Thoughts out loud about how the remote work in the pandemic on the video game industry affects, what are the consequences of the transition of developers to the remotes and what future the production process awaits in the industry.
Disclaimer No. 1: In order to avoid misunderstandings and misunderstandings – initially I published this text here. (Yes, I have a Druc Narrator nickname there).
Disclaimer No. 2: When working on the text, I used excerpts from an interview with Gamesbeat, Shacknews, Gameindustry.
Hello! Pandemia to all humanity confused the cards. But it also brought an interesting feature that can be most likely to be preserved after – this is almost the widespread development of video games at home. The questions in the spirit of “how the isolation of development influenced” many studios answer in general words, they say, the pandemic did not affect, one hundred pounds will be yours Cyberpunk 2077 This year on September 17. Oh, that is, November 19, UPS!
Such an answer is probably not happy with any of us, so let’s try to find out what the features of developers work on the remotes, what underwater stones exist? What are the long -term consequences of the transition to work from the house? How convenient this method of development is and whether it is worth thinking about other studios to switch to the remote forever? And at the same time, look at the inner kitchen of some studios, look at the existing statistics and at the end we guess on the coffee grounds, what the future is waiting for the production process in the industry of interactive entertainment. Let’s figure it out!
Even for the easiest game, the developers need computers – and it would be nice to be not prehistoric toasters, because the faster the calculations are made, the more faster the development. Respectively, the more voluminous the studio, the more computers are required. But not every person has a computer at home, which can rendering landfills for non -united in a 24/7 mode Knack Three, Baby! Therefore, studios must provide the employee with devices similar to office.
CD Projekt Red Studio
Transport all this beauty (including the poster Triss in the background) employees at home or even buying a new car is a pleasure, firstly, notable, and secondly, a long and troublesome. Not every indie studio will pull such a task. It follows that companies that initially worked only in the office have to spend weeks on preparing for the transition to remote work.
IT specialists in the studios Behavior (Dead by Daylight), PEOPLE Can Fly (Bulletstorm) And Techland (Dying Light) spent a long time on training, because, as they say in the same Behavior, Specialists of animators, programmers and testers needed to move most of their working equipment home.
But ordinary computers are not so difficult to provide employees at home. But the girl for the next generation systems, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, you can’t just take and take home. Matias Rodriguez (Matias Rodriguez)-Vice President Technology Gaming Studio, The development of information technology and software is announced in an interview with Gamesbeat:
In fact, there is a workaround. We work with them remotely. The problem is that for some works such as optimization, even the best remote solution is impossible. As you know, the new generation also has difficulties in production. There are not many of them in the warehouse and difficulties arise with deliveries. This does not mean that the production of consoles will be suspended, but the production of consoles cannot be as high-speed or productive as online functioning of the same Steam.
Sluttered view of the girl PlayStation 5
Also in question, MOCAP sessions, voice acting, recording music and other physical activity. There are precedents, including before the pandemic, when all this was done literally on a knee from improvised materials – Ninja Theory, which spent half the budget Hellblade on its own mini-motion-Capture studio will not let you lie. However, this approach is allowed for indie studios. But for large projects, high -quality equipment is required.
Bartek KmitA (Bartek kmita) from PEOPLE Can Fly speaks:
The obvious problem is that we cannot assemble the team right now. Traditional moka or sounding is not what we can afford at the moment.
Cloud alternatives are still being achieved. Technical art director Behavior Johnny Sabelli complains in an interview with Shacknews:
To some extent this [decreasing pace of production] associated with the volume of discussion when connecting to teams Microsoft, which is important for good interaction within our production, but can take a lot of time.
In theory, of course, you can put a sound recording studio worth several thousand dollars with each actor, but it is not very necessary, since this attraction of unprecedented generosity will hurt even large studios on the budget of even large studios. Plus, there was no great support for the idea of the temporary transfer of specialized equipment to the contractor – after the recording of the voice acting, the studio will not take all this technical splendor with the actor. The way out is usually found in the fact that the actors still go to the same studio, only not the whole crowd, but strictly one at a time. Is it necessary to mention that the approach “per hour on a teaspoon” does not accelerate the development process?
Random sound recording studio
Well, most of all they suffer from the transition to the remote work of the studio, developing games for VR. Of course, some Valve It can afford to provide his Index to every home developer, but indie studios in which VR-comprehensive ones can be a couple of power in general. And the girls of VR devices are very difficult to get a small company.
