Did Gamers forget there is a pandemic going on?

[Reinaerd]

I started working for a IT company last year, and one thing i do know, with certain team members i can drop a few lines of chat regarding this or that API, and we answer each other within a minute...

Then there are those who need to do one simple task, that bottlenecks everything, and they can take up to 15-30 mins to reply, turning a task that could be done near instantly into an hour long " hurry up and wait" chore.

Pretty sure every company has the sort of employee that thinks "work from home" = answer about 3 emails and netflix.

[Niwes]

Serious question, Did Gamers (not all just the loud minority) forget there is a pandemic going on?

All I have been seeing lately is people mad about the Nintendo Direct, Blizzcon ect.... Did gamers (to be clear not all) realize that the pandemic really fucked things up and delayed a lot of stuff. Yes lots was able to start working at home but that in itself still makes developing content take much longer.

I honestly expected releases to be much lighter than it already is, so I'm impressed we are getting the games we are getting.

Maybe those people should sit back and clear some of their backlog or find something else to play for a bit.

i understand your stance and see where you comin from. not that i have any opinion to this thematics, but tbh: i am software developer in that kind of regards. and we (graphics design, devlopers, engineers, project leads, etc) had literally ZERO problems by switching instantly to home office. and all this happened last year between march and june. i mean, 90% of work and meetings are not in any way that different. i just use my equipment on my home desk instead in the bureau. not saying there are no problems, not saying the chain of delivery not takes longer as usual, etc. but doing things Blizzard do is not thaaaat huge of a difference and they had nearly a year time to adapt.

so, not saying anything against what you said, but in my experience it is not that dramatic in reality as some ppl let it look like.

[Neuroticaine]

Serious question, Did Gamers (not all just the loud minority) forget there is a pandemic going on?

All I have been seeing lately is people mad about the Nintendo Direct, Blizzcon ect.... Did gamers (to be clear not all) realize that the pandemic really fucked things up and delayed a lot of stuff. Yes lots was able to start working at home but that in itself still makes developing content take much longer.

I honestly expected releases to be much lighter than it already is, so I'm impressed we are getting the games we are getting.

Maybe those people should sit back and clear some of their backlog or find something else to play for a bit.

It's nothing new. Gamers have consistently been the most entitled group of folks on the internet for well over decade.

[Velshin]

The Blizzard thing is clearly a case where even doing an online show was a waste of everyone's time. They had barely anything to show and the few things they had would have nicely fit into one of their usual spam emails and a blue post or two. I don't call for a project presentation meeting and then show up empty-handed, that is just unneccessary.

As for some insights from other tech industries, the pandemic caused us alot of grief when it comes to on-site support (electro/mechanical), especially for customers outside our country. But the overall work flow was changed and adapted within a few weeks last year, and has maybe cost us around 2 months overall so far. You can't keep using that excuse forever, especially not for IT issues that CAN be solved from home, the guys that sit down in production need to keep working on their stuff as well. Frankly most people had to adapt to the situation and fast, otherwise the whole global economy would have already collapsed.

There are some business forever shut down and died and collapsed really. Just because there are not enough news about it in tv or social media doesnt me it didnt happen really. The ones that are adapted within few months as you said are in fact the minority not the other way around.

[Reinaerd]

I assume that you have some sources to back up your claims. As someone who actually works in the industry I can tell you that it can take a while for you to be as efficeint as in the office.

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Source please. Youtube conspiracy videos don't count.

https://www.apollotechnical.com/work...ty-statistics/
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15...roductive.html
https://hbr.org/2020/08/research-kno...tive-from-home
https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/a-2-...from-home.html
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article...ore-productive

[arandomuser]

well after GG its pretty clear a large amount of gamers think covid is a hoax by sjws and china or whatever

[FelPlague]

It should have taken a month - no more than two at the most - to adjust to working from home. Working from home has been proven to be more efficient than going in to work, so by the end of the year it should have evened out.

People are right to be mad about Nintendo and Blizzcon. Nintendo has historically neglected the outcries of their fans for decades, and Blizzard has been in shambles for years. Even if covid had never happened people we would still be in this situation and people would still be rightfully upset.

Really? Got sources on any studies or anything for "working from home is more efficient then working in an office"?
Cause that sounds like kinda an ass pull, cause second someone runs into an issue like internet going out, or program bugging out, an IT guy can't just swap out your PC and get you back to work while they fix it like they can in an office, and with internet they can't do squat but say "well you are on your own."

[Reinaerd]

Really? Got sources on any studies or anything for "working from home is more efficient then working in an office"?
Cause that sounds like kinda an ass pull, cause second someone runs into an issue like internet going out, or program bugging out, an IT guy can't just swap out your PC and get you back to work while they fix it like they can in an office, and with internet they can't do squat but say "well you are on your own."

