![]() ![]() First, we looked at earnings call transcripts from the 25 largest video game companies globally, dating back to the first quarter of 2019. To precisely understand what happened in the video game industry and glean insights into how to avoid similar mistakes, we collected data from two sources. Rather than a failure of individual employees, this was a failure of the tools and processes they - and we - use to collaborate. While there were bursts of near-term output, many saw innovation and milestone projects falter. Like other sectors, game developers worked longer hours during the pandemic, but often saw this intense individual effort fail to add up. We found that video game companies that moved to a remote work model saw many times the delays and disruptions as those that could continue primarily working in the office - and the specific struggles the game industry has faced during the shift to remote work should make other industries worried. Some of this can be chalked up to the burnout, added caregiving responsibilities, and general stress of the pandemic, but that’s not the whole story. As a result, marquee titles that were hyped as Game of the Year contenders missed their release dates by weeks or even months, in some cases costing companies as much as $1 million per day. Companies have also complained about struggling to record voiceovers, increased stress on servers, and shipping delays. Respondents in the 2020 survey credited these setbacks to external factors, such as rocky transitions to WFH at partner organizations and other pandemic-related slowdowns, but also internal problems, such as difficulty doing ad hoc problem-solving without being in the same physical space. In a more recent GDC survey released in April, 44% reported delays. One third of developers experienced pandemic-related delays, according to a “ State of the Game Industry 2020: Work from Home Edition” survey by the Game Developers Conference last August. Instead, many of these companies struggled. Specifically, we’d expect games to be released on schedule and developers to complain less frequently about development challenges in their public statements. If, as some have posited, knowledge workers are more productive when working remotely, video game development should have accelerated into 2021 - and companies asking whether they should divest themselves of their physical office assets and lean fully into the remote and hybrid work future would have a model to follow. Moreover, with much of the world’s population stuck at home, video game purchases themselves exploded - in 2020 the industry grew by more than 20% to $180 billion in revenue.Īs such, the video game industry is a nearly ideal test case for whether a fully distributed workforce is likely to succeed. ![]() Video game companies produce almost exclusively digital goods unencumbered by supply chain constraints - any delays they encounter are therefore due mostly to collaboration challenges. Of all the industries that rapidly shifted to remote work due to Covid-19, the video game development industry seemed to be particularly well-positioned to continue operating successfully. They should: 1) accept that a one-size-fits-all strategy for remote probably won’t work 2) consider creating a team to help encourage weak ties and otherwise pursue strategies to help build relationships across the company, 3) acknowledge that worker expectations have changed and try to find a balance between flexibility and face time, and 4) stay nimble and keep evaluating their approach as time goes on. So what should companies do? Turning back the clock isn’t an option - companies need to find ways to encourage weak ties while accepting that office culture has fundamentally changed. In short, this was an institutional failure. That, in turn, led to communication breakdowns that made hitting big deadlines or continuing to innovate harder, even as workers were individually productive. Looking at data on white-collar workers’ communications, strong ties got stronger and weak one frayed. Why? Weak ties - or casual relationships - suffered in the pandemic. Even so, researchers found that companies that went remote during the pandemic suffered more delays than those that managed to keep working in offices. The video game industry was better prepared than most to make the switch to remote work. ![]()
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