Audiomotion considers Montreal expansion

Speaking with Develop, MD Mick Morris revealed that with the company’s business so strong in Europe he’s in discussion with Invest Quebec, the company looking after the region’s generous tax credits, about setting up an Audiomotion office there.

“We’re fairly sure we’ve got the lion’s share of the UK market, but we also get a good amount of business coming in from mainland Europe in the past 18 months. All of these countries have their indigenous mocap companies but they are more than happy to jump on a plane and come to Oxford," explained Morris. "So there’s no point in opening up another studio here in Europe

"But we are thinking maybe further afield – we’re talking to Invest Quebec about the amount of development that’s going on out there in Montreal. That would be the most sensible decision. And US teams may be willing to head further north in America to get the work done.”

Audiomotion already counts Sony, Konami and plenty other publishers as key partners for its European studio, but the move would see the mocap company follow in the recent footsteps of the likes of Eidos, who is building a games development outfit in the city alongside those owned by EA and Ubisoft.

Montreal also has a number of independent development teams and localisation/QA services in the area, plus the games HQs of tools specialists Softimage and Autodesk, but no big motion-capture companies.