The Big Move 2006
Lionhead Studios has outgrown its original five (5!) offices. The different
teams were spread around the Surrey Research Park in different buildings but on
11th December 2006 everyone moved into one single building: 1 Occam Court.
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Our previous move dates
back several years. Anyone who had the joy of visiting Lionhead Studios knows that
the studio was located at the top floor of 1 Occam Court; the other two floors were
inhabited by other companies.
Maybe sharing a building with game developers is too much for any company to deal
with, but with the ground floor being vacant for a few years and the first floor
being acquired by Lionhead Studios in June 2006 - the time had come to completely
refurbish all three floors so that the different teams and departments could move
in together to brand new premises.
The past few years have been quite messy; we weren't too happy being all spread
all over the Research Park and it was with great anticipation that the 8th December
(the day we had to pack our stuff) and 11th December (the day of the actual move
itself) drew closer and closer.
It took months of preparation and everyone in the company got a chance to raise
their main points and wishes for the new office. These ranged from simple things
such as additional car parking spaces or a nice coffee shop on site, to plainly
crazy things like a pub within walking distance or dispensing machines selling pain
killers and condoms!
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Being part of Microsoft Game Studios also means that certain other facilities become
possible. We're one of the first companies to have a Gigabit network "corpnet"
up and running, and while security is a tad more tense then we were used to while
being just Lionhead Studios, it also means we now have a fibre-optic cable with
the diameter of an elephant's leg in place! Everyone has got new desks, most of
us have or will have new computers, and we each have a Polycom IP phone. We now
also have our very own cantina area, including plasma screens on the wall, table
football and a big projector to view movies. Spread over the three floors are "chill-out
areas" where one can have a break and the "Expressions Quarters"
look very much like the set of some adult rated movie...
So we now have more space, more light, better facilities, bigger desks, faster internet
and most importantly: free drinks. And we've already managed to make a mess of our
new office and desks. This is some truly great stuff!
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