Post-Expo Malaise

To get this out of the way: working from home is good. It’s good for me, it’s good for many other people. The studies agree. I’m not saying it’s always the best fit for every industry or even every company, but I am saying that most of the pressure to come ‘back into the office’ come from overly-controlling bosses and people who are sitting there eating the rent on very expensive offices for their companies.

My own history with it is basically as long as I’ve been in game dev. Working on my own indie games meant working from home, with a few aberrant months or years cohabiting with another studio, and another year in-office when I worked for [redacted], I’ve done this for about a decade and a half. (The pandemic put pay to the in-office policies, and by the time the lockdowns were over, the company had expanded with so many permanently remote workers that forcing us back in-office wasn’t really going to work.)

But, as much as it rules, the isolation can sometimes be rough. Not just the social stuff (I makeup for that by seeing friends after work several times a week, regardless of what other social things are planned for the week) but also the work related stuff.

There’s nothing quite like hanging out with other game developers to remind me of the real joy of why I do what I do. Seeing what others are working on, getting to gush with joy about what I’m doing to people who really understand it… that’s a pleasure that’s missing from not going into an office with other devs.

This was driven home to me in a huge way this week, attending South by Southwest Sydney.

It’s rapidly become my favourite part of the year. Part GCAP/GDC, part PAX, but with a variety of other events on a the same time. I met new friends, saw talks on such things as creative custom game engines, and saw numerous short films as part of the film stream.

It’s like the best parts of what going to Melbourne Games Week used to be, before I got exhausted from doing it every year.

They even colour-code the lanyard for each stream of the festival, so you can avoid the tech bros if you want to! (Just kidding, I met a few lovely people from the tech stream - but still, the tech bro infestation for a week is definitely… an experience.)

The problem is… now it’s over for the year and the post-con malaise has set in. A whole 12 more months before I get to do it again.

I should see what other games related events are on around the country before then - getting to hang with other devs really is a joy.