Babel looks to boost Montreal staff

Video game company plans to double number of full-time workers by autumn

Babel Media Ltd., a leading British-based provider of services for the international video game industry, said Wednesday its budding Montreal operation plans to hire 200 new full-time staffers over the next two to four months to bring its complement up to 400.

Bruce Stamm, chief operating officer in Montreal, said Wednesday that the market is in a hot growth phase, especially for the social media and casual games sectors.

The new team members being sought include testers covering all European and Asian languages. Babel is also moving into a new purposebuilt 20,000 square foot stateof-the-art studio in the heart of Montreal this summer.

“We’ll be hiring project managers, test leads and testers,” Stamm said. “We have positions at all levels for people with a full command of their native languages and solid English. We also provide training.”

Babel Media chose Montreal for its North American base in 2005 because of its thriving game development community, cosmopolitan population, multilingualism and provincial tax breaks, though Vancouver was a strong contender. It meant moves from southern England to Montreal for many employees.

The “big game hub” and its four universities, along with its fast-growing game and interactive entertainment industries, were fertile ground for recruitment for Babel.

Stamm said the Montreal operation also has 150 parttimers, besides the existing 200 full-timers, and it needs to hit 400 full-timers this autumn at the latest. “Regardless of whether you’ve done quality assurance testing before, so long as you pass our test ... we can teach you all you need to know,”

Babel counts SEGA, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Warner Bros., Dreamworks, Vodafone, Digital Chocolate, Netflix, Atari, Gameloft, Nokia, Konami and Bethesda among its clientele.