{"id":11970,"date":"2022-02-10T21:04:17","date_gmt":"2022-02-10T21:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/10\/homeworld-and-hardspace-shipbreaker-developer-embraces-four-day-workweek\/"},"modified":"2022-02-10T21:04:17","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T21:04:17","slug":"homeworld-and-hardspace-shipbreaker-developer-embraces-four-day-workweek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/10\/homeworld-and-hardspace-shipbreaker-developer-embraces-four-day-workweek\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHomeworld\u201d and \u201cHardspace: Shipbreaker\u201d developer embraces four-day workweek"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Today, Blackbird announced it will permanently adopt a Monday-Thursday workweek across all six of its projects. But the journey to get there was not without bumps in the road. Some at the studio worried that in an industry inundated with periods of brutal crunch<\/a>, removing hours from the week would just necessitate more of it. Others looked at the late stage of development projects like \u201cShipbreaker\u201d were in and feared the timing of such a change couldn\u2019t have been worse. A three-month long test of the four-day workweek quickly disabused them of these notions. But concerns remain as to whether a four-day workweek can keep overwork at bay \u2014 or even be maintained \u2014 in an industry where the majority of the workforce is not unionized and is susceptible to sudden shifts brought on by buyouts, layoffs and executive whims.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The \u201cShipbreaker\u201d team was one of the two teams participating in the four-day workweek test, which ran from Sept. 20, 2021 to Dec. 10, 2021. While the other team, working on a roguelike deck-building game code named \u201cOwl,\u201d was in the early preproduction stages of development, the \u201cShipbreaker\u201d team was truly in the thick of it \u2014 and had been for quite some time. The game, in which players crawl through the guts of derelict spaceships and slice them up for salvage, launched into early access on Steam in 2020. Since then, Shipbreaker\u2019s team had been working to get it across the finish line, maintain its sizable, content-hungry community and live up to the terms of a deal with French publisher Focus Entertainment. According to the survey, the results of which were shared with The Post, some developers were working over 40 hours each week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen people get stressed out and burned out, you can\u2019t really treat it. They need to take a big chunk of time off, and even then, they come back frazzled. We\u2019re looking at how we can prevent this in an ongoing way,\u201d said Blackbird CEO Rob Cunningham. There was also the question of retention: \u201cAn independent studio like Blackbird doesn\u2019t benefit from the infinite resources of these mega corporations,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to do what we can to communicate to the talent what\u2019s the upside of coming here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Blackbird\u2019s workweek reshuffle comes during a time when workers across all sectors are reevaluating their relationship with their jobs. The covid-born \u201cGreat Resignation\u201d<\/a> has seen millions of Americans quit their jobs, while workers at global companies like Starbucks<\/a> and Amazon<\/a> have moved to unionize and improve their workplaces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The idea of the four-day workweek is not new. Louis Hyman, a historian of work and business at Cornell University\u2019s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, explained that the current five-day workweek composed of eight-hour days was born of factory worker strikes in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as nationwide union strength in the years following World War I. After workers pressured the likes of Henry Ford and, eventually, the United States government<\/a> to adopt the five-day workweek, there were widespread calls for a four-day workweek. Recently, the concept has resurfaced. Companies as large as Panasonic<\/a> have implemented versions of it, as have video game studios like \u201cGuardians of the Galaxy\u201d developer Eidos-Montr\u00e9al and indie studios Vodeo Games and KO_OP. During 2020, \u201cFortnite\u201d developer Epic instituted a policy of giving employees alternating Fridays off, but shelved that change late last year despite employee uproar, according to a report by Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIn a lot of ways, the belief that the normal job is 9-to-5, Monday through Friday, has been steadily falling apart since the 1970s,\u201d Hyman said, citing the draining nature of modern knowledge jobs, the fragmentation of service work via the gig economy and the need for many to work multiple jobs. \u201cThere\u2019s been a big reset with covid in thinking about, \u2018What is work? Why do I have to go to the office? And if I don\u2019t have to go to the office, do I have to work five days a week?