10 Overlooked Ways ALL Video Game Studios Could Improve
4. More Breaks, Fewer Breakages
Breaks and holidays are important in pretty much any industry, but in the games industry the point becomes so much more important because of how avoided they are.
In the games industry, there’s an innate draw to working more, taking fewer breaks, and dodging your holiday time (one company I worked at outright suggested we “cash in” holidays so we could do more work, and get more money... I’ve since realised just how dodgy this was).
I have to admit, the larger studios are getting better with this - software that may have once monitored developers’ time to make sure they go above and beyond the usual 40 hour weeks can now be used to safeguard those individuals (and, towards my later years in Ubisoft Reflections, the HR staff were especially diligent to make sure to send people home if they noticed them staying way too long).
Time spent recharging is good. Just maybe not as good as chocolate cake.
(Also, no joke, I wanted to write “Sara Lee Double Chocolate Gateau" for this entry, but the editor wouldn’t let me (he's not wrong - Ed), so I suppose breaks and holidays are almost as important as cake. Almost.)