Thoughts on remote and async work

I recently had an interesting conversation about async work and remote collaboration, something I’ve thought a lot about over the years. It feels more relevant than ever now, especially as automation continues to replace many of the conveyor belt-style tasks in game development.

The 9-to-5, in-office routine of sitting at your desk is antiquated and better suited for conveyor-belt-type work (which is getting more and more automated) rather than creative/collaborative work. Studios certainly still reach their goals and ship games using the traditional approach (and many will continue to do so), but I'd argue that teams embracing both remote and async workflows can out-deliver by a wide margin.

Async work can be more efficient because it gives power to the individual. You can create increased flexibility, more autonomy, and just better alignment with people's personal rhythms. At the end of the day, I believe that every person on the team shows up trying to do their best. Flexibility and autonomy are the tools to help them accomplish that. And everybody wins!

Async leadership in remote teams is something I've been thinking a lot about since I co-founded a game dev studio in the first months of COVID. It became clear that we weren't able to follow the traditional model and had to look for alternatives. It was then I really started to see the potential.