The developer of Bugsnax has implemented a permanent four-day work week to promote a better work-life balance for its employees [via Axios].
If there’s one thing that the global pandemic has highlighted, it’s our relationship with work. With millions of people thrust into working from home scenarios, the question of how we balance our work and personal lives is being pondered.
Some studios are answering that question with flexible working environments. Life is Strange developer DONTNOD announced this week that staff are now able to work remotely on a permanent basis. Now, the developer of Bugsnax and Octodad, Young Horses, has changed from working five days a week to just four. The studio is doing so to create a ‘healthier work-life balance’.
Young Horses is a small Chicago based studio consisting of only eight employees. Co-founder and president of the studio, Phil Tibitoski, says that the team unanimously trialled the four-day work week back in July. The team now works 32 hours per week over four days instead of 35 hours over five. Consequently, the team is only losing three hours of work per employee, but gaining a whole extra day off. After a successful run, the studio has decided to implement the work schedule permanently.
‘We know what we have to get done and by when, or we’re making our own schedule entirely and things get done when they get done,’ says Tibitoski. The extra day off now means that employees are free to relax with their own time rather than stress about completing personal tasks during work hours.
Will more developers adopt this working pattern?
Over the last few years, we’ve heard countless reports of game studios engaging in ‘crunch culture’. This involves employees working ridiculously long hours, usually towards the end of a game’s production cycle. Developers have even admitted in the past that their working cultures were not ‘humane’.
With games having huge budgets and team sizes these days, it could be something that larger studios look to implement. However, Tibitoski explains that the four-day work week is easier for Young Horses because of its small team size. ‘It was easier for us to implement because to measure our small team’s output is simple relative to those bigger studios, so our trial period and decision-making is faster than a studio who has to get buy-in from so many departments and investors,’ he explains.
The philosophy of Young Horses is also far different from the likes of huge, money churning studios. Tibitoski says that one of the studio’s goals is to foster ‘a healthy, creatively fulfilling business that supports our lifestyles.
‘Those lifestyles being ones where growth of the studio is not very important and sustainability of the happiness of the people who work here is much more our focus.’
What’s the benefit?
This is all to say that the needs and wants of Young Horses are far different from the likes of CDProjekt Red or Rockstar Games. Tibitoski reckons that large studios could adopt a four-day work week in the future, caveating it by saying that the philosophy has to start from the top.
‘[There are] people who will always want more, who are never satisfied with what they have, and who will sacrifice the well-being of their employees to get there,’ he tells Axios. The bottom line is that the change helps Young Horse developers to live a happier life outside of work. While we all enjoy the video games that development teams produce, the wellbeing of staff is far more important.
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Featured Image Credit: Young Horses