Latest to pioneer the four-day work week.
February 10, 2022
[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Game Developer and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press]
Author: Blackbird Interactive
Vancouver - February 10, 2022
Blackbird Interactive (BBI), creators of the award-winning Hardspace: Shipbreaker and developer of the upcoming Homeworld 3 and Crossfire: Legion, are implementing a studio-wide four-day work week beginning in April of 2022. In addition, BBI will be giving employees the option of extreme work location flexibility.
“Without our crew we are nothing. They are the most important asset to our studio and their mental health is the most important thing to them and therefore to us. Burnout in our industry is real and a common problem. Even worse, it’s a problem that can’t be effectively treated, only prevented,” BBI’s CEO Rob Cunningham explained. “So we did a four-day work week trial with multiple project teams and collected every bit of before and after data we could: code and content submits, task estimates vs. actuals, mental health surveys, verbal comments, interviews, and monitored the outcome closely. The results were stunning. Productivity did NOT drop and literally everything else improved: quality, effectiveness, efficiency, morale, interpersonal relationships and so on. It was an overabundance of positivity. Making a four-day work week our new policy moving forwards was an absolute no-brainer.”
The four-day work week was an idea that came from the feedback of developers themselves, in fact, not from management.
"We’re a studio that is very employee driven,” Pam Lee, Blackbird Interactive’s Director of HR said. “Great ideas come from everyone, regardless of your background, discipline, and experience level. The idea of the four-day work week literally came from our employees. When we asked employees to give us feedback on some retention ideas, the four-day work week was by far the most popular one. We were ready to consider some out of the box ideas and this was one that the leadership team felt we had to look into. We’re an agile company and within a couple of weeks we set up the four-day work week pilot with two of our projects. We recognize that we have to create systems that allow flexibility for our employees to be able to thrive both professionally and personally.”
The studio has already benefited from the new pace of the work week, in fact.
“Our team was under huge pressure and on the verge of burnout due to the nature of working from home during a critical period of production, with the added stress of Covid on top of that. When the trial was over it was obvious the four-day work week saved us. I don’t think we could have got to where we are today without it.” Jessica Klyne, Lead Producer on Hardspace Shipbreaker said. “Arrangements that respect work/life balance are absolutely going to be a competitive advantage for Blackbird, but it’s also important to share what we’ve learned. It would make us really happy to see other studios join us in this healthier, more effective way to create games.”
Members of the executive team at Blackbird Interactive are available for press interviews to talk about the process and answer questions about the data collected during the trials, as sharing the results was always part of the plan for the transition. Our Press Kit includes additional info and assets about the studio and our games.
Blackbird Interactive is the game development studio behind such games as Homeworld: Deserts of Karak, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and the upcoming Homeworld 3 and Crossfire: Legion. Founded by Rob Cunningham, Yossarian King, and Aaron Kambeitz in 2010, the award-winning Vancouver studio was listed among the fastest growing Canadian companies by revenue in 2020 and 2021.
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