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Game Developers Lost 'Months' of Productivity Due To COVID-19 (axios.com) 80

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
More game developers have had projects delayed than in past years due to COVID-19, according to a recent state of the industry survey from Game Developer Conference organizers. From a report: Delays are an inevitable part of development, but there's been a noticeable jump since pandemic's arrival. According to GDC's findings, 44 percent of the over 3,000 respondents polled said their games have been subject to delays. Compare that to last year's responses at 33 percent. The impact of working from home ranges from lost collaboration opportunities, to the added pressures of childcare.
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Game Developers Lost 'Months' of Productivity Due To COVID-19 More

Game Developers Lost 'Months' of Productivity Due To COVID-19

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  • Game developers mourning over lost productivity? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dirk Becher ( 1061828 ) on Wednesday April 28, 2021 @02:44PM (#61325122)

    I admit there is some subtile irony about it.

  • Either you work from home, or you don't. Childcare should not be part of the picture. How did you manage childcare before working from home?

    • Probably daycare or school, but lots of those closed.

    • Did Covid-19 close daycare? Guess where the children spend time now?

      • Where did the children of the people working in the grocery stores spend time?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          at relatives or neighbors?
      • Well, if you're kids won't let you work, then you have a discipline problem.

        When my folks told me to shut up and stay out of the room....I obeyed.

        Why do kids not do that today?

        Geez, first thing I thought after reading this article was "pussies"...but then after thinking it, it was..."they need to learn some parenting skills and discipline their kids to OBEY".

        • Right, I'll just beat the hell out of my 6 month old son for daring to make noise because he's hungry and just shit himself. Thatâ(TM)ll teach him. Or maybe you're saying I should beat my wife for failing to enforce silence? Kick the dogs for barking?

          Nobody gave me a raise to go rent/buy a place with an extra room to use for a home office. For many of us, "work from home" is like working in the absolute worst Open Office environment you can imagine.

          • Right, I'll just beat the hell out of my 6 month old son for daring to make noise because he's hungry and just shit himself

            So...you normally send your 6 month old off to day care?

            Of course there are exceptions...with the subject being day care problems, the assumption is that the children in question are old enough to be in day care and hence, able to take commands.

            • "So...you normally send your 6 month old off to day care?"

              If their spouse normally watches the child while the poster is at the office, the child's crying doesn't impact their work, while if the baby's in the next room, it will.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            Depends on your working environment. If you happened to live in a small apartment which was close to your office then home working is a net loss unless it becomes permanent and you can afford a larger place somewhere cheaper for the same cost as your small apartment.

            On the other hand, many people spend a significant amount of time and money on commuting, if you take that away it's effectively a raise. Couple that with people who already have a home office, or at least a peaceful environment to work in and i

        • And it didn't do you any harm.

          You'd have probably grown up as a dumb borderline psychopath anyway.

    • I'd imagine that it's tougher for the game development houses to mandate 80 hour a week "crunch" periods when you have your kids and spouse at home reminding them that they have other things to focus on besides work.

    • Re:Added pressures of childcare? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 28, 2021 @04:17PM (#61325506)

      It's really just an excuse - the loss of "productivity" in the games industry is just a loss of ability to bully people into working excessive hours by guilting them for wanting to go home keeping them at the office.

      Home working has allowed game devs to work normal hours; that means studios just need to hire appropriate amounts of staff.

      It's also worth noting that this impact hasn't been seen across the board; the companies hit hardest by this are indeed those who abuse their employees - I mean, it's even right there in the article; 44% of respondents say they've seen delays, that means the majority of game developers (56%) haven't seen any delays and even then the article states the normal rate is 33% anyway, so all we're saying is that 10% of game devs have seen increased delays due to COVID-19. The minority that are struggling need to ask what they're doing wrong, but as I say they won't like the answer - treating their employees like shit, something which not being in the office helps prevent.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      This exactly... The loss of productivity is generally not down to home working, but is caused by the fact that childcare facilities and schools have been closed due to covid.

      The alternative to working from home and having your work disrupted due to kids being there, would be not working at all because you have to take care of your kids instead of going to the office.

  • the added pressures of childcare

    How does working from home add pressure to the childcare situation?

    • Taking care of the child instead of taking care of the job.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        If you don't have childcare, you can continue working from home with reduced efficiency.
        If you can't work from home and don't have childcare, you basically can't work at all therefore your efficiency will become 0%.

