Why does Obsidian have physical offices?

[Malignacious]

What can you do in a physical building that you can't do collaboratively online, via virtual studio?

 

The answer is nothing, except to save hundreds of thousands of dollars...

[MasterPrudent]

A lot of people enjoy working in a social environment with a close-knit team they occasionally see when they're not working.

[Darth InSidious]

Actually get things done. That's what.

[Hoeya]

As someone who's worked on an (albeit small) number of modding projects over the years, you have no idea how often I've wished that there was a physical location for people to get together and discuss the project. The internet is a wonderful tool for many things, but it's not a wonderful place for trying to build something as complex and nuanced as a game. Games need a lot of direction, and trying to provide that over the internet can be like herding cats. Because you work online, you can have your staff doing a bunch of different things at once, and it's a lot more difficult to check and make sure everyone's doing what they're supposed to. 

 

There's also a sense of ownership that comes with being in a physical location. It's difficult to impart that sense of belonging and importance unless you have somewhere to physically meet. That sense of community can help drive a product to be of better quality than it otherwise might have been. 

 

As well, everyone's personal hardware and software requirements are going to be very different based on what job they are performing. It's a logistical nightmare to try and ship computers, software, and replacements all over the place. It would be extremely expensive to ship large, heavy objects like desktop computers around. 

 

Also, homes are not reliable places as far as power or connectivity goes. Power goes out and bam, you've lost hours of work, whereas in a physical location, you'd probably have things like backup generators and backups for the work itself if the power went out. The lack of security is also an issue, as home networks aren't always the most secure, not to mention someone actually physically breaking in and jacking your extremely expensive hardware and software. Not only are you out that hardware/software, but your employee has to physically wait for a replacement, further pushing back development time. While it can happen at these companies, it's a lot less likely and a lot more difficult. 

 

In short, there's a lot of reasons to have a physical location, and there's a lot of reasons not to try and coordinate a game online. 

Edited April 1, 2015 by Hoeya

[sku]

What can you do in a physical building that you can't do collaboratively online, via virtual studio?

 

The answer is nothing, except to save hundreds of thousands of dollars...

Why do you even care? It's not your money, after all.

[Raeya]

Kind of an odd question. Just speaking from personal experience, but I find things are more productive and easier to manage when you work with your team in person.

[J.Burke]

Personally, I'd hate not having an office to separate work time from home time. 

 

It's also a security issue. A lot of game studios do not let you work from home because that means assets / code / etc are being accessed on random machines or networks that they do not have control over.

[Malignacious]

Kind of an odd question. Just speaking from personal experience, but I find things are more productive and easier to manage when you work with your team in person.

But there is not a single thing you can do in physical proximity that you can't do online, except for sex.

Everything else rests on organization, are you saying that bothering with organization is not worth the big costs of having to maintain a physical building, not to mention travel and everything else?

[Hexo]

What can you do in a physical building that you can't do collaboratively online, via virtual studio?

 

The answer is nothing, except to save hundreds of thousands of dollars...

 

It's plain out logical that you have better teamwork when people are actually working together physically, rather than being seperated by distance. If you want the best and most accurate design of the product being developed, you put the majority of the designers in the same building

[Bryy]

There comes a point in any working relationship when you need to be in the same room in order to get stuff done efficiently.

[ShadySands]

Half my team works remotely and personally I love working from home but it does make it hard to get away from work.

[Bryy]

My team is nationwide, but it always helps when we can get together.

[Gnostic]

 

Kind of an odd question. Just speaking from personal experience, but I find things are more productive and easier to manage when you work with your team in person.

But there is not a single thing you can do in physical proximity that you can't do online, except for sex.

Everything else rests on organization, are you saying that bothering with organization is not worth the big costs of having to maintain a physical building, not to mention travel and everything else?

 

 

Well do the cost saving offset the effectiveness and time when you have a team at a physical location?

[J.Burke]

 

Kind of an odd question. Just speaking from personal experience, but I find things are more productive and easier to manage when you work with your team in person.

But there is not a single thing you can do in physical proximity that you can't do online, except for sex.

Everything else rests on organization, are you saying that bothering with organization is not worth the big costs of having to maintain a physical building, not to mention travel and everything else?

 

 

No one said it's physically impossible. There's a reason bigger companies don't do it though. It's just not as productive in terms of actual work output. Not to mention the countless times where problems have been solved while talking casually during a coffee break with coworkers or in front of a whiteboard with a small group of people. It also allows people to interact personally with coworkers (AKA make friends at work), which increases morale and general loyalty towards the company. There's not really a price you can put on that type of thing.

[Gizmo]

But there is not a single thing you can do in physical proximity that you can't do online, except for sex.

Shake hands with a coworker; pass around a box of doughnuts; cubicle wars,  talk in private; not worry about someone at your ISP stealing game data in transit, or eaves dropping on conversations traveling through their networks. Group meetings without attendees disappearing [ due to technical difficulties ]. Walking across the room with a flash drive full of data, to test on a different PC, Mac or console machine; not worrying if not everyone owns one of each at home. Control over corporate hardware, and the option of an offline intranet for development machines;  avoiding crypto-locker. Not having to worry about friends and family using a remote development machine to download music and who knows what else bundled with it ~or them doing a system restore, or deleting something important (like saved passwords). Centralized tech support who don't have to make house calls....

 

The list is virtually endless, no?

Edited April 3, 2015 by Gizmo

[Valsuelm]

 

What can you do in a physical building that you can't do collaboratively online, via virtual studio?

 

The answer is nothing, except to save hundreds of thousands of dollars...

Why do you even care? It's not your money, after all.

 

 

He's a troll. He doesn't really care. He just creates threads for the reasons trolls do.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Valsuelm

[OnyxIdol]

The closer You are to someone, the better you'll be able to work with them. Hell, in my experience even when someone moves into your own office from down the hallway, it improves communication.

[Luj1]

A lot of people enjoy working in a social environment with a close-knit team they occasionally see when they're not working.

 

 

Exactly. Its a lot more productive to work in a social environment for long periods of time with other professionals.

[catmorbid]

 

A lot of people enjoy working in a social environment with a close-knit team they occasionally see when they're not working.

 

 

Exactly. Its a lot more productive to work in a social environment for long periods of time with other professionals.

 

Yeah, gotta second that. Being an innately lazy bastard myself, I find myself much more productive when I go to a place where I'm supposed to be more productive. Consider it another tool that can help with the already difficult process of developing a games - or any software -- or any project work overall.

[Nerdwing]

OP is a po boy, and I ~DONT~ mean the sandwich

[Hellraiser789]

Maybe because they are actually human beings and not mindless, game-making robots here for your own enjoyment....?

[Marceror]

What can you do in a physical building that you can't do collaboratively online, via virtual studio?

 

The answer is nothing, except to save hundreds of thousands of dollars...

I've been to the Obsidian offices before. There's actually no people in them. Just holographic projections from the employees who actually live in assorted bunkers under the Earth's crust.

[babaganoosh13]

Nintendo made them get that.

[nikolokolus]

I telework 2 days a week and I can tell you that when there is work to be done that requires collaboration and iteration, it's exponentially more difficult to hash that out via phone, text or teleconference than it is to speak with co-workers in person.

 

This world the OP lives in where virtual offices allow you to get more done than a real office isn't the one I live in.

[Valsuelm]

This world the OP lives in where virtual offices allow you to get more done than a real office isn't the one I live in.

 

As previously stated: The world that the OP lives in is the deluded world all forum trolls live in.

 

Please let the thread die.