I don't think these things are really done because you get more done at an office.
I think it's more of a litmus test: If you care about your work enough that you're willing to come to the office every day (or even move cities/countries), then you'll be extremely engaged.
So by saying "you have to come to the office 5 days a week", you will only get people who are very engaged and will get a lot done—even if it's not because of the office.
I guarantee there's a Venn diagram of extremely engaged people who also prefer (or will exclusively do) remote work, which office-only companies will miss out on.
But when you're in a high talent-density area like NYC/SF maybe that's not a big concern.
So willingness to come to the office becomes a proxy metric for how much you care, which obviously influences your engagement.
Its a filter for bad negotiators. Throw 1.5h commute on top of 9-10h work and you filter for people who have no sense of self-preservation and thus will also suck at negotiation. 3 years in burnout, rinse and repeat.
Game-development already is a super-hostile work environment, where "talent" is regularly replaced by some starry eyed university-grad for cheap. If people are just ablative material and payment is all the captain crunch you can eat in the cafeteria, nobody at a cult gets to work remote.
As someone who's not into gaming, it's still astounding to me how people endure the working conditions in that industry just because they're obsessed with video games.
I suppose it's the weird dynamic in our society where you get paid less and have worse working conditions the more passion you feel for your work.
It were okay, but the problem is- the industries that exploit the young and naive - actively pull out tentacles to draw in more of the young and naive. Thats what all the hollywood "how to become a star" and "talentshows" are.. get fresh meat..
That isn't it. Employers know that if you have passion, you'll be willing to work more for less money. Which is why they so often insist on passion.
Also, I've seen plenty of people on HN insist that people doing "creative" work (excepting programmers, who are obviously worth every penny) should do so for free so as not to taint the purity of their work with capitalist incentives.
It isn't an assumption that what's fun can't be highly paid, rather it's an assumption that what's fun shouldn't be highly paid.
> I think it's more of a litmus test: If you care about your work enough that you're willing to come to the office every day (or even move cities/countries), then you'll be extremely engaged.
Sure, but what if there is another company closer to me (office), or offering hybrid or full remote work? I can about my work just the same elsewhere.
I think you're on the right track, but in my opinion, it is more about having reliable employees than employees who care or are engaged. Your actual performance and talent could be bad, but so long as you won't ask for too much pay and you won't leave any time soon, that is what these companies want more than talent. This is sort of what I was alluding to. disruptive startups would never think this way, but EA isn't that anymore. neither are google or facebook. they're no longer disruptive, they are complacent and spiraling into the IBM and AT&T like mediocrity.
> I think you're on the right track, but in my opinion, it is more about having reliable employees than employees who care or are engaged.
Sure! I think the (maybe sad) reality is that most larger companies don't actually need excellence in most roles.
First, excellent people tend to have bigger variance and second, most jobs just don't require being that good.
I imagine that in today's Apple, there's no way Jony Ive would be as influential. And maybe that's just how things go:
The types of people who can innovate and change things are dissatisfied with the status quo. But once you ARE the status quo, you seek precisely the people who want to maintain it.
> If you care about your work enough that you're willing to come to the office every day (or even move cities/countries), then you'll be extremely engaged.
Or extremely stupid (if for the same money you get WFH without the need to move to another city or even country and waste I don't know how many hours commuting, and spending most of your life in a space that you can't really adapt to your needs).
I think it's more of a litmus test: If you care about your work enough that you're willing to come to the office every day (or even move cities/countries), then you'll be extremely engaged.
So by saying "you have to come to the office 5 days a week", you will only get people who are very engaged and will get a lot done—even if it's not because of the office.
I guarantee there's a Venn diagram of extremely engaged people who also prefer (or will exclusively do) remote work, which office-only companies will miss out on.
But when you're in a high talent-density area like NYC/SF maybe that's not a big concern.
So willingness to come to the office becomes a proxy metric for how much you care, which obviously influences your engagement.