        The issue is caused by the fact covid closed schools and other forms of childcare, home working for people with childcare needs is a partial solution to the actual problem.

    • Re:Help me out (Score:4, Informative)

      by wed128 ( 722152 ) on Wednesday April 28, 2021 @02:53PM (#61325170)

      Lots of daycare facilities shut down for covid. For the first few months, I would watch the kids while my wife worked, and then she would watch them while i worked. It made the days very long, and productivity suffered.

      • I see that as less pressure than people who had no WFH option faced. They either had to find somewhere off the books to take their children, take them to their jobs if they could, or just quit.

        • That's true, but besides the point. What pressures did people in this industry (and others like it) face? This kind of childcare problem. Definitely other people had different struggles. It's not a competition.

      • ots of daycare facilities shut down for covid. For the first few months, I would watch the kids while my wife worked, and then she would watch them while i worked. It made the days very long, and productivity suffered.

        Why can't you do what my parents did back in the day...they'd tell me to be quiet, and entertain myself which I did.

        And this was back with only 3 TV channels, no internet or computers, etc....

        Maybe you need to teach the kids some discipline and how to entertain themselves, no?

        • Not just back when there were only 3 tv channels. There also was just one TV set in the house, in the living room. No game consoles to plug into it either.

        • It's different now. I was a latchkey kid myself, but as I talk to a lot of my peers in my age group and younger people, this wasn't normal apparently. I had a coworker tell me she doesn't trust her 10 years old (!!!!) to use the stove. Like, WTF. The list goes on and on about what kids just can't do alone anymore.

          It's amazing. I'm sure every generation says this, but the under 20 crowd seems so fragile and way over-scheduled as well. My parents didn't schedule any of my free time so long as my homework was

          • My parents didn't schedule any of my free time so long as my homework was done and my grades were up. I would disappear all day with my friends on our bicycles and we would eventually land at someone's house but you always had to remember to call home and tell the parents where you were at eventually.

            You describe my youth exactly.

            My Mom was a stay at home mom till I was in about 3rd - 4th grade maybe? Our family made do on just what Dad earned.

            But once I was old enough, Mom went to work, and I came home

            • > I came home from school alone just as you described.

              And was anyone trying to work in the house at the same time?

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Don't have three. The middle one will aggravate the other two all the time because they think they'll cease to exist if they aren't getting on somebody's nerves.

        • Yeah, when I was a kid I got to go outside and do what I wanted. I could go and play with friends. I could go to their houses and they could come to mine. We had school to go to. It's a lot different from being in a pandemic. Kids had to stay home, parents were responsible for a lot of the schooling duties, and even with access to games and youtube, everyone was going totally stir crazy. I don't have kids, but it's really easy to understand why it was a problem for so many people.

          If this is REALLY your advi

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by wed128 ( 722152 )

          My youngest is 3, she needs supervision.

    • How does working from home add pressure to the childcare situation?

      1) The correlated shutdown of daycare/school

      2) If it was a 1 parent working, 1 SAH parent household, maintianing that distance is harder if Little Jimmy can just go to Daddy (or Mommy)'s office.

      3) It's easier to forget you have a family and work harder if you don't see them at lunch time (making it harder to go back) or dinner (if you're working 14 hour days).

      • #1 was the same for everyone, not just people with a WFH option. It affected everyone who was working and non-WFH types most.

        #2 seems standard issue parenting. I can understand that the first few weeks might have been tough, but after more than a year of this a parent who is still unable to get their child to stop interrupting them during work hours has problems.

        I think #3 is similar to #2. If the work requires WFH and a person is unable to muster the discipline needed to be productive, it is probably b

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          For people without a WFH option, the lack of daycare is an even bigger problem.
          If you can WFH and have no daycare, you have the sub optimal situation of having to look after kids and work, which causes a reduction in efficiency.

          If you cannot WFH and have no daycare, you still have to look after your kids, which means you simply cannot work, your working efficiency is reduced to 0.

    • The phrase is pressure "of" childcare not "to" childcare
      • Are you suggesting these same people engaged in no childcare prior to COVID?

        • Maybe.

        • You are aware that most childcare closed during CoVID right? You are aware that children did not attend school during that time? The closure of both meant their parents were now responsible for their care 24/7 whereas before parents had time away from their children to do work. You understand this right?

