PLAYER 1: Remote vs PLAYER 2: Office

My game dev experience started in 2020. Like many, I floated through my first year of uni doing group work in Zoom rooms, where people would randomly stop responding, and many classmates felt like whatever my mind could construct from their 2D profile pictures. Remote work was still something most institutions and companies didn’t quite know how to handle.

While that gave us a lot of funny footage (“You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver” and the kids crashing the BBC interview are still among my all-time favourite memes), society felt it needed to adjust quickly. So the software improved, standard policies were put into place, and before you knew it: every worker and student had a videocall-ready setup. Companies paid premium subscriptions to host dozens of people in one call, everyone who wasn’t speaking learned to raise their virtual hand before unmuting (well, almost everyone), and Google Meet reaction emojis developed a functional meaning of their own. Similarly to how the skull emoji on WhatsApp means something very different to a grandma than it does to a teen, you’d never clap during a real-life meeting to agree with a colleague (would be funny, though), but the silent clapping emoji developed that function on its own.

Random tech issues will always happen, but from my virtual classroom of no cameras, accidental unmutes, and labyrinthine breakout rooms, we’ve come a long way. Companies are now even using AI note-taking tools that automatically send summaries to all participants at the end of a call (take that as a positive or a negative, up to you).

Weighting the Options

I’ve spent longer working remotely than in person, across different companies and teams. That experience became particularly relevant when it came to my indie studio. As MVGIE, we obviously had to address the topic.

At first, remote work seemed like a no-brainer. We’re currently based in different cities (West London, Norwich, Liverpool), and none of us owns a space that could realistically become a long-term office — personally, living in a studio, I barely have room for my desk. Remote work means no office rent in the budget, no relocating to the same city, no major changes to the habits we’ve built over the two years since founding MVGIE.

And yet, we instantly said we wanted an office.

We had fond memories of working in the same room back when we lived together (shout-out Uxbridge, you are not missed, but you gave us fun times), and it took us a long time to find our rhythm remotely. Still, the decision to work in-person significantly increased our budget, and wasn’t based on experience, as we had never worked as just the three of us on a large, long-term project.

Both concerns were clarified during our DunDev experience. DunDev is an incredible opportunity for early-stage studios, but as I mentioned in a previous blog post, the highlight is that it’s residential; participants are offered shared office space. For a full month, we finally experienced how we functioned as MVGIE Studios while sharing a workspace. Because of that, I feel we can now properly evaluate what each option entails.

At a time when return-to-office policies, hybrid contracts-that-aren’t-really-hybrid, corporate culture, and productivity spark endless debates, I figured I could offer a personal perspective specifically for small game dev studios.

Work from Home (not the Fifth Harmony song)

Before I had any work experience, I idealised remote work. I pictured myself on a beach somewhere, sipping a piña colada with my laptop on my lap (in this fantasy, my tech is apparently immune to sand and heat), doing the bare minimum before logging off to enjoy life.

Reality quickly broke that illusion. Long-term stays abroad mean visa headaches that make you wish you’d stayed home, and constantly moving countries drains money you likely don’t have as an indie game dev.

Most importantly, remote work has far more requirements than I imagined. You need high-speed Wi-Fi; a laptop and headset that won’t collapse when running Unity, OBS, and Google Meet at the same time; a comfortable chair unless you want your back to age 50 years in a day; the right environment for your focus (chaotic coffee shop? brown-noise co-working lounge? soundproof silence?); company spending on platforms for management and communication; and enough physical space to breathe and avoid feeling isolated.

What I didn’t expect was also how lonely it can feel, if you’re not careful. If you’re lucky, you can work from cafés, libraries, or cheap co-working spaces. I had that option, but I also live in a city where it rains eight days a week, so I rarely felt motivated to leave the house when I could work in pyjamas under a blanket.

Remote work gives you time back by removing commuting, but at my previous company I noticed many people ended up working extra hours simply because there’s no clear cut-off between work and free time. Some people manage to game the system, but game development is fast-paced, so doing the bare minimum only piles your work into impossible deadlines.

If I sound critical, it’s because remote work simply didn’t suit me. I struggled with focus and motivation, disliked the extra friction of online communication, and felt videocalls created a barrier to genuine socialisation. I’m also young and living alone, which amplified that experience.

