Erin Hoffman's Inside Job

Inside Job: How Much Work and How Much Play?

Pride also comes into play, as it frequently does in creative industries. One of the game industry's strengths is how good developers generally feel about their jobs and their own personal competency. This level of satisfaction with your own performance is what leads game development to avoid many of the Office Space-style bureaucratic pitfalls that plague the larger software development world.

"Restriction is not the answer to improving productivity. It's all about turning threats into opportunities: What impacts productivity more, someone sneaking out of the office to go to the bank or doing the same operation online? Someone leaving early to do the shopping or doing it from your PC (and without the queues)? If you treat your employees like kids, restrict their access to the real world, and try to put fences on the fields, what kind of response will you get? What would be next, restrict the number of times they can go to the toilet? And do you remember back in the old days, where there was no internet, people not getting distracted?

Everyone likes to be treated well, and the better the atmosphere, better the chances that people will try and do their work the best that they can. And above all, it's a fact: Most people play online games during work hours, including executives (who happen to play even more).

It's refreshing, recharging and makes people feel better afterwards."
- Jorge Gómez, Production Manager at Pyro Studios

Because these issues do come down to corporate culture and, ultimately, the way we feel about what we do, the bad news is they can be hard to quantify, but the good news is there are no right and wrong answers, only what works for an individual studio. Because the issues are of trust and professionalism, if the "no-internet" policy is executed in a way that makes sense, respects developers and encourages them to respect each other by not extending work hours beyond the established workday, more power to it. Many studios have shown positive results from the less intuitive but testable practice of placing clear delineations between studio time and personal time.

Studios that have implemented these and other productivity strategies effectively have used the collective brainpower of their developers, not just for meeting deadlines but for analyzing the way those deadlines are met. Most game studios are of a size that favors flexibility and quick iteration of process strategy, two invaluable abilities that allow for rapid testing and refinement of the development process. All we need to do is stay awake.