to (1) support local start-ups and (2) attract start-ups to B.C.? Any tech ecosystem needs critical mass, otherwise the “market” dictates that funding simply goes to places that already have that pull. It’s not like B.C. is the only places that provides start-up funding. Singapore does it. UK’s doing it. Ontario is very well organized — and it shows.

For whatever reason though, tech companies have been packing up and moving to the States since the 90s. Something to do with the bigger market?

[misher]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

For whatever reason though, tech companies have been packing up and moving to the States since the 90s. Something to do with the bigger market?

Speaking for videogames and program design BC has many large studios including EA and Pirana.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by misher

Speaking for videogames and program design BC has many large studios including EA and Pirana.

Many of the game developers in Vancouver are owned outside the city, and mostly outside Canada, including EA, despite the size of the Burnaby operation. Piranha is locally controlled, but in terms of scale and significance, it's a minnow with around 65 employees.

[rofina]

One of the saddest, but truest things I have read that stuck with me over the years is;
" The sign of a successful Canadian, is one that doesn't live in Canada."

Bit of hyperbole involved - but largely true in both Business and personal. Most successful companies need to move down South to scale up.

Most successful Canadians rather live in Cali, Arizona, Florida, etc.

[whatnext]

Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s company and two private equity firms have made preliminary bids for Anbang Insurance Group’s office complex in Vancouver, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Li’s CK Asset Holdings Ltd., U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group and Canadian real estate firm KingSett Capital have expressed interest in four office towers called Bentall Centre, said the sources, who were granted anonymity by The Globe and Mail because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Chinese insurer Anbang was forced to put Bentall Centre up for sale after Beijing took control of it amid problems with debt and allegations of corruption. The Chinese government is hoping not to lose money on the office complex after Anbang spent more than $1.06-billion in 2016 − the most expensive commercial real estate deal in Vancouver’s history...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business...irms-bid-on-anbang-insurances-vancouver/

[misher]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Many of the game developers in Vancouver are owned outside the city, and mostly outside Canada, including EA, despite the size of the Burnaby operation. Piranha is locally controlled, but in terms of scale and significance, it's a minnow with around 65 employees.

Dude who cares who owns what as long as they are employing us with high paying jobs. Honestly many Canadians own stock in EA so its not all American. Just like many Canadian companies stocks are owned by foreigners. SNC is Canadian and I'm pretty sure we wish it wasn't right now.

According to the latest statistics released by the government—those for 2016—employment in the sector increased by more than four percent over the course of a year. The number of businesses, too, saw a leap, with 331 new startups opening their doors. That brought the total of high-tech companies to over 10,200—a jump of 3.3 percent.

https://www.straight.com/tech/1206886/these-tech-companies-are-industrys-top-employers-bc

[Hourglass]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

For whatever reason though, tech companies have been packing up and moving to the States since the 90s. Something to do with the bigger market?

Bigger market, better tax regime, acquisition or even investor requirements are just some of the reasons.

Not every tech company has headed south. Hootsuite is still headquartered in Vancouver and they’ve raised about US$300m to-date. I have the feeling, though, that they’ll be acquired — and I doubt it would be by a Canadian company.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by misher

Dude who cares who owns what as long as they are employing us with high paying jobs. Honestly many Canadians own stock in EA so its not all American.

If you can't understand the greater volatility associated with outside businesses, rather than controlled here, you should research it. Games studios come and go - and the ones that go are frequently closed because decisions taken elsewhere - like the 158 jobs lost last year at Capcom, or those at Bandai Namco.

Local control doesn't guarantee success - the gaming industry as a whole isn't a good one to base an economy on, but once an outside company acquires a local business (like Radical, bought by Vivendi), the end result is sometimes a significant reduction in jobs, or the closure of the studio.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Changing City

If you can't understand the greater volatility associated with outside businesses, rather than controlled here, you should research it. Games studios come and go - and the ones that go are frequently closed because decisions taken elsewhere - like the 158 jobs lost last year at Capcom, or those at Bandai Namco.

