Tek, this mod supersedes all your others. I will have your babies for this one.
Quote:
Originally posted by Tekkub
I honestly don't understand software companies that require people to live and work at their office... look at the addon community here, it's HUGE and thriving, and we live ALL OVER THE WORLD. This is the internet age, WoW's an internet game.... why do the devs need to live in CA and work in an office?
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Part of it is that some companies just don't know how to manage that type of implementation model or, oddly enough, fear that distributed management will slow production. Another part is the expense of the proprietary-goods-protecting connectivity needed, and this totally ignores the expense of shipping equipment all the hell over vs dumping it on the loading doc (and don't forget machines needing to be fixed, asset tracking, recovery, etc, etc).
For collaborative efforts like WoW, there really is a synergy in having people in the same location, both in the social and technical aspects. Whiteboards and quickly drawn visuals are not to be under-rated in brain storming sessions; the quick in-and-out of social/technical that people do fact-to-face helps refocus people for long duration sessions not to mention the visual cues that primates use to read situations; even the basic social bonds that are built from working in the same location foster a stronger work ethic, easier/more relaxed communication, and all the other social goodies that build team spirit so critical to group success.
I'm blessed with a company (global tech company) that embraced a distributed workforce (almost OVER-embraced it) and invested in a lot of technologies to facilitate it and I gotta tell you I looooooove working from home (no traffic, can walk the dog when I want, multi-task or time-switch for a good work/life balance, mute the phone and say what I
really want to say, etc. Perks are numerous -- hell my boss will ask me if WoW patched and I'll log in and find out.
With that, however, there are downsides. My team now works almost exclusively distributed when 92% of us used to be in the same hallway. Social bonds -- things that kept us pushing harder -- are strained, some team-mates you never really get to know, ancillary knowledge transfer is greatly diminished, collaboration often takes a while over the phone or conf calls, etc.
We're global and work on global teams (one of my current projects has people from about 15 countries on it doing UAT right now) so
most of our stuff is remote anyway so the company figures it can save some bucks paying for our home tie-lines or VoIP and cable/dsl, etc rather than servicing a many big-assed building and just assume
most work is distributed since we do so much of it.
Along with that, managers schedule 'get-togethers' so that there are SOME social aspects to the team and you can meet more than just the people you have projects with. The company holds frequent 'networking' events so you can meet the people you would otherwise spill coffee on in the elevator some time during the week.
For something the size of Blizzard the investment is likely just too high for the benefit for a few distributed folks combined with the loss of rapport that undoubtedly speeds up their creative (such as it is) atmosphere.
(I still keep an office on-site but I only go in a few times a year to change the air. There is a sweet, sweet freedom of the only traffic between you and work is stepping over the dog to get your coffee -- of course, when you have to say "sorry I was late to the meeting, wife came home early and well..." it's a bit awkward ...or hysterical depending which end of it you were on
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)) and ALL you other modders out there.. THANKS A MILLION guys and gals!! 
