As I mentioned in my first post, I've resigned from my senior management post at Gelatinous Cube Games (GC Games), a major western mobile game developer/publisher. As we all know, the game industry is oddly small and incestuous, so I make sure to always leave with gratitude, expecting that I will work with many ex-GC folks again.
While I've been furiously hiring for our fledgling game studio, Dead Reckoning Games, I thought I'd share some observations about hiring during the flu hysteria of 2019/2020.
Most major game developers have already thrown in the towel to the Covidians and will move to a hybrid work-from-home model...forever. Now, if you're working at a company like GC Games, where speed or innovation is not a priority, this isn't a major issue. But at Dead Reckoning, we have a six month timeline to ship our flagship game. Hitting weekly milestones will depend on frequent whiskey-fueled whiteboard sessions and timely over-the-shoulder art feedback.
In light of that, my partner and I have held fast to our three-part winnowing process for prospective hires:
1) You will be asked to come into the studio, IN PERSON, to meet the team. If you have a problem with that, there's always GC Games.
2) When you come in, you will find six or more sweaty guys packed into our under-sized conference room. They will shake your hand and look you in the eye like it's 2018.
3) At the end of the interview, you will be offered to share a round of Fireball.
A few of our prospects have been hesitant at first, but eventually dropped any pretense of concern for "safety" after we break down their programmed defenses. It almost feels like we're an anti-cult, freeing these poor saps from repressive ideas foisted on them from their employer, media, and likely their wives.
When I tell others in the industry how we're going about things, I hear "that's old school". I'm starting to think being old school will become a competitive advantage for us in the post-Covid world. Permanent work-from-home will make large developers even slower, more sterile, less creative enterprises. Which should make Dead Reckoning a beacon to those who want to make games the right way.
It depends where you are and how much local talent you can access. I think you can convincingly argue that Nordeus would have been much better off if they had allowed me to work from home rather than have to cancel the project because neither I nor any other designer of note wanted to move to Belgrade.
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