  • Game devs learn they aren't exactly "essential" (Score:3)

    by dmay34 ( 6770232 ) on Wednesday April 28, 2021 @03:01PM (#61325216)

    Yeah, no one noticed you guys got behind. Sorry.

    • Oddly enough, although game development is a pretty volatile career, it's tends to be somewhat recession-resilient. Or at least, that's been my experience. That was actually a pleasant surprise to me. We're also pretty lucky that, although obviously not "essential", we do have the ability to work from home.

      Don't take this as a "woe is me" report. Game devs are simply reporting that there's been a slight uptick in the number of games that have been delayed. That's already a very common state in the indu

      • People will little kids at home, single-parent households, folks that get easily distracted or aren't as self-motivated, or people who are highly sociable probably have more trouble adapting than most.

        Also people with no home office (e.g., no quiet place at home, no place to put 2-3 monitors or a desk, no ergonomic office chair), parents with teenagers who ask for homework help or who have to be driven to activities, people who have dogs that have to be walked, people with significantly lower internet bandwidth especially over VPN, people who hit internet data caps, people who are fatigued by Zoom, people who want a distinct line between home and work life. There are many reasons. It's sometimes hard t

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          A lot of those people without space for a home office, are forced to buy/rent a smaller place than they'd like due to the cost of housing near their place of work. If you transfer these people to permanent home working, they will be able to afford somewhere larger for the same cost in a cheaper area.

          A lack of space at home is often CAUSED by needing to work in an expensive area.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jabuzz ( 182671 )

            I would add that a lot of people don't have a permanent home office is because till last March they didn't need one. For a significant proportion of these people they could setup a permanent home office.

            There has been a surge in demand here in the UK for garden offices. A small 2xm3m garden office which is more space than most people have in an actual office could be constructed for less than many people spend commuting into central London and solves many/most of the distraction issues that WFH has for some

      • Oddly enough, although game development is a pretty volatile career, it's tends to be somewhat recession-resilient.

        Not odd at all. People often respond to economic stress and work uncertainty by spending money on relatively cheap entertainment. This includes video games that can be played repeatedly, cheap alcohol, and drugs.

        • Yep, I hadn't really thought of it that deeply before, but once I realized this was the case, that was the conclusion I came to as well. I say "oddly enough" because I initially found it somewhat counter-intuitive before I reasoned it out.

          I'll admit I also hadn't associated videogames with cheap alcohol and drugs, and will probably avoid doing so for my own mental well-being.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

            Game developers are the Circuses in the Bread and Circuses.

          • > I also hadn't associated videogames with cheap alcohol and drugs, and will probably avoid doing so for my own mental well-being.

            Quite right, there's nothing wrong with cheap alcohol.

        • I read something like that. Also small luxuries, like chocolate. People will always need their hair cutting.

  • Hold up... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IonOtter ( 629215 ) on Wednesday April 28, 2021 @03:08PM (#61325246) Homepage

    Okay, who exactly is saying this?

    Because all the developers I know were so very happy to be working from home. Also, what developers would actually be responding to a poll like this?

    I suspect the title should be "Game Studio Management Discovers They Are Superfluous As Happy Employees Continue Working From Home; Manufacture False Narrative of Lost Productivity."

    • Okay, who exactly is saying this?

      Because all the developers I know were so very happy to be working from home. Also, what developers would actually be responding to a poll like this?

      I suspect the title should be "Game Studio Management Discovers They Are Superfluous As Happy Employees Continue Working From Home; Manufacture False Narrative of Lost Productivity."

      Happier yes. More productive? Doubtful.

      Meetings suck, but they also create accountability and share important information.

      Co-workers and managers looking at your screen is invasive and annoying, but it also keeps you on task.

      There's definitely a group of people who think they are more productive at home, and a subset of those probably are. But overall, people are less productive working from home.

      That doesn't mean it's a bad trade-off. Office space is expensive and quality of life is worth something, but th

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • "Co-workers and managers looking at your screen is invasive and annoying, but it also keeps you on task." are you a manager ? Because you got to be one to think that. Except in the case you want it, e.g. invite a colleague to look, in all other case a manager mixing in or colleague looking over will disturb you. I am twice more efficient at home where nobody is there to look over my should or disturb me. I can simply sink in the code and concentrate. Anybody behind my back looking at me to check if I am wor

      • Meetings suck, but they also create accountability and share important information.