Patrick O’ Mide (Patrick O’Luanaig) – Director ndreams, studios standing behind exclusive for VR Oculus Phantom: CoverT OPS tells the Gamesbeat portal:
We are the developers of the game for virtual reality, so everyone had to take all our equipment home. You cannot enter the VR headset, which remained in the office because you cannot put it on. You must have a powerful computer so that you can develop and test the VR harp at home. We had to take with us all the sets, equipment, computers and monitors, which is not quite familiar from the point of view of more traditional development. We first had to get permission from equipment manufacturers to pick up VR-Devki and all that.
Technical safety and online features
But let’s say that the studio figured out the logistics. Now it would be nice to understand how to bring all this spider web distributed around the world. For foreign Internet, the banal need to connect developers to the workstation can become a problem, since in other countries broadband Internet is very expensive compared to Russian prices, and in some areas it is not at all – a mobile connection is used.
Comparative traffic cost in different countries
We must not forget about the need to ensure uninterrupted operation of communication and remote operations in order to return the speed of development to the indicators that the studio adhered to the pandemic. During the first two to three weeks after switching to the remote, many studios had problems with the stability of the start of computers connected to the cloud, and by managing such aspects as illustrations, sound and code.
For example, all studio staff Behavior They are connected to the studio servers using remote access to all resources that they had in the office. Tells the resource Shacknews Mathieu Kot (Mathieu ceth) from Behaviour:
… we need people to work with equipment Behavior, Therefore, we sent a PC, sets of consoles and monitors at home to employees. We even made sure to deliver chairs to those who do not have a convenient atmosphere of the house.
The creative leader of the same studio Dave Richard (Dave Richard) IMAC is used at home, so the studio IT scraps had to work hard with connecting its office workstation to the network so that all the necessary programs imprisoned for other operating systems were available for Dave In the cloud.
Large companies like Amazon Games especially leaning on security protocols. Because of this, the studio’s ITSHANS had to get into the home computers of employees to ensure controlled synchronization with the internal network. Amazon Before the pandemic, I thought that the developers have no point in working from home for a long time – the studio simply did not see the need for this, because she thought that everything needed was in the office.
So studios now need to take care of remote support for security in the development of games-the same leaks arising due to errors and vulnerabilities of the Internet connection.
Speaks Bartek KmitA (Bartek kmita), creative director Outriders V PEOPLE Can Fly:
Obviously, safety is the main problem in the development of games and the problem of remote work. It is important that all participants are equipped with encrypted equipment and are responsible for its use.
Outriders, whose creative leader is Kmita
There were cases of information from the inside Behavior, But the producer Mathieu Kot (Mathieu ceth) denies that they were malicious:
They always arose due to human mistake. Such things happen, but, fortunately, every time they happen, we learn something and improve our production conveyor so that errors are less likely. Remote work made everyone in the team be more attentive.
Arthur Bruno, Founder of the company Crate Entertainment, developer Grim Dawn, adheres to another point of view:
I’m not sure that the physical office is more safe from the point of view of preventing leaks. You will not forbid people to bring portable data storage devices or even smartphones to work? You will not create a checkpoint where you will search people at the entrance and at the exit. And you can hardly stop the decisive employee from the information leakage.
Dry info? Tony in the swamp!
Bruno He believes that remote work can be safer than the intranes and similar networks. With remote work, a specialist responsible for IT security may be sure that the employee will not be able to get there, which his home computer has no access. And even if it turns out, he will get a hat. Or an increase in the career ladder of ITSHNIK – who knows who knows.
Speaks Louis Casl (Louis Castle), studio co -founder Command & Conquer Westwood and chapter Relentless:
Many of our team initially did not have systems that could be safely used from the house. In these cases, employees used remote solutions and over time we will replace these systems with those that can be used from the house.
COMMUNICATION
Bartek Kmita from PEOPLE Can Fly, Creative Director Outriders summarizes:
In any case, we all used the methods of online communication, so the communication was not affected. In many ways, work from home can be very practical.
PEOPLE Can Fly to Pandemia
The transition from work on the spot to https://paradise8casino.co.uk/ work from the house is an adaptation to changing circumstances and ensuring uninterrupted operation of remote operations.