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Still, Blackbird employees had concerns going into the four-day workweek test. How would a team already struggling at 40-plus hours per week manage to hit their milestones with eight fewer hours? What would they have to streamline? And would some team members feel only minor ripples from the change, while others dealt with full-blown aftershocks?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think immediately my mind went to, \u2018We can\u2019t do that,\u2019 \u201d said Elliot Hudson, game director on \u201cShipbreaker.\u201d \u201cWhen it was first proposed to me, I just flat out said, \u2018No, it\u2019s not going to work for this team.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It wasn\u2019t a seamless transition. For some, like \u201cShipbreaker\u201d Lead Producer Jessica Klyne, the growing pains extended even as far as the six-week mark. She and the team determined that they needed to trim fat from their day-to-day schedules, but acclimating took time and discipline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe stopped doing one-hour meetings and even shortened some to ten-minute check-ins,\u201d said Klyne. \u201cWe questioned the attendance of everyone in meetings and encouraged all attendees at all levels to question their own attendance. We were ruthless when it came to protecting our team\u2019s time. We had to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Game-specific challenges had to be optimized too. \u201cNormally we\u2019d [be like], \u2018Let\u2019s just build a ship and then figure out what\u2019s wrong with it,\u2019 \u201d Hudson said. \u201cThis time, we tried to cast our minds ahead to, \u2018What do we think the pain points are going to be that we\u2019ve run into in the past? How do we design the ship to just completely avoid those things?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Other stumbling blocks included holiday weeks in which workers already would have had a day off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s an ongoing conversation,\u201d said Blackbird Director of Operations Katie Findlay. \u201cBut generally speaking, we\u2019re just communicating that if it\u2019s a holiday Monday, you get a three-day workweek; good for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As the test progressed, it did not take long for workers to find that their workdays and \u2014 more importantly \u2014 their overall mental health had improved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cPersonally, it makes me feel like I can stay in the industry longer than I thought I could,\u201d said the studio\u2019s creative director, Trey Smith. \u201cThere\u2019s a soul tax that comes with shipping every game.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There were also less obvious, unanticipated benefits. \u201cWhen you have a day off that you can use to go see a doctor and you don\u2019t have to tell your co-workers, it adds a level of privacy I thought was really nice,\u201d said Leelee Scaldaferri, a 3D artist on \u201cShipbreaker,\u201d who also noted that running errands during the pandemic on days when stores weren\u2019t crowded alleviated stress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Eventually, because workers were better rested and happier, they worked more efficiently.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cNot having Friday there anymore made the four days more precious,\u201d said Scaldaferri. \u201cEssentially, in so many words, I didn\u2019t f— around as much.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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By the time the test wound down, numerous members of the \u201cShipbreaker\u201d team concurred: The four-day workweek was more than just a success.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOur team was under huge pressure and on the verge of burnout due to the nature of working from home during a critical period of production, with the added stress of covid on top of that,\u201d said Klyne. \u201cWhen the trial was over, it was obvious the four-day workweek saved us. I don\u2019t think we could have got to where we are today without it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hudson went so far as to say the \u201cShipbreaker\u201d team \u201ccompletely avoided crunch\u201d during the test phase despite his concerns that they\u2019d have to crunch because <\/i>of it. Findlay cautioned, however, that industry professionals should not think of the four-day workweek as a silver bullet, but rather one of many longer-term solutions to preserve employee health even when inevitable periods of more intense work \u2014 say, ahead of a deadline or milestone \u2014 do arrive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen it comes to those crunch times, we want you to be not already burned out,\u201d Findlay said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the end, 100 percent of 51 developers surveyed after the test said they wanted to permanently switch to the four-day workweek, compared to 82 percent who believed a four-day workweek was better than a five-day workweek before the test. Additionally, 91 percent said it improved their work-life balance, 89 percent said the same of wellness, 90 percent believed it will improve retention and 79 percent