On the plus side, I saw how much some colleagues benefited. Parents didn’t need sitters when their kids came home. Some worked on treadmills. Others joined from countries or cities they could never have relocated from. Some had physical difficulties that made commuting hard. For many, remote work is crucial. It just wasn’t right for me, and not ideal for MVGIE either.

Out of necessity, we eventually made it work without spending much: weekly team meetings, a virtual office on Discord, Trello boards for task tracking, end-of-day check-ins. It works, but once we worked together in person, it became obvious what we preferred.

Little note: if you’re working from home, make sure to claim it as a job expense, it’s not advertised much but you get a little tax relief if you do.

The Office (not the show)

Working in an office makes a huge difference. First, you have to get there. No more waking up 15 minutes before starting, pyjamas still on, breakfast during your first meeting. You need time to get ready and commute. The ideal commute for work-life balance is under 30 minutes. That’s not always realistic, especially as an employee. However, if you’re establishing your company, it needs considering, for both yourself and for others. And remember: you’ll make that journey again at the end of the day when you’re tired and just want to be home.

Your day-to-day changes too. Work hours become more rigid. Errands in the middle of the day followed by evening catch-ups aren’t an option. There are office distractions. Communication needs structure so it doesn’t interrupt focus, and you can keep track of what’s being said.

Regardless, the upsides are significant. That quick question that took five hours to get solved on Slack? In an office, you turn your chair and ask. Alex, Phillip, and I even created a system for it: a post-it note saying “Can I have your attention?” placed on the monitor facing whoever you needed. They’d come over when ready. It worked brilliantly.

There’s also the natural chatting that happens organically, the kind that online gets squeezed into the awkward final minutes of a call. Even meetings feel different. It’s easy to drift off on videocalls; much harder in person. Once, I made a weird face in a meeting and Alex caught it immediately and asked my opinion — something that would have been completely missed online, where I would have just kept quiet.

The Home Office (not the govt one)

At first, we imagined renting our own private space. I even considered moving from my studio to a two-bedroom, so I could then turn part of it into our office. There was a risk Phillip and Alex would come in and throw water at me if I didn’t wake up on time, but it felt like the best of both worlds: no commute, but in-person collaboration. It was financially cheaper than renting a separate office, and there are tax relief options.

Unfortunately, it also combined the downsides of both setups: blurred work-life boundaries, high risk of overworking, distractions, limited freedom regarding pets, guests, or partners (all suddenly becoming “company matters”), limited space flexibility — and, most terribly, sharing a bathroom…

I’m sure some small teams make it work. For us, it didn’t feel viable long-term.

A private office became the goal, but as a first-time team asking publishers for modest budgets, the costs for private offices didn’t make sense yet. DunDev showed us how effective even a shared workspace can be. Yes, you might need to pre-book meeting rooms or tolerate background noise, but we’re organised, used to working with headphones, and actually enjoyed chatting with other teams in the kitchen. It worked well for us.

It was maybe slightly embarrassing when Alex randomly shouted swear words or burst out laughing by himself when he wrote a particularly funny joke for the game, but over a month we only got side-eyes once. I’d call that a success.

Find Your Place

Your team might have different necessities than us. Maybe some of your team members cannot move to another city or have movement difficulties, so remote work suits you better. Maybe you mostly collaborate and would find it difficult to share your space with others outside the company, so a private office would be the ideal. Maybe you know exactly which days require in-person time and which don’t, so you feel secure in trying a hybrid approach.

Whatever your needs, the bottom line is, don’t treat it as an unimportant decision. It’s something that has a huge impact on your work habits and company culture, so make sure to find what works best for yourself and your team. This is equally important once you find yourself hiring new employees, you can’t expect someone to sign a contract with certain expectations and then have them upend their life mid-project because you decide to cut office costs or you no longer trust them to work from home. Furthermore, don’t look for data online about which option has a higher productivity, or what other big names have done. What works for Ubisoft, or Supergiant Games, might not work for your team specifically.

There’s no universal right answer, only what feels right for you.

If you have any questions about it though, I’m totally happy to help out as I can, so feel free to shoot me a message or an email. See youse next time!

Allie

allie@mvgiestudios.com