Sup, look up... see that gif... click the links above it.
Congrats you are the average user us IT'rs have to deal with.

[FelPlague]

https://www.apollotechnical.com/work...ty-statistics/
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15...roductive.html
https://hbr.org/2020/08/research-kno...tive-from-home
https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/a-2-...from-home.html
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article...ore-productive

1. The Google thing, we shouldn't have to find your sources for you.

2. From the very first link.
A study conducted in 2012 shows those office workers who were assigned boring tasks performed better and faster in the regular office setting. Home-life distractions are more likely to prevent productive work when you don’t enjoy the work.

But this study found more productive results when the work was more creative. In short, the fewer restraints put on a task, the quicker it will be completed.

The same study also shows an entire “office” will underperform if they each work from home. Each individual will put in the same amount of work as the next. Meaning, no individual wants to put in more work and let the others ride their coattails.

Another more recent study states that the more hours an individual works from home, the less productive they become. Those who worked full time (8 hours/day) at home are 70% less productive than those who don’t work from home.


3. Every single study you post points out "yes it's a bit more productive, like an extra day of work each month, but it's way more stressful, taxxing, and makes people's life and work lives unbalanced"

Read your own studies, yes it may increase productivity slightly, but it makes it way more stressful and life effecting. Which in ways makes it worse.

However, researchers also found that working from home can be more stressful than working at the office. Approximately 29% of telecommuting respondents said they had a hard time maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Just 23% of office workers reported the same struggle.

In addition, 54% of remote workers and 49% of office workers said they felt "overly stressed during the workday," 45% of remote workers and 42% of office workers "experienced high levels of anxiety during the workday," and 37% of remote workers and 35% of office workers said they "procrastinated on a task until its deadline."

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Big companies like Blizzard and Nintendo can easily afford to allow devs to walk into the office and unplug their work computers and bring them home (as Square Enix and others did). Or can afford to cover the costs to allow devs to buy suitable work quality computers for use at home.



Voice acting can be performed from home, and even if it's not ready in time, it can be added later. ArenaNet's game designers and programmers and artists continued to roll out new content for GW2 on time, adding in the voice acting later once all the lines were finished.

Telling devs to release half finished content and then finish it later isn't the winning preposition you think it is even less so for sub based games. people freak out because of minor bugs people would rage to the high heavens if they just started to put out half finished stuff and said it was to save on time.

[Reinaerd]

1. The Google thing, we shouldn't have to find your sources for you.

2. From the very first link.
A study conducted in 2012 shows those office workers who were assigned boring tasks performed better and faster in the regular office setting. Home-life distractions are more likely to prevent productive work when you don’t enjoy the work.

But this study found more productive results when the work was more creative. In short, the fewer restraints put on a task, the quicker it will be completed.

The same study also shows an entire “office” will underperform if they each work from home. Each individual will put in the same amount of work as the next. Meaning, no individual wants to put in more work and let the others ride their coattails.

Another more recent study states that the more hours an individual works from home, the less productive they become. Those who worked full time (8 hours/day) at home are 70% less productive than those who don’t work from home.

Yup hence why most companies i know around here have a 3/2 4/1 setup, plenty of colleagues need shit spelled out for them in person.
But the majority of us are glad we dont have to listen to karen bitch about her fucking cat at the water cooler.

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Telling devs to release half finished content and then finish it later isn't the winning preposition you think it is even less so for sub based games. people freak out because of minor bugs people would rage to the high heavens if they just started to put out half finished stuff and said it was to save on time.

True, we already got one WoD expansion... please do not let them release one more of those.

[FelPlague]

You do realize that small businesses have been able to provide better work from home upgrades right? That was on Blizzard to adjust as they were not suffering for profits in a covid world. Try again.

Not everyone lives in locations that can get high speed internet. My aunt was forced to work from home and her house is too far out. She gets 1 up 5 down. Limited to 500 gigs a month, after they charged.

She ended up paying 500 dollars which the company covered to get her to 5 up 20 down, with unlimited data.

But if she wanted anything faster she would need to get a line down to her place. And that would cost a couple thousand dollars ( if I remember correct 15k) cause she's out in the middle of no where and her neighbors don't care about faster internet so company has no reason to lay a line to get their business.

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Yup hence why most companies i know around here have a 3/2 4/1 setup, plenty of colleagues need shit spelled out for them in person.
But the majority of us are glad we dont have to listen to karen bitch about her fucking cat at the water cooler.

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True, we already got one WoD expansion... please do not let them release one more of those.

And you didn't at blizzard, they were not a normal workspace, have you ever seen a tour of the place? It's closer to one of those fortune 500 companies then an actual office space. People could go relax in the library, bring in pets, go to the cafeteria for snacks, etc, a lot of the people I know who worked at the offices are actually really sad they have to work from home and miss the offices it was pretty great.

