The COVID-19 pandemic has put a real hurting on the productivity of the world as a whole. The gaming industry is no exception to that, though it does seem to have ways to keep rolling even in the face of tragedy, as we’re learning.
One of those ways is to allow the employees of various companies to work from home, but that’s certainly not without its challenges. Fatshark, developers of Warhammer: Vermintide 2, have been discovering that as well.
In their weekly report, Fatshark was a bit shorter than usual, primarily discussing the challenges that they’ve faced as a result of having practically the entire staff working on a remote basis.
“As a studio this past week has been taxing beyond belief,” the company writes. “Sending home around 100 people on short notice presents a unique set of challenges that we’ve never had to face until now.”
The first challenge, they say, is to ensure that the staff understands the main reasoning behind everything. They want to ensure that the team understands that working from home and shutting the office down is one being done for the benefit of everyone, both in and out of the company. Thankfully, they state, this wasn’t much of a challenge.
https://twitter.com/fatsharkgames/status/1240624207660269568?s=20
But what was a challenge is the logistic of it all. Given that every member of the staff needs to have certain equipment to do their job, some have had to have special attention and exceptions made. Much of the IT team has been serving some “fierce overtime” to make sure everyone is able to work with minimal downtime.
The process that comes afterward is another sizeable challenge, Fatshark says. Switching in from office to home in such a hurry led to a drop in productivity as so many people have their daily schedule greatly disrupted. Many have had to stay up to date to ensure that their work is done properly and that their motivation stays.
But possibly the biggest challenge has been one of mental health. The team at Fatshark takes pride in limiting crunch, offering flexibility, and making sure that everyone has a proper balance of work and life. Given how greatly tumultuous everything is, though, mental health has been difficult to help.
“Collectively we have all come together, albeit the furthest apart we have ever been physical, to research and share our tips and experiences with remote working. We’ve scheduled countless base-touch meetings to check in on each other, and we’re getting together in the evenings (remotely of course!) to play different games together.”
It’s never great to hear of the struggles of others, but it’s nice to know that Fatshark is doing everything they can to overcome the challenges ahead of them. To hear them discuss it, it seems the team is genuinely close, and all anyone hopes for at this point is for everyone to be okay while the world slowly returns to normal.
