The developer of Bugsnax is changing its work structure moving forward. As Bugsnax continues to evolve with new content, developer Young Horses has evaluated the way it handles its workweeks and made a permanent change. The hope is that it will give the team a better work-life balance, as well as allow for more productivity while working on games.
Bugsnax burst onto the gaming scene during a PlayStation event in June of 2020. The game instantly set itself apart with its wacky humor, intriguing art style, and unique reveal trailer. After that, Bugsnax launched as a well-reviewed PlayStation and PC game. An exciting and successful new IP can create an imbalance in a development team in terms of workload, but Young Horses is attempting to alleviate that by implementing a four-day workweek.
Recently, Young Horses co-founder and president Phil Tibitoski told Axios that Young Horses and its eight-member development team unanimously decided to attempt a trial run of four-day workweeks back in July. The video game industry has a negative reputation with crunch culture, so this four-day workweek would allow the teams to work only 32 hours as opposed to long work hours and overtime leading up to the release of a title or big update. In the case of Young Horses, the team had already had an expected workweek of 35 hours in five days. After a successful trial run, Young Horses has decided to make the shorter workweek permanent.
The change is important on multiple levels for Young Horses and the Bugsnax team. Not only will they be able to have off more time for relaxing and spending time away from the business of the day-to-day work schedule, but having a shorter workweek can also contribute to more productivity. It is important to allow team members the freedom to relax and get things done on days off, which is a sentiment that Tibitoski made clear.
Might as well give people the peace of mind that they can relax doing their own thing on their own time than have someone feel guilty for doing it at work.
As far as larger development teams attempting to implement these types of changes, it may be difficult, but not impossible. Tibitoski said that there needs to be buy-in from the top, and goals and expectations need to be put in place. In the case of Young Horses, this studio has always wanted to foster a healthy work environment where the happiness of the employee base is of utmost importance, so the four-day workweek easily aligns with that.
It is possible for leadership to step in and support with sweeping changes to a larger team, as Nintendo helped mitigate crunch at Retro Studios years ago, for example, a change that has continued to assist the studio to this day. As long as leadership and the studio at large are willing to buy-in, then the change can happen. In the case of Young Horses, it is wonderful to see the team unanimously decide to make a change that they are happy with. Perhaps other studios will soon follow their lead.
Bugsnax is available now on PC and PS5, and PS4.
Source: Axios