Managers Behavior Twist the nuts on the go, supporting the constant flow of information about events inside and outside their companies. Speaks Kote from Behavior:
We really have several official messages with the HR or IT procedure, but most of the communication is carried out very modestly and transparent. I think this plays a big role in the fact that people feel that we are all together.
The studios had to revise the way of communicating employees with each other. For communication, small teams use Zoom or Discord, And there are more studios – Slack (corporate messenger). Of course, if the studio was concerned even before the pandemic to communicate with employees who, for example, on a business trip, then, when the communication problems with the communication should not be a complete transition to the remote.
Rebecca Ford (Rebecca Ford), operating director Warframe Digital Extreme reports in an interview with Gamesbeat:
I would say that over the past five years we have integrated so much in Slack, that this is not too much change in communication by Slack With my team. I just have no other choice. And I can say I regret how much I relied on Slack earlier, when I could just talk to people face to face. But now we seem to have no choice – it only remains Slack.
In offices, many managers like to hold morning meetings with almost all employees. Accordingly, when moving to online daily VKS (selector meetings, talking heads – call how the soul wishes) few people dare to cancel, which is unlikely to be pleased with the introverts that are forced to report to the huge audience, what they did, what they plan to do and with which groups they need to cooperate to continue their work.
Not only does it take time, but still Mathieu Kot (Mathieu ceth) from Behavior, developed Dead by Daylight, noted that the daily meeting has turned "In daily meetings and meetings, how they feel".
Obviously, the studio workers feel great!
Therefore, it is necessary to organize communication through several communication channels, since it is difficult and inconvenient to collect in one conference one conference. Colin Johanson (Colin Johanson) from Relentless In an interview, Shacknews says:
We are trying to compensate for this using the channels of the command chat, more frequent team synchronizations and communication, remote team meetings and remote events for small shock groups to try to create more command ties. Our weekly meetings have actually turned into a broadcast on Twitch for the team, and the discussions in the chat were amazing and really added lives to the meeting. This gave everyone the opportunity to speak out and easily ask questions.
In fact, daily calls were so successful that Johanson He believes that their spirit will return to the office with the employees: ""It just made our meeting better, more jointly and fascinating for our entire team".
But with live communication, of course, everything becomes much worse. And, I must admit, the psychology of people separated from each other with monitors must be taken into account.
Speaks Dave Richard In an interview with the Shacknews portal:
We have wonderful tools for remote communication, but we are accustomed to the rhythm and language of the body with personal communication, which simply does not work through a webcam or text. It is easy to mistakenly interpret emotion when you do not see a person with whom you exchange. This can create useless tension.
Collection at Behavior Interactive
Therefore, people try to communicate with their family. The problem follows that behind the backs of many developers during online conferences, a permanent move, created by children, wives, husbands, pets, mother-in-laws and other gaming organizations, which greatly distracts other participants in the meeting from discussion of pressing problems.
Psychological pressure is currently imposed on the concern about work due to pandemia, which increases stressful stress. Dave Richard, Creative leader Behavior Interactive tells:
It is important to note that we are not just working from home, we work from home in quarantine. The level of stress in these difficult times affects labor productivity.
But even if you remove the pandemic from the equation, which will end sooner or later, there is another psychological problem in work from the house: the boundaries between personal life and professional obligations are erased. Not everyone will like that the boss climbs into his life, tearing away from delicious pizza and beer in dull questions in the spirit: “Where is the design, cattle?!»And not everyone has a talent for self -organization.
If the introverts are only glad that their circle of communication has narrowed markedly, then extroverts can be uncomfortable alone, outside the blessings of the office (if these benefits, of course, were there). Of course, in conditions of normal life, no one stops in the middle of work to go outside and talk with Baba Galya from Pyaterochka. But this is still not quite what it may be required so dependent on society of animals as a person.
Speaks Colin Johanson:
We found that we need to communicate too much through several channels so that people remain in touch. One of the things that we lose is short conversations in the corridor, spontaneous discussions of the game testing laboratory and disputes of people sitting next to each other, which occur completely naturally.
We will see a similar picture soon
In reality, you can establish close relationships with some people and stay away from others for comfortable work – by means of conferences, it is difficult to avoid unpleasant colleagues, and with "strangers" people over another can not be boiled off. It follows that the situation in the team can be intense.