        Bad meetings suck. Good meetings create accountability and share important information.

        But overall, people are less productive working from home.

        This is a scientific fact, is it?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's obviously nonsense. For example childcare issues are because of the pandemic, not WFH.

      TFA is just looking for excuses to say WFH is bad for productivity.

  • So what? (Score:3)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday April 28, 2021 @03:11PM (#61325252)
    "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."

    - Shigeru Miyamoto
    • That was the case in the 80s when games where shipped on cartridges.... Not so much anymore.
      • You might be lucky to get a two week patch cycle to fix things before the next game comes along and steals away your audience. Perhaps a reputation as a company can go a ways, but even industry titans like Blizzard or BioWare will be met with derision these days due to poor releases of recent titles. How many people will care if Cyberpunk (just the most recent example of this) becomes good three years from now if they've already moved on?
      • If you can't get a good complete game out close to schedule, it's likely you'll be unable to fix any outstanding issues and you have bigger problems with your studio (EA.. Dice.. Many others)
      • Look at what happened to Cyberpunk 2077. The game was hyped up, everyone waiting for it, the developer kept delaying it, and then released it with a lot of bugs. That led to a massive backlash, low ratings, complaints, returns and charge backs. Try typing "Is Cyberpunk 2077 good?" into Google.

        People also asked "Is Cyberpunk 2077 really that bad?"
        " It's a shame, because there are genuinely beautifully-written and provocative stories here. But missions in the game aren't distinguished from one another."
        "Enemy Ai is pretty brain dead, NCPD (cops) might as well not be in the game."
        "The tragic truth is that there's still a really good game buried among the rubble, despite the various improvements to performance and playability"

        It will forever be a bad game that failed to live up to it's hype no matter how good it gets after it that patches are applied. And, it will be a black eye for CDPR until they put out a new game that lives up to th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tronster ( 25566 )

        This quote was made in 2012 (i); Wii and 3DS's eShops were live. Miyamoto wasn't just insinuating the permanence of the media is why the game is "forever bad" but was using a broad stroke to describe a game's mechanic(s).

        (i) https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]

  • How is this different from just about every other type of software development sector during COVID?
    How is this different from just about every other INDUSTRY ON EARTH during COVID?
    I'm a software guy (not gaming) at a job where you have to be in the office (kind of hard to put your hands on embedded hardware units and $300k analyzers at home) and everyone I know is struggling with childcare and other issues; I know people working half of their >40 hours a week of software and hardware engineering on late-

  • This same kind of 'woe is me' logic I hear from various industries every time a tax issue or minimum wage issue.

    But after one of those passes, you rarely hear much about them.

    Logistically, I'm sure it DOES make a difference - it's less money after all for some folks.

    At the same time - there's LOTS of money coming and going just as part of being a healthy business - and so long as your competition is more or less facing the same forces, the course you're charting isn't that hard to adapt.

    The folks that don't

  • Still no reason for the abominable release of CP2077.
  • I just want my LEGO Star Wars already!

  • ... letting us clear our backlog??? Please no more games.

  • Daycare and overtime aside, another difficulty for game studios is that they tend to have very strict security practices and would rather not ship work computers, xbox's and playstations to their employees homes. Some studios are having their developer remote in to their work PC's, and even simulate and control their dev consoles remotely. It works rather well but definitely not as having all the hardware at your fingertips.

  • I work for a big studio on a AAA project, and while we definitely lost time, I don't think I would quantify it as 'months'. We slipped a ship date but still ultimately released a good game that did well. We did some scope trimming, which always happens near the end. But frankly, the whole thing was well managed, and despite the *real* problems with working from home during a pandemic (mostly people with kids being unable to properly work), we managed to get our shit done.

    There's still a lot of clamouring fo

  • It's not only game industry, it's every industry. And for people with children, maybe you should have thought of that before you got kids and still both wanna keep working. Maybe you should have thought about that when you bought that house you could only afford on a two person fulltime job income.
  • Due to covid-19, all the IT industry is getting affected especially the gaming industry. I am also a developer I am working from home am working On Gta game [gtaboom.com] .I have noticed gamers are not playing now and as well as premium things are not getting sold.

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This is clearly another case of too many mad scientists, and not enough hunchbacks.

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