I’ve heard people say, (paraphrased) “work is work: if your going to give me free time then let me go home.”.
On the other side, an impromptu surprise that you get to be relieved of your responsibilities for the day and go do something fun seems like it would be beneficial for people’s mental health and creativity.
Yet, one can imagine if someone had a sick child at home, or some other concern that infinitely more important than work that it might be a bit torturous to go out and try to have fun with your coworkers when you would rather, and rightly so, want to be home attending to the more important thing.
Although I would want to be the type of leader that I person would feel comfortable just telling that they needed to go home if such a matter of importance were to arise.
If you gave a person a choice at the beginning of their job between a day off or an office field trip, most would probably just choose an extra day off.
Yet, much like buying a gift card for someone you know would never spend money on themselves perhaps it could be a more memorable and helpful experience for them to go out and have fun with no responsibilities.
Yet this may simply be an expression of the lonely ness and desire for human connection that I personally feel, due the current circumstances of semi isolation (just me and my partner) in a new and strange city.
I am not a CEO, I just graduated and I’m working to get my first job. One day I would like to lead people, and perhaps this, per my lack of knowledge, seems a bit farcical, but I wanted to gather some opinions, thanks!
Do it on the clock, during a work day. Make sure you plan for nothing to get done that day. Make it optional: go to the field trip (expenses paid), or take a free day of PTO. Either way they get paid and, because you planned for it in the development schedule, don’t have to worry about potentially having to play catch up because of the day off later. That way it gives them the choice to go do something fun on the company’s dime or stay at home and recharge. Another thing to note: don’t limit yourself to game-related stuff like video game museums.
Go to an aquarium.
Go to a zoo.
Go to a national park if there’s one nearby.
Go to a natural science museum.
The artistic side of game dev takes inspiration from a wide variety of sources, not just other forms of media. Tbh, the most boring field trip I can think of would be to go to a movie theater or video game museum. I want to see something new and take inspiration from that.
Honestly love these ideas because I get the sense that as an adult (it’s stupid) but some people would be afraid to go to these places alone