Says the Venturebeat portal Joel Buress (Joel Burgess), Director of the Studio Capy, developer Grindstone, Games-heads that debut with the subscription service Apple Arcade:
If I, for example, still worked in Ubisoft, There would be a device with a personnel department, management and everything else to check people. When you work in a small indie studio, you rely much more on personal ties, on friends. It bothers me. We are still small for us to have formal systems for checking people, and we are already large enough to believe that these five people know each other very well.
Also, the mood of the employee, and, therefore, his performance consists of “micro -banknotics” – trifles like walking along the street during a break to unload the brains;overdles around the angle;live communication with people from other departments with which in working hours there is no need to speak. Each such trifle is separately insignificant, but all together they can greatly load the human psyche.
Rebecca Ford is either a joke, or seriously complains:
I miss coffee on the road. I do not have enough instant access to food, which does not need to buy. I miss our lunch with good service. I miss you just go and eat. Instead, I have to cook my lunch. I have not had to cook my lunch for nine years, for the protocol.
When the pandemic ends, the world will be divided into two parts – those who will be glad to return to the offices, and those who like to work from home. Is it worth it to forcefully drive back to work of those who are fed well at home?
Says Gamesbeat Patrick O’ Mide from NDream:
Honestly, we must talk to all employees. We must find out how they feel. People really do not feel safe when they return to the office, and we, of course, will not force anyone to return until they feel comfortable. We will wait and see what happens. But I will be very surprised if we have no greater flexibility than before. I suspect that more people will work from the house than before.
In order to fulfill the requirements of the leadership to develop a game on time and with the least costs, as well as take into account the psychological characteristics of employees – it is necessary to thoroughly approach the issue of management. The larger the team, the more difficult it is to manage it. And in online, this immature truth works almost more indicative than in stuffy offices.
The transition of the gaming industry to remote work demanded from the leadership of studios of understanding how to maintain the development process. And the developers should most reasonably distribute the time to their personal lives and on a career.
Studio leaders during the pandemic are constantly uncertainty whether work from the house will be fruitful? What to do for this? It all depends on what stage the project is located. Speaks Patrick O’ Mide:
We found that at the later stages of the game everyone knows what to do. You need to fix your mistakes. Everyone has their own task.
Burdak when compiling a design document
On the other hand, preliminary preparation at home is also not much different from office, since concepts are being developed at this moment, the basics are laid. It is only necessary to ensure communication. However, there is the reverse side of the coin – in the early stages it is critical to observe secrecy. Burdes tells:
In the studio, we discussed ideas that I cannot talk about, because they are more new, fresh and still secret.
The overall tension cannot be overlooked, which can arise in the team and which would be easy to eliminate with a lively conversation. Burdes continues:
In these early projects there is already uncertainty. And when people worry about their life and peace, and then mix it with anxiety about the project, because everyone has their own version of this game, preliminary preparation may be a complex structure.
But for projects at the production stage, it is necessary to follow the clearly developed schedules of work in compliance with deadlines. Of course, no one complies them, but they need to be compiled.
Chris Wilson (Chris Wilson) – Studio Head Grinding Gear Games, developer Path of Exile – In an interview with the Venturebeat portal, he says:
One of the main advantages of successful support Path of Exile is the presence of a clear schedule for the release of updates. We release new content every thirteen weeks. We want to keep this rhythm. We do not want to say, they say, no, we put things off for several months.
Artist of the studio Grinding Gear Games
Asset artist Path of Exile 2, will work at his table, creating assets all day, as before, and it’s great. But all the highest leadership is trying with all their might so that people work effectively from home with our existing schedule for release of updates. At the moment, we have problems with the management of the sequel.
According to Wilson, This will not affect the quality of the new game, but will require additional time to develop:
We will find ourselves in a situation where resources are ready before we need them, because we do not have time to integrate them into the game.
Before the pandemic of the studio with a hundred employees, they preferred to work in the office also because it is easier to collect everyone at about the same time. All studios have different ways, but usually the most loaded hours for workers is the time from about 10:00 to 14:00. It makes no sense to get together before, because the brains have not woken up in the morning yet, and by the evening the head will already fluff and there is no strength left for new tasks. Staying in one building during these hours allows you to quickly respond to requests for changes and project corrections. For this reason, work at home was atypical for most large studios.
Now imagine how this whole crowd connects to Zoom with fading webcams and crazy children with children
Remi Weleyo (Remi Veilleux), Technical Director Behavior speaks:
"You can change time during the day, but you must be available at the main hours. Of course, we understand and adapt to the daily family life of people. But in general, my schedule remained similar, except that I can play more and wake up later".