Local control doesn't guarantee success - the gaming industry as a whole isn't a good one to base an economy on, but once an outside company acquires a local business (like Radical, bought by Vivendi), the end result is sometimes a significant reduction in jobs, or the closure of the studio.

Its insane to be isolationist as a Canadian. Most of our jobs come from foreign companies and local companies here have offices internationally.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Changing City

If you can't understand the greater volatility associated with outside businesses, rather than controlled here, you should research it. Games studios come and go - and the ones that go are frequently closed because decisions taken elsewhere - like the 158 jobs lost last year at Capcom, or those at Bandai Namco.

Local control doesn't guarantee success - the gaming industry as a whole isn't a good one to base an economy on, but once an outside company acquires a local business (like Radical, bought by Vivendi), the end result is sometimes a significant reduction in jobs, or the closure of the studio.

And all EA Vancouver does is the code monkey stuff like FIFA and mobile games; management'd outsource to Asia if they could. Wake me when we get a DICE or BioWare branch. Those kinds of game studios are much more irreplaceable.

Originally Posted by misher

Its insane to be isolationist as a Canadian. Most of our jobs come from foreign companies and local companies here have offices internationally.

How is "let's not be dependent on a megacorp that can leave whenever they feel like it" isolationism? We need a homegrown industry too, or at least a much more diverse one - I'd love to have Relic or Blackbird go global.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Hourglass

Bigger market, better tax regime, acquisition or even investor requirements are just some of the reasons.

Not every tech company has headed south. Hootsuite is still headquartered in Vancouver and they’ve raised about US$300m to-date. I have the feeling, though, that they’ll be acquired — and I doubt it would be by a Canadian company.

Yeah, the other option is apparently to sell the company to somebody else. There's got to be some way to have startups stay and grow big in this country.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Yeah, the other option is apparently to sell the company to somebody else. There's got to be some way to have startups stay and grow big in this country.

Maybe being competitive with our business environment would help instead of telling them "well tough".

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by misher

Maybe being competitive with our business environment would help instead of telling them "well tough".

Depends on the definition of "competitive." Greater subsidies, higher wages and more consumers are good. Deregulation, tax cuts and weakened labour/consumer laws just make Canada more exploitable. We're a country, not a hooker.

[s211]

Originally Posted by Hourglass

Bigger market, better tax regime, acquisition or even investor requirements are just some of the reasons.

Not every tech company has headed south. Hootsuite is still headquartered in Vancouver and they’ve raised about US$300m to-date. I have the feeling, though, that they’ll be acquired — and I doubt it would be by a Canadian company.

Access to specified financing is frequently stated as a reason for companies locating where they do. It wasn't that long ago when getting financing for a tech startup in Canada was a difficult thing to achieve because the investor pool just didn't exist in the proper form or scale.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

And all EA Vancouver does is the code monkey stuff like FIFA and mobile games; management'd outsource to Asia if they could. Wake me when we get a DICE or BioWare branch. Those kinds of game studios are much more irreplaceable.



How is "let's not be dependent on a megacorp that can leave whenever they feel like it" isolationism? We need a homegrown industry too, or at least a much more diverse one - I'd love to have Relic or Blackbird go global.

TBH, EA is infamous for abandoning studios when things go south. Ask Maxis, a studio which should have been considered untouchable due to SimCity. I'm not sure if Bioware is 'safe' either.

Once studios get big enough, they can shuffle people around when they want. Having their HQ in Vancouver is not necessarily a guarantee that'll prevent layoffs and outsourcing, though it is one layer of protection.

[whatnext]

Interesting, I just saw this proposed boutique hotel for Kerrisdale, was that in another thread. Who would be the market?

Vancouver’s Kerrisdale neighbourhood could be getting its first hotel as part of new mixed-use development.

