How does a mix of remote/in office work for studios?

selectstart

I see some job postings where studios say they have both remote and in-office jobs. How does that work? Is every meeting on Zoom regardless if you're in the office or at home? Im just used to either in office or remote, but not a mix of the two. Just more curious how studios handle that.

NikhilR

Usually there are mandated return to office days, mostly a day or two which is when meetings are set.
But you are provided some flexibility on that depending on the situation.

Benjammin

In our case, meetings where some people are remote (which is most of them) are discord or google meet. There are daily "what are you doing today" meetings which are on Discord, as we have team members spread across the southern hemisphere. Those of us who are local try to line up our in-office days, because its always nicer to have a conversation with someone face-to-face. Management tends to have weekly in-person meetings, but even then a couple people might remote in.
We have a discord server set up with a bunch of shared channels, but also what we call 'desk' channels - you hang out in there and if someone in a different location needs to talk to you they can drop by your "desk". If you're AFK, you jump into the "AFK" channel so everyone knows when you're active/inactive.

selectstart

Thanks @Benjammin - ive only worked remote only studios, so wasnt sure. That makes sense. Currently in my studio we have a mix of slack/discord and our discord is set up similar to yours, except we dont have desk channels. Good to know how other studios work though.

I wonder if studios prioritize hiring remote or hybrid people?

Eric Chadwick

Majority of studios will prioritize on-site. Communication is simply better in person.

I don’t work in games anymore, now I work in 3d software dev, but I work entirely remote, as do about 1/4 of the workers here. But generally that’s only because we’re highly experienced and difficult to find replacements for, so we are “worth” the extra effort, and we are good at remote (strong communicators, good time management, etc.). The other 3/4 are hybrid, and mostly in-office.