Maintaining steady remote work?

selectstart

Hey guys - just curious what your thoughts are on maintaining remote jobs at studios rather than moving for jobs? I currently live in a city that does not have a big game dev scene and most of the jobs would require me to move. Ive managed to work remote for a couple studios the last few years while living here, which has been great. My big issue is, Im looking to move soon, and would really love to stay here (family, friends, etc.) but Im worried about steady remote work. If I moved and stayed here, I would be making a commitment to stay for at least a few more years. With my current studio Im at now (Ive been here for 1.5 years), I might be looking for another place to work in the near future and am just seeing how common remote studios are and if anyone has maintained a steady remote job working in this industry? I see a lot of jobs these days are listed as remote, but Im not sure if thats because of covid and if things will go back to being more in-studio jobs in the near future when things get a bit better.

Any advice would be great. Thanks for your time.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Reach out to Marie-Pepin Michelle.  She's been full time contract remote for a while now, if I recall.

PixelMasher

I've been working for counterplay remotley for the last year in an indefinite contract position, im technically an independant contractor/consultant but the deal was setup so I am basically a permanent employee. 

More and more studios will probably be open to this in the coming years as it will be a compeditive recruiting advantage to be able to hire super talneted people without having to deal with work visas and all that, I would expect small and medium sized studios to embrace it, steal a bunch of talent from big studios who are slower to adapt and then eventually for it to become more normal. 

but short answer is yes there are plenty of people working remote and the opportunities for it should only continue to become more normal, but it also opens you up to competing with extremely talented people in a global job market. 

selectstart

Hey @PixelMasher thanks for the reply! Puts some positivity in my thoughts on the matter. This is a bit off my current topic, but a question Ive been curious about relating to remote work. Not even sure how much of this you can answer, but any info would be great. The remote studios Ive worked for are relatively small (10-15 people max). Curious how your day to day works in a larger studio like Counterplay when working remotely. Are you having weekly video call meetings with the whole studio? Or more just people in your department? Just been curious how remote work is happening with larger studios in general. Seems like a lot to manage for things to go smoothly.

PixelMasher

yea we usually work pretty department based and then I will have meetings linking up with other departments every few days, I try and manage the env art team so they dont get all their time sucked up by meetings and can work pretty autonomously throughout the week with a couple review meetings each week. The higher up the chain you go, the more meetings you tend to have vs doing actual art. 

as a whole we sync up as an entire studio every few weeks, but in general most departments are focused on their work. 

Ripples

We’ve always employed off site artists in certain departments such as assets, but now we are doing the same with lighting and anim as well. Our location means we don’t have a large local talent pool so the ability to work with anyone, anywhere, is very appealing. There’s still a lot to be said for being on site I think and I wonder what it will be like once the bulk of the workforce is back in the studio, but I can’t see remote work going away anytime soon.