Rositch Hemphill Architects has submitted a development application to the municipal government to replace existing one- and two-storey retail buildings at 2086 West 41st Avenue – near the southeast corner of West 41st Avenue and East Boulevard, directly across the street from the large McDonald’s restaurant – into a new four-storey building...

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/2086-west-41st-avenue-vancouver-boutique-hotel

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Interesting, I just saw this proposed boutique hotel for Kerrisdale, was that in another thread. Who would be the market?

Vancouver’s Kerrisdale neighbourhood could be getting its first hotel as part of new mixed-use development.

Rositch Hemphill Architects has submitted a development application to the municipal government to replace existing one- and two-storey retail buildings at 2086 West 41st Avenue – near the southeast corner of West 41st Avenue and East Boulevard, directly across the street from the large McDonald’s restaurant – into a new four-storey building...

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/2086-west-41st-avenue-vancouver-boutique-hotel

Well that sucks, they're taking down a nice art deco building at 2076 and replacing it with a faux historical Italian style mess. Typical Vancouver, why can't we bring back styles that have actually existed in Vancouver in the past like the Spanish missionary style that was common from the teens into the 30's or if they want something extravagant looking, go with a late 20's art-deco style with heavy embellishments like the Marine building. This new development looks like it was designed in the mid 90's PoMo demi-traditional style. Similar to that mess going up at the corner of 10th and Alma.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Interesting, I just saw this proposed boutique hotel for Kerrisdale, was that in another thread. Who would be the market?

Interesting development. I wonder if this is what we might see more of, if Airbnb are really being run out of town, or at least curtailed? I think that's a 1950s building getting replaced, so it wasn't a 'contemporary' design when it was built, and the replacement will be similarly unrelated to the 21st Century (style-wise) but perhaps more acceptable to the residents of Kerrisdale.

[officedweller]

BCI partners with RBC, Quadreal on $7B investment portfolio

The British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI) is moving more than 40 of its Canadian real estate assets into a new $7-billion fund for institutional investors in partnership with RBC Global Asset Management Inc. and Quadreal Property Group.

…

BCI will retain a 50 per cent interest in each of the assets.

...

There was no immediate word on which properties will be included in the new fund.

…

The most recent statistic available on BCI’s website show its total real estate portfolio was comprised of about 43 per cent office, 27 per cent residential, 15 per cent retail and 14 per cent industrial holdings, in addition to a small amount of hospitality assets.

Among its holdings are iconic properties such as the 1.4-million-square-foot Southcore Financial Centre, comprised of two high-rise office towers in downtown Toronto, and the Oakridge Centre mall in Vancouver.

It is also the owner of the “The Post” in Vancouver, a former Canada Post mail facility on Georgia St. being converted into a 1.6-million-square foot, twin-tower facility by Quadreal for Amazon.

The agreement is subject to the completion of definitive agreements and certain conditions including capital commitments to the strategy.

https://renx.ca/bci-partners-with-rbc-quadreal-on-7b-investment-portfolio/

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by fredinno

TBH, EA is infamous for abandoning studios when things go south. Ask Maxis, a studio which should have been considered untouchable due to SimCity. I'm not sure if Bioware is 'safe' either.

Once studios get big enough, they can shuffle people around when they want. Having their HQ in Vancouver is not necessarily a guarantee that'll prevent layoffs and outsourcing, though it is one layer of protection.

Yeah, EA's sh*tcanned a whole lot of studios for not being shareholder-friendly AAA cash cows.
But Maxis kinda killed themselves with the 2x2km maps and lack of offline mode (SimCityVille, more like). Then the server crashes, and the inherent gameplay problems, and the fact that The Sims was under a different studio.... for once, I don't blame the suits.

True, any BioWare Vancouver could end up like BioWare Montreal. But Edmonton is still around even after Anthem, so they seem more durable than most. It's not like heads roll as fast as Activision or Konami.