Melbourne's a magnet for really great talent.
Founded in 2019, Sledgehammer Games, a subsidiary of Activision Inc has grown within one year from an initial base of six staff, rising to 80 after opening their development studio in Melbourne, and are looking long-term to increase the team to just over 100 staff. They identified Melbourne as their ideal second location due to a combination of things such as – diversity, a deep pool of talent and experience, culture and lifestyle.
With world-class audio, design, engineering, and art teams, Sledgehammer Games has been able to achieve some of the highest-quality game execution of any studio in the industry, making games for global audiences across the boundaries of culture, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. They are also one of the developers behind the blockbuster Call of Duty franchise.
As a leading global video games developer, Sledgehammer Games is determined to make a contribution to the Victorian games industry through offering internships and mentoring opportunities to local universities, and have also established productive relationships with industry and government bodies to drive and grow the sector.
Hear from Andrew Wilson, COO Sledgehammer Games and Eunice Lee, SVP, Studio Operations, Activision Inc, and others about the company’s investment journey to Victoria.
Aaron Halon, Studio Head Sledgehammer Games:
One of the things that we’re really excited about is our expansion in Melbourne.
Andrew Wilson, COO Sledgehammer Games:
There’s this huge pool of really experienced people out there and we see an opportunity to build a really strong team out there in Melbourne. That’s an extension of the main team that we have here in Foster City.
Aaron:
We’ve had a really small, really talented tight team that’s focussed on really important things over the years and now our plan is to go expand that 10-fold and we’re really excited about building Melbourne up to be a true triple-A studio.
Eunice Lee, SVP, Studio Operations, Activision, Inc:
We believe Melbourne is an attractive destination, that its vibrant in terms of its culture and what it has to offer people outside of the workplace, but we also believe it’s a magnet for really great talent, again we’ve already seen that in terms of the people we already have working for us in Melbourne, so we can’t wait to attract more people into this team.
Andrew Lacey, Principal Engineer
It’s a great team, I think we have a great chemistry. We’ve worked a total of maybe four different Calls of Duty. Aaron said we’re going to go full studio in Melbourne. I’m like, wow, That’s amazing.
Eunice:
Melbourne represents for us the perfect combination of a few things – diversity, talent, culture and lifestyle. We couldn’t be more excited go into Melbourne in a big way.
Aaron:
The idea of having people who come in and do an entirely different function, who just think differently is actually really exciting. Because it pushes you think beyond your normal realm. I think that’s awesome.
Andrew:
What we’re planning to do is get them a new space, somewhere they can move into, somewhere they can feel proud of and somewhere that is going to be in keeping with the rest of the amazing facilities and amazing talent that we’ve got at Sledgehammer Games.