But as I said, your studies you showed, proved that is was not all cut and dry, there is productivity books of... 1.4 extra days a month of work. But that it leads to higher stress and higher imbalance of work and home life. Especially in workers who have families.

[ohwell]

Not everyone lives in locations that can get high speed internet. My aunt was forced to work from home and her house is too far out. She gets 1 up 5 down. Limited to 500 gigs a month, after they charged.

She ended up paying 500 dollars which the company covered to get her to 5 up 20 down, with unlimited data.

But if she wanted anything faster she would need to get a line down to her place. And that would cost a couple thousand dollars ( if I remember correct 15k) cause she's out in the middle of no where and her neighbors don't care about faster internet so company has no reason to lay a line to get their business.

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And you didn't at blizzard, they were not a normal workspace, have you ever seen a tour of the place? It's closer to one of those fortune 500 companies then an actual office space. People could go relax in the library, bring in pets, go to the cafeteria for snacks, etc, a lot of the people I know who worked at the offices are actually really sad they have to work from home and miss the offices it was pretty great.

But as I said, your studies you showed, proved that is was not all cut and dry, there is productivity books of... 1.4 extra days a month of work. But that it leads to higher stress and higher imbalance of work and home life. Especially in workers who have families.

There are things that they can do that just require hardware rather than internet connection and the numbers of those cases of individuals are far less than the numbers who that doesn't apply to.

[Deadmedic]

This Blizzcon was always going to be light. For the last several blizzcons its Always only good every other year. 2019 was a go year, Wow expac/d4/Overwatch2, this year was a no-go from the start. I'm amazed they even decided to have one. Like, I would have guessed that had covid not been a thing, they would have just skipped it entirely.

[Easyclassictopkeklel]

I love that people in this thread with zero knowledge of game developing think they could lecture people on how easy it is to adapt to a situation like the pandemic when developing AAA gaming content. Sometimes I would love to know what shitty jobs you guys have just to laugh a little harder at how disconnected you kids are from reality.
Even in my small agency of 21 people the slowdown because the more complicated communication was VERY noticable. Especially when working in a creative job you rely HEAVILY on feedback an communication.
"But yeah duuude, just grab your workstation, bring it back home and chill on discord to manage the workflow." So easy. Sure. Absolutely NO drawbacks.

[tomten]

You do realize many people working at home do not have the same quality Hardware as they do in the office right? Not everyone has 100GB down and up at home. Your ignoring the fact there is company's/teams who are spread world wide and are now working with less hardware.

Then you have to take into account VA and just developing cinematics in general. Yes for a lot of jobs working from home isn't much different then working in a building. Gaming on the other hand is different.

Not all the developers have a 50k PC sitting in their house.

Lucky for everyone we have technology from the late 1990's that lets us connect whatever company you work for and access their intranet services, including but not limited to, rendering farms, 50k's computers, servers, whatever you can think off....

[leviathonlx]

The pandemic stopped being viable excuse months ago. Many companies have been back in the office for 6-7 months and if game developers can't do things remote well still at this point maybe it's time to be back in the office.

[Unholyground]

You forgot to account for time saved on the commute and that it's possible to download large files overnight. Considering that large files are rarely sent between workers in IT - that's a non-issue.

Also, the time wasted while socializing at work - is now not wasted.

If anything the efficiency must at least stay the same - but fact is - it's even better.

The devs are just using this lockdemic as an excuse for inevitable delays because they suck at management

I don't know, I definitely slacked off way more when the pandemic hit until I went on sick leave.

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The pandemic stopped being viable excuse months ago. Many companies have been back in the office for 6-7 months and if game developers can't do things remote well still at this point maybe it's time to be back in the office.

Ya but if you feel unsafe they can't make you go back, at least not here so they have to let you continue working from home.

[Martymark]

I guess because pretty much all of it was leaked beforehand, people spoiled it for themselves and are now disappointed that Blizzard didn’t announce half a dozen games on top of what they announced

Wait...did they even announce anything?

I think they only new thing announced was D2 Rehash. Unless WOW getting a 9.1 patch someday was a huge shock to someone.

[Wangming]

But we have seen wow devs say similar things that yoshi says and get crucified for it. Remember yoshi saying "Take time off when you're done and come back." and ffxiv fans were fine with that.

From essentially Cata/Mop/WoD bliz devs were saying similar things and the fan base attacked them for it. So what yoshi says and what the wow devs can say are not the same when one fanbase are rational adults the other are basically 5 year olds in adult bodies.

Not everyone took it kindly when Yoshie said that either, but nice misdirection. Show me one time being transparent about how development is going ended up being a bad idea. Cause I have a pretty good example of the opposite. What was it called? Numberofbugs 2077?