People in AAA studios: do you have access to the internet at work?

ned_poreyra

I'm asking in the context of leak prevention. Can you access any website? How do you look for references? What if you need a very specific script/addon/plugin to work?

oglu

I havnt seen a Games company working like this but in FX its common to have no internet.

You arnt allowed to install anything on your workstation. If you need refs you get them from your Lead same goes for plugins.

There are special workstations connected to the internet but not to the network.

Thats how its done in a TTPN certificated studio. 
https://www.ttpn.org/content-owners/who-we-are/

thomasp

I've worked in one game studio where only certain sites where whitelisted. Full internet access only outside core working hours.

In another place all access was blocked at the workstation for good. You had to go to a kiosk machine to access anything. During that time I heard of a few other places in the country that were enacting the same policies.

It's never been a problem to get reference or plugins or whatever. I just really missed having access to certain ... distractions available at the desk. Also most hated thing about the place among the staff by a metric f*ckton. Everybody complained about this. All. The. Time.

poopipe

Theres been no blanket Internet restrictions anywhere I've worked but it's very common for people to not have privileges to install applications or plugins - which is a sensible security precaution as well as being important for legal reasons.

I know several outsource providers that don't allow Internet access at workstations-this makes sense for legal reasons/security since their whole business model relies on large studios trusting them. 

Losing Internet access would completely fuck programmers and tech artists so it makes little sense to do it at most game studios. Blocking Facebook and other such shit wouldnt do any harm though IMO