The Developer's Renaissance: 3 leaders on life and career in games
During GDC 2022's "Main Stage" event, titled "The Developer's Renaissance," three leaders in the game industry reflected on social justice, shipping games through a pandemic, and their own careers.
David Anfossi, head of Guardians of the Galaxy studio Eidos-Montreal, spoke via live video about how his studio adjusted to work-life balance during the pandemic.
One realization that he had near the onset of pandemic-driven remote work was that leadership didn't fully understand the needs of their employees.
"We realized we didn't really know [our employees] or their concerns," he said. "We assumed we knew each other, which was totally wrong."
Anfossi stressed "communication, communication, communication" within a studio and particularly being accessible as a studio head. In order to remedy some of the communication gaps, the company formed a retention committee that held surveys and meetings that would make more transparent the needs and concerns of employees. This helped leadership support the staff more effectively.
The other major initiative that Eidos-Montreal took on was implementation of a shorter work week. Anfossi said home-based work initially led to a drop in productivity and to improve that productivity, the studio decided to try out a four-day, 32-hour week.
Anfossi said the results of these initiatives have been "great...very positive but we still have to adjust and test new things."
Taking the stage in-person next was Davina Mackey, director of support services at Sony Interactive Entertainment and president of [email protected], an internal group within PlayStation advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Mackey said that games are now having their own DE&I movement, and there is still work to be
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