said it bolstered their ability to complete work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the four-day workweek as envisioned by Blackbird isn\u2019t without its structural question marks. As with Saturdays and Sundays, workers are free to use Fridays as they please, whether that means chilling out, doing chores or wrapping up work that previously slipped through the cracks. It falls on leadership to avoid pressuring workers, explicitly or implicitly, into regularly doing the latter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOne of the key pieces to all of this is that our leadership, whether it\u2019s studio or per team, has to set the example,\u201d said Findlay. \u201cSo if your manager or producer is coming in and obviously working on Friday \u2014 answering emails and all of that \u2014 then me if I\u2019m, like, a junior programmer, I\u2019m going to feel the need to do that as well. \u2026 So we\u2019re really doubling down on messaging to our leads to make sure they\u2019re modeling behavior they want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Data suggests that the test was not entirely successful on this front. Of employees surveyed, 29 percent said they worked 32 hours per week during the final four weeks of the test, while 47 percent said they worked 32-36 hours, 12 percent said they worked 36-40 hours and another 12 percent said they worked more than 40. Speaking with The Post, some leads confessed they\u2019d been working a few hours on Fridays during the test phase \u2014 though largely to ensure successive weeks were organized well enough that their subordinates wouldn\u2019t have to sweat coming in on their new Saturday, which was Friday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt tends to be mostly the leaders and the directors who are spending that extra time to get ahead on tasks and give enough details to tasks that the people below them don\u2019t need to work that extra time,\u201d said Hudson. \u201cNormally it\u2019d be like, \u2018Here, I\u2019ll give you a task and then we can have a conversation about it.\u2019 Now my job is to make sure there\u2019s enough details in that task that we don\u2019t have to have that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Blackbird Chief Creative Officer Rory McGuire said company policy states that if anybody decides to come in on Fridays, they must be compensated with another day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf anyone is working [on] a Friday more than a few times a year,\u201d said McGuire, \u201cthat\u2019s very strong evidence we need to look at our organization to figure out where the process is failing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMaybe today the bosses are friendly and have a policy you like, but what if circumstances change or there\u2019s new management, or the company gets bought out or does a reorg?\u201d Kinema said. \u201cWhen the going gets tough \u2014 and eventually for all companies, for all industries, it does \u2014 it\u2019s the workers\u2019 interests, the workers\u2019 work-life balances, that are going to be the first things out the window.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Saleem Dabbous, studio director at a KO_OP, the worker-owned cooperative developing \u201cGoodbye Volcano High\u201d that also has a four-day workweek<\/a>, advocated for unionization even at relatively generous companies like Blackbird.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe only way protections for workers will be placed and maintained is through a redistribution of power toward workers to control their own destiny \u2014 especially as business priorities shift, management changes through acquisitions, or management staff turnover can all disrupt pro-worker policies,\u201d Dabbous said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Blackbird CEO Cunningham told The Post that there\u2019s been \u201ca lot of sniffing around and knocking on the doors\u201d when it comes to other companies trying to buy Blackbird, but currently, the studio\u2019s not selling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As for unionization, McGuire said that the company \u201chas never opposed unionization at the studio, nor would we,\u201d and pointed to the fact that Shipbreaker\u2019s narrative focuses on \u201ca labor-led unionization effort at a space salvage company.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For the time being, Blackbird is committed to the four-day workweek and is in the process of transitioning all its teams. Those who participated in the test hope other game studios will take their findings to heart and attempt tests of their own. Hudson, once the four-day workweek\u2019s biggest skeptic, is now an evangelist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI know there\u2019s probably going to be a lot of folks in this industry who are ambivalent or even scared to make a change like this,\u201d he said. \u201cJust have faith that your team will make it work in a way that works for them, because that\u2019s exactly what happened to us. \u2026 Just give it a shot. If it doesn\u2019t work, it doesn\u2019t work. You can always go back.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n