Game developers on shifting to four-day workweeks: “They were so helpful for our mental health”

An adoption of four-day workweeks has become a new trend for a lot of small studios and even some AAA teams. So what do game developers think of this system and how can it improve their workflow?

Falcon Age

Game Developer spoke to a few studios about shifting to new schedules and working only four days a week. Here are the key takeaways from the article:

• Kitfox Games co-founder Tanya X said that the studio started testing a new system in June 2021, shortly before the Boyfriend Dungeon launch. The team’s lead programmer thought that four-day work weeks would be a good long-term investment, and employees loved the idea.
• Falcon Age creator Outerloop has been working remotely since being founded in 2017 and decided to shift to a four-day workweek to “better support its workforce and retain staff.”
• “Success for us is more of a long-term view. Being productive is certainly a part of it but it’s not the only aspect. The well-being of the team is an important part of it and we’re seeing that rest and breaks help with not burning out.” the studio director Chandana Ekanayake said.
• Ko_op Mode, a studio that is owned by artists, also started testing a four-day workweek at the beginning of the pandemic. It was a practical decision and something that everyone on the team needed at that time.
• However, Ko_op returned to a five-day workweek later to meet deadlines but decided to implement the new system again as soon as possible. It was a painful decision. The team got used to the four-day workweeks because “they were so helpful for our mental health.”
• “We wanted to get back there, but we had to track that we could still meet our deadlines [over four days], so we designed a tracking process. We did our five-day work week until June 2020, and then we switched back over to four-days — and that has been the routine ever since,” Ko_op community manager Marcela Huerta said.

The full article can be found here.

Bugsnax developer Young Horses also switched to a four-day workweek in September, saying it will help the studio to “be better off in the long run.” And Eidos Montreal became the first AAA developer to adopt this schedule in October, hoping it would help the team to eliminate unnecessary time.