Superhero Artists

Some underpaid artists in Montreal are in the cool video game biz with the cool company, so everything is good. Or so the New York Times informs us:

... THE Montreal studio of Ubisoft fills a five-story red brick building, a former textile factory built in 1903 that covers a city block at the northern end of Boulevard St. Laurent.

The company is based in Rennes, France; it was founded by five brothers from Brittany in 1986. They opened the studio in Montreal in 1997, lured by generous tax credits. American competitors soon followed — Electronic Arts in 2004 and a Quebec division of Warner Brothers Games in 2008 — making Montreal a video game industry center.

“When you play an E.A. game, it feels like the business people got the last word,” says Stephen Totilo, editor in chief of the video game Web site Kotaku (and an occasional game reviewer for The New York Times). “With Ubisoft, you can tell that the creative people did. It’s pretty clear they take far more creative risks, even in a sequel. They’re definitely putting art ahead of other companies.” ...

Some employees say that the company is a great place to start out — calling it “Ubischool” — but that unless you are a senior executive or the producer of a successful title, the salaries are lower than those of competitors. “They probably pay 90 percent of what everyone else in Montreal is paying, and that’s less than they pay people in the U.S., and that’s less than they pay in the U.K.,” says Mr. Pachter, the industry analyst. ...

Gee. Tax credits and lower wages. What could be finer?

Maybe a studio in Bangladesh.