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A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

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Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#11

Post by HenryBemis »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #9
narinxas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a work colleage who played games BECAUSE he made money from them... essentially some dumb kid from a real wealthy part of the world would pay my former colleague "peanuts" to upgrade their player and gather other stats.

Sure. There are a lot of opportunities in the developing world to remotely extract wealth (legally or otherwise) from the wealthiest part of the world in exchange for services at starvation wages there, thar are well above minimum wages at home. Levelling up the MMORPG characters of rich western kids in exchange for money is one of them, and telling them to "try turning it off and on again" when they're adults is ano…

I remember a friend buying 1000 gold coins on WoW for €20 back in the day. That was the price of 10 coffees at the time. He "spared" me 100 gold coins (I had only 1 at the time) and it made the WoW experience completely different.

Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#12

Post by whateveracct »

gumballindie wrote: post #8

> commute has decreased by 2 hours daily. That's 10 hours a week saved. Basically, an extra weekend. The benefits for one's mental health and family or social life are enormous. Not to mention increased productivity and extra disposable income.

I'm awake more than 5h/day on the weekend :)

Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#13

Post by keiferski »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #4

>A Video Game that Pays Errr..no. I only played video games because they were fun, not because I made any money from them. While the job or workplace, for the vast majority of people on this earth, including those in SW development, is mostly an activity done out of necessity of not being homeless and not starving, usually picked on the basis of the highest compensation because that's what pays the bills, not out of…

I spent most of my teenage years playing the “economy” of EverQuest Online Adventures, mostly by collecting rare items and selling them. I don’t think I ever reached the maximum character level, even after playing the game for half a decade.

It’s a shame I couldn’t cash all that digital money into real money, but I guess I did enjoy it anyway. I have the impression that people do similar things in games like Eve Online.

Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#14

Post by sgu999 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #10
gumballindie wrote: post #8

> commute has decreased by 2 hours daily. That's 10 hours a week saved. Basically, an extra weekend. The benefits for one's mental health and family or social life are enormous. Not to mention increased productivity and extra disposable income.

Yet companies still don't get it.

Companies are people, and many people don't like to give others what they didn't have. They wasted time commuting to reach the top of the corporate ladder, you will too. They also like to show you that they have prettier shoes and a bigger watch.

Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#15

Post by keiferski »

It does surprise me that there isn’t more direct gamification used by companies, at least by startups. Even something as simple as using a 2D basic RPG “company space” (instead of Slack, Google Docs, etc.) would be fun and visually more interesting than using a bunch of apps that all look exactly the same.

While I am a little skeptical of current-gen VR tech, it might be cool if companies in the future have custom-designed digital VR workspaces.

Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#16

Post by ta1243 »

gumballindie wrote: post #8

> commute has decreased by 2 hours daily. That's 10 hours a week saved. Basically, an extra weekend. The benefits for one's mental health and family or social life are enormous. Not to mention increased productivity and extra disposable income.

So you're saying that people should be working an extra 10 hours a day? Otherwise they are just stealing time and money form their owner^W employer

Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#17

Post by gbalduzzi »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #4

>A Video Game that Pays Errr..no. I only played video games because they were fun, not because I made any money from them. While the job or workplace, for the vast majority of people on this earth, including those in SW development, is mostly an activity done out of necessity of not being homeless and not starving, usually picked on the basis of the highest compensation because that's what pays the bills, not out of…

The article does explain the comparison, and it doesn't mean that it's fun.

These are the actual comparisons:

> You interact with people from all corners of the world.

> You complete tasks on different online platforms (Slack, GitHub, VS Code, Google Docs, etc.).

> You have a list of your main quests to complete (you can find them in your journ… Kanban board!)

> There are also side-quests to take care of (“Hey Damian, could you take a look at this bug?”).

> Sometimes you can gang up with your teammates to slay a big beast (“Hey, I have this nasty bug that I have been working on for the past few days. I know you have better knowledge of this particular part of the repository, could we jump on a pair programming session?”).

> And you get to level up once in a while!

Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#18

Post by xnorswap »

HenryBemis wrote: post #11
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. There are a lot of opportunities in the developing world to remotely extract wealth (legally or otherwise) from the wealthiest part of the world in exchange for services at starvation wages there, thar are well above minimum wages at home. Levelling up the MMORPG characters of rich western kids in exchange for money is one of them, and telling them to "try turning it off and on again" when they're adults is ano…

I remember a friend buying 1000 gold coins on WoW for €20 back in the day. That was the price of 10 coffees at the time. He "spared" me 100 gold coins (I had only 1 at the time) and it made the WoW experience completely different.

And in turn harmed the experience for anyone not engaging in buying gold.

Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#19

Post by Waterluvian »

FFP999 wrote: post #6

All we have to do now is interrupt your game several times a day so you can sit in a room and watch an NPC read every word on every slide on a Powerpoint presentation, or listen to several of them make decisions about a subject they know nothing about.

Ugh. Those bad early days of WoW where every quest description had to slowly appear on the screen.

Re: A Video Game That Pays: Lessons Learned from Working Remotely

#20

Post by FFP999 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #19
FFP999 wrote: post #6

All we have to do now is interrupt your game several times a day so you can sit in a room and watch an NPC read every word on every slide on a Powerpoint presentation, or listen to several of them make decisions about a subject they know nothing about.

Ugh. Those bad early days of WoW where every quest description had to slowly appear on the screen.

That's one thing that drives me crazy, the occasional game I see where you can't accelerate the text at all, it just dribbles out onto the screen at the pace of the slowest reader imaginable.
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