When working at the remotes, collecting the entire crowd in one conference is problematic not only because of possible technical failures, as mentioned above, but also because of the features of the personal regime and lifestyle of each employee. Dave Richard from Behavior He sees the advantages of work from the house: he no longer needs to spend two hours on trips from home to office:
Some of my colleagues with young children have more problems with work during the day, so they change their schedule and conduct part of their working time in the evening. We find ways to adapt to individual situations and needs of the team.
From here comes the need to form a work schedule for each employee, but at the same time manage to make sure that in regular time all employees are available. To do this, management has to climb almost into the thick of the employee’s personal life.
Due to the fact that not all studios thought over in advance the management of the studio from the house, there is a paradox when a specific employee has more time, and managers’ management is more difficult-from here the legs of inevitable delays in work on the project grow. Do not forget that frequent Internet connections, the need to balance the work in one working space with your loved ones, downtime caused by tuning equipment and software can theoretically lead to an increase in the number of working hours. Hello Kranch!
Although the developers are still trying to echo from this ailment, as, for example, recognizes Johnny Sabelli (Johnny Sabelli), technical art director of the company Behavior, In an interview with Shacknews:
The only thing that could change was an easy access to your computer at any time of the day, which led to the fact that some people may have worked for more hours than usual. But this was never expected and did not demand from the leadership, since we never plan any overtime.
So, when switching to remote work, a decline in production is still observed: difficulties have been found that cannot be resolved from a well done scab. But you can look at the experience of studios, which from the very founding did not have an office and worked from the house.
We cook sledges in the summer
You know, I want to quarantine something bright and kind, and exactly before the start of the pandemic, a wonderful Ori and the Will of the Wisps (omit the details of the dental complexity). The info -pull -out -of -the -ears is ready – let’s go!
Moon Studios, The development studio of this game, in general, simply does not exist in nature-its entire team is working from home and they began to work like this long before the pandemic.
The guys admit that this development approach is convenient for small teams and small games. You can spend more time with the family, and the studio itself can afford to look for talents from around the world, since there is no need to move.
Says the studio gamedector Thomas Mahler (Thomas Mahler) in an interview with Gameindustry.Biz:
We hired people from Blizzard, from Riot, from Disney and so on…. and our idea was simple: "Listen, we have a good salary, but it is more pleasant that you can work from home". People did not need to move or resettle their family. This crazy conglomerate of talents, which is scattered around the world, you will never receive in another studio. It would be simply impossible. You have many talents in the same Los Angeles, but in this case you should say goodbye to all European talents.
IN Moon Studios There is no traditional hierarchy. Although the studio is not broken by a few small groups, it is not the boss who works in his worst understanding (excess link), but the leader of the leader, who can convey the ideas of his small group to his colleagues from other groups. That is, the principle of “talk to a couple of leaders” is applied instead of talking to everyone individually.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
But this approach is not necessary to adhere to constantly: online allows each employee to put forward his ideas. In the end, in the office the ideas of an employee do not always reach the leadership, or someone in a chain of hierarchical assigns this idea to himself. Pitching online allows everyone to speak out. The solution, of course, remains with the creative leader, but he can draw curious ideas for the game. Mahler convinces:
We want to have a very open culture in which people know that they can simply speak out. There is no hierarchy. If I am going to create some kind of design or something like that, then I better make sure that I really know what I’m talking about, because there may probably be people who will shoot me for this. I pay them a salary at the end of the working day, but it does not matter. Everything that should matter is that we are a group of talented people who get together to make the best games. This is our goal. There is nothing more important than this.
During the work, the studio developed its own tools for creating its projects. Mahler continues the story:
We have created a tool called Apollo. This is a really cool package in which you can enter your accounting data and gain access to many tools and the knowledge database, as well as to see what everyone is working on, there is a list of things, and everything is in the same spirit. We just try to make our life easier. We also regularly use Skype And Teams… that which is not in Apollo Bye. The goal is to expand Apollo, To turn on all this so that we can continue to work in this distributed mode and have one tool that does everything.
And in order for the team not to be devoid of living communication, the studio gathers the whole crowd of employees once a year on barbecue, So that people can establish friendships or just chat live, and not use a cold, unemotional text: people from different countries who had seen each other only through the screens of the monitors will be what to say to each other.
