Game Development Studio Gives Employees Day Off to Play Elden Ring

gamerant.com:

For gamers, hype for a major game release can reach extreme highs. For years, players have eagerly checked their calendars waiting for the next major video game to reach store shelves, and right now, that honor belongs to Elden Ring.

Elden Ring is already receiving tons of praise from early reviewers, and players are counting the hours until they can get their hands on the title. While some players will be staring at the clock waiting to the end of the work day to run home and boot it up, some lucky game devs will be getting the day off just to play.

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The release of Eden Ring is a monumental one, and with its developer being based in Japan, it's got hype building all over the world. That's what led one Japanese game development company to declare February 25, Elden Ring's release date, as 'Elden Holiday' and gave its employees the day off to go play. As Pocket Pair leadership put it, they «imagine that [staff] cannot focus on work» on the day of Elden Ring's release. Rather than forcing its employees to struggle to do so anyway, it chose to give them the Friday of its release off, and is even letting employees stay home on the following Monday if they so choose.

This is a move that's surely popular with Pocket Pair's employees, and is arguably smart for other employers to follow suit with. Gamers have called in sick and scheduled days off around major game releases like Skyrim in the past, which may have left companies struggling to cover their work for the day. In that sense, especially in the game industry, it may make more sense to just give workers the day off. Gamers can stay home and play, and anyone who isn't into video games in their free