http://www.developmag.com/news/29488/Montreal-is-not-an-efficient-place-to-run-a-business

We are doing research as a company to find out which city is going to be more attractive to run our studio out of and I cam eacross this piece that gave me a little scare as I was fully sold on Montreal.  Mark Greenshields just slams the city as a whole and goes out of his way to paint it in a bad light, citing talent shortages to the fact that the salary increases don’t make the tax rebates worth while.  Well that alone is a crock as I have spoken with employees in montreal and their wages are consistent with everywhere in the industry, not ’40% higher’ as Greenshields would like everyone to think.  But the best part about the above mentioned link is to go through the comments that follow.  When the comments that follow are 10 times longer than the article and every single one of them is bashing Greenshields and calling him a crook I seriously start to question the words of this man.  Even better the GM from Eidos called in the Develop magazine to setup an interview (also found here) discrediting Greenshields and so did Tascan of EA

I am so grateful for the open endedness of the internet and how we aren’t just force fed opinions of people such as Greenshields without allowing those with equal experience a voice to speak up and chime in.  Here are some the comments from that original article

But he was not loyal to us, didn’t pay us what he owed us (he owed over 20000$ to some contractors) and stole some DC-Studios IP: he copied the hard drive with DC-Studios DS engine, Firebrand depending on DC’s technology.

If he had 5-6 companies that failed in various cities, is it the city thats not suited for a game company, or the man thats not suited to manage such a company?

management reeking down the halls. Bad decisions were being made by the brass, and as a Senior Artist I could see the ship sinking from a mile away before it sunk, I jumped ship 1 year before it did and I am thankful that I have made the right choice to leave.

You wanna do cheap and quick money? Well, take your “business” elsewhere and shove it. Oh, and the money you still owe me too.

Good riddance, Mr Greenshield! I wish you keep doing what you do best: crash, burn… and migrate.

the reason Mark left Montreal, was that due to wanting to by-pass Quebec law requiring immigrants to send their kids to french school, Mark never applied for citizenship. He instead operated under a work Visa that allowed him to stay so long as he owned the company. As soon as DC went bust Mark had to leave the country within 30 days

Who can really listen to Mark Greenshields when it comes to running a studio and having business success in this field? This guy moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow bashing on Edinburgh. Then, he moved to Montreal from Glasgow bashing on Scotland. Then he opened in Dublin, praising the great business environment there, while closing Glasgow and bashing again on Scotland. Now, he’s closed down Montreal, bashing on Quebec, while moving to Florida. Oups! I forgot! He closed down Dublin as well!

As an ex-insider of one of Mr Greenshields’s disastrous studios, I can tell you exactly what is the problem with DC Studios or now Fireband operating anywhere in the Universe for that matter: Mr Greenshields himself!

And as for Montreal being no good for games, that’s utter nonsense. Mr Greenshields was no good for Montreal and we are glad he’s gone. Good luck to his new disaster waiting to happen.

Mark Greenshields is a greedy, cowardly little man.
In the same few weeks as he made our entire team redundant, he sent the team round an email offering us discounted rates on hiring his new florida holiday-home.
I understand that businesses go bust, and that people’s wages can be lost when that happens, but in 2 months of ceaselessly trying to chase up unpaid wages (before the studio went bust) he blankly refused to answer any call i made to him, and would not answer a single question i put to him.
I worked at DC studios for a short 13 months, I was paid on payday 4 times, again with no apologies or straight answers. By the end, it was simply the norm that we were never paid on time, no one expected to recieve wages til at least a week after payday.

Tags: comments, crook, develomag.com, EA montreal, Eidos Montreal, loyalty, mark greenshields, montreal game industry, tax rebates