Gaming, in general, is referred to as a hobby, something to do in your free time. It is often described as an unproductive activity that, in its core, is about wasting that valuable currency we all strive to spend rationally but more than often don’t. Most of us tend to see gaming as a rewarding activity after a hard day of work, a method of unwinding our minds from the amount of stress we face in our day to day lives or a way to hang out with our friends.

I have invested a lot of time into gaming. It became one of the main pillars of my personality, and that’s precisely why I have co-founded a startup with gaming at its core. With no surprise to anyone, our company’s culture is embued by gamers, and gaming brakes during work are, to this day, a routine activity.

As a gamer, gaming during work is heaven. And although making our company a paradise for games is one of our main goals, from a managerial position, it raises a lot of concerns.

The bad

As we discussed, gaming is, in its core, a time-wasting activity born to cure one’s boredom. Work is the exact opposite. Most of the time, they can’t co-exist. Within a game, there are no clocks telling you how much time has passed; there’s no Trello or Jira board full of tasks you have to complete or deadlines you need to meet; Your only immediate job is to destroy the nexus, slay the boss, or be the last man standing. After you finish that urgent task and are finally released from the commitment shackles of modern multiplayer games, you realize two hours have passed. You didn’t even start writing your first line of code, and your productivity is in shambles.

The Good

While our jobs are ever-growing in demand, keeping our productivity high throughout the day is not an easy feat. As an engineer, you are trying to grasp the enormous amount of business logic inside your brain and write it out in a clean and sturdy code that hardly comes out the way you intend to. When you finally finish writing the module, you go on to the next task, but your mind keeps nagging you about this line of code that might not make it through the review, and then you realize it — you need to restart. It turns out gaming sessions are a great way to do exactly that, a game clears your mind from thoughts about business logic or work, it demands your full attention and focus, it lets you in a productive way restart, and to top it all off when you play a multiplayer game with another engineer in your team you practically practice better communication and teamwork towards a common goal!

Finding the balance

While it can be productive to game during work, the pitfalls are there and are easy to fall into. Some companies take gaming as a lunch break activity to help bond employees together, and some see it as a restart mechanism to help boost productivity when individual burnout is present. Both managers and employees need to be aware of those pitfalls; here is some helpful advice that helped us find a balance between gaming and working:

• Limit your time to an hour or one game.

• Try not to be spontaneous — schedule your gaming sessions.

• Play multiplayer games and invite people to join you — try playing as a team and promote teamwork and better communication.

• Don’t ask people to join if they are focused on something else — don’t distract people from work.

• Find a game that suits your needs — some games are intense, and some are more relaxed, it depends on what you need.

• If you are not productive after playing, don’t game — it’s not for everyone, the goal is to be productive.

In summary, if you game correctly and watch out from the pitfalls, it can be a productive activity to do by yourself or with your team, try to make the best out of it and enjoy your time, but keep in mind the goal — productivity.