These are some interesting times. My blog post from last week essentially got hijacked by the state of things.
Right now we are all working from home. Respawn, partner and friends at Blizzard, Sony Santa Monica, Naughty Dog, Dice LA, Riot, Insomniac and presumably all other studios as well. The fact that Disneyland and Universal Studios closed are the first signs of how serious this is for a lot of Californians. We can still go outside but most restaurants, schools, shops and gyms are, and should, be closed for social gatherings. Home delivery is the way to go and honestly, LA already has a huge culture and system in place for this so we are perfectly fine.
Last week we began preparations to work from home. Everything was still uncertain but producers went around making sure everybody had the means to access their work computers from home through VPN (Virtual Private Network).
As this might be ongoing we are allowed to bring our work computers home to help our workflow. However, each computer has to get encrypted for additional security. This process normally takes a day for one computer, up to 12h, but occasionally several days in case something goes wrong. The teams are getting prioritized depending on their deadlines. As an example, the Apex team, being a live service game, will get their work computers before us as the Jedi team just released a game last year. Right now we are locked down until the end of March, when our situation again will be evaluated. We expect it to run longer.
My normal commute is about 30 - 45 min one way to work, while my partner commutes up to 1.5h one way. We work in completely different ends and there are some lessons we hope the industry can learn when it comes to working remotely after this passes. We are happy to get this time back, but not under these circumstances.
Stay safe, healthy and kind~
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