The head of the studio hopes that with the development and cheapening of VR-technologies, developers will be able to gather for barbecue without even getting out of their own living room.
Forecasts for the future
Okay, with different approaches to the organization of the remote mode of operation, they sorted out. What is there according to statistics?
So far there is a short-term: production is increased due to the need to rebuild the management system and complicated logistics, but the profit is increasing, since the players spend more time at the entertainment. Judging by the financial reports, the costs of internal communication, working equipment and infrastructure did not exceed the income from sales at Remedy.
The Great Winner!
The company is optimistic and believes that the pandemic did not affect its performance too much. In their financial report, they write:
In the game industry, as a whole, there is an increase in games of games during the pandemic, and its negative consequences for our business for the reporting period were minimal. This supported the already good level of sales Control Games development Remedy continued in accordance with the plans, and the project graphs remained unchanged during the reporting period. Most of our employees were able to work well at home, and in some areas the effectiveness even increased. Additional efforts were made to internal communications, working equipment and infrastructure, as well as to search for solutions to support from the outside of our tools. However, we are looking for long-term solutions for Motion-Capture, since the studio Remedy located in Finland, and travel restrictions may affect the availability of actors.
But what will happen next?
So far, the indicators of the same Remedy or Capcom grew due to growth in games during the pandemic. A Capcom Strongly lies with digital sales that bring more money at minimal costs: digital distribution servers are served by third -party companies, and the percentage does not increase, and some even decrease, let the players themselves are neither cold nor hot ..
Exposure from recent Capcom report
On the other hand, not all developers believe that the pandemic could somehow help with sales, as noted Joel Buress, whose studio released the game in the mentioned Apple Arcade:
I would not say that the pandemic has benefited us. I think that from the point of view of reducing damage, I am happy that we released the game on such a platform as Apple Arcade, which feels good.
But all this is temporary. What will happen when the pandemic ends?
So far, no one has any answers and cannot be, since the pandemic has not yet ended, and analysts of studios and publishers still do not have a complete picture before eyes. But we are preventing us from the sofa that prevents us from telling on the coffee grounds, it is true? And since I don’t have accurate income and expenses on my hands (or rather, I just am too lazy to count the costs based on an approximate number of employees in the studio and the necessary equipment), we will cost the good old dialectics and the mental modeling of the near, I hope, the future.
Option one. When the pandemic is over, the players will sooner or later return to work. Consequently, the profit of the studios will fall again, because people will not be able to spend too much time and money on entertainment, and all employees will have to drive back to the office if the production of games from the house will not be able to come to the old values. But as has already been described in the section "Psychology", To do it will not be so easy. Plus, you need to take into account the money lowered into the pipe to meet logistics needs and other expenses that were necessary to switch to distance work. Will players evaluate the inevitable price increase in this case? The question is rhetorical.
Option Second. It is not necessary to drive employees to the office if the production process, customized during the pandemic, will restore the development speed to the previous level, or even exceed it, as it has already managed to note in her report Remedy. For the studio, this is even a plus, since she will not need an office: goodbye, electricity costs, amenities (sports complexes, recreation areas, etc.D. At the same time, one-time costs for new computers, software and Internet security have already been executed in this spring, so it remains only to cut cabbage and save premises on renting. However, the studios will lay in the budget long-term expenses associated with the replacement of obsolete equipment from employees and ensure technical support of their employees, if they, for example, their children will again break something.
Photo from the article by Jeff Kili about the last Titanfall development hours
Option Third. Humanity as a whole will go online. Players will spend more time at home for games more than before (thanks the missing need to ride the other end of the city to work). But not the fact that the development system will cope. Developers can spread as much as possible about the fact that the safety of their employees is above all, but if the long -term production will slow down further, then no large company will want to endure it, and employees will have to return to offices with all the consequences that are ensuring from the first option.
And finally, the fourth version. Humanity, along with developers, sits online. Briefly: income for developers has increased, and expenses will only grow as equipment wear. In principle, for both studios and players, this option will be the most acceptable, unless, of course, the problem of delivery of expensive equipment is replaced by cloud technologies where it is possible.
It is difficult to say at the moment how the events in the industry will develop further. Will it be possible to find a balance between these approaches? Can cloud computing help not to drag an expensive computer into the employee’s house, but to conduct a broadband Internet for him to his toaster? Time will show.
One thing can be argued now: the experience gained by the studios during the pandemic will still be useful in the future.
