Today I attended day 1 of Games Education Summit.
I would love to go in-depth about everything that was discussed, but if I do, I'll spend hours writing it all out, so here are the highlights / my takeaways:
1) Imposter syndrome, a huge proportion of people experience it, and industry is working on how to address it. This has been exacerbated by the pandemic and forced remote working. The same goes for mental health. Remote/online also restricts making connections, peer-to-peer learning and support, and feeling part of the team and belonging - this is a real problem, but some are working to solve it (while still keeping remote or hybrid working around).
2) Thanks to the pandemic opening up the possibilities of working remotely and hybrid, people want flexibility and choice (within reason of course). Another thing that's currently quite attractive and being explored is 4 day weeks for full pay - sounds counterintuitive, but some data is showing that it can increase productivity. Since the data is still being gathered and verified, the verdict is still out.
3) There is a split in the industry between expecting graduates to be ready to hit the road running and understanding that a fresh grad will need to be mentored and nurtured for 3-6 months before being ready to take on projects on their own. I personally would prefer the latter. Apparently, this initial period is key to the person staying in the industry (rather than moving to another one).
4) Currently the most sought after skills are: soft/smart skills (e.g. teamwork) and specialisations that overlap disciplines (e.g. technical artist = art + coding). But this also requires that people start their games industry journey much earlier than uni, ideal all the way back at GCSE level - but this currently is not happening due to the games careers not being valued by the people who are in charge of distributing funding. Also, uni needs to stop being the only further education path people can take to get into the games career - apprenticeships need to be embraced.
5) Management needs to embrace holistic approaches rather than focusing on / valuing only productivity. This links back to previous points, but especially the first few.
6) Taking breaks is key, and is normal, even in office people take plenty of breaks to get a drink, stretch, go to the bathroom, chat/socialise - it is inhuman to work non-stop 9-5 (or even longer) - something that everyone seems to have forgotten over the pandemic. Also, just because you work from home, doesn't mean you have to respond to every message and email instantly - set boundaries.
7) Gaming can be beneficial (e.g. for mental health), but gaming disorder (addiction) is a real problem for some, so industry and academia need to take responsibility, raise awareness and find ways to reduce it. This also applies to toxic work environments and toxic communities. It was actually agreed that industry and academia need to stop blaming each other and take on the responsibilities together. Also, surveys show that players want to know about working conditions to ensure they don't support bad ones.
8) Something I've never considered before: community managers often get missed out, the devs see them as the community, and the community sees them as the dev, because they are the in-between, so they get the brunt of it from both sides.
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