Thread by @Gaohmee

The poll from yesterday has ended and it has generated so much ruckus that I feel like I need to say a few words about it.
Over 10k people have voted, leading me to believe that a lot of people who voted were not gamedevs and next time I’d like folks to respect the assignment.

But about the topic, I want to stress that neither answer is wrong here, despite the slant being very very clearly towards working with the right team. There seems to be a lot of tension between the two camps and while neither are wrong, I can see why that would be the case.

Like in any social settings, people can want different things out of it and that’s okay. It can mean that it makes you incompatible to be part of the same social group, at least temporarily, because the goals you have could be different or even contradictory.

It’s worth noting that a lot of people who picked team were trauma voting and admitted so themselves. They may have been on traumatizing teams, which are more common than you think. It’s no secret that we have toxic spaces in this industry.

It’s also worth noting that a lot (not all) of the team votes came from people who have been in this industry for longer and who’s focus for work and projects has shifted over the years or their experience is that they enjoy making games with the right people around them.

That can be due to purely enjoying the collaborative nature of our work more than what you’re actually making (like me) or due to believing that the right team already makes the dream game for you. All of these stances are valid.

Folks who have chosen dream game seemed to - from what I can tell from reading all replies - be a little earlier in their career or fine creative fulfillment more important when choosing a job. Or have had trauma from working on unethical games. All are valid.

I’m very fascinated with all of your perspectives - thank you for sharing them! It does fill me with joy to see so many people focused on building great teams because I think that’s a helpful focus for where our industry is at right now.

I’ve listened to everyone with a different perspective to that with curiosity and can see where they are coming from. I hope all of you get to work on your dream games, you deserve it and I’m keen to play them all ❤️

I want to bring one footnote to the discussion for people’s consideration and food for thought: the original poll specifically mentions alignment in VALUE as the marker for “dream team”, which lead to a lot of marginalized folks connecting with that option.

There is a learning opportunity here because a lot of marginalized developers are looking for value alignment in jobs because misalignment could mean not valuing diversity, not valuing progressive thought both in people and project, which is why many chose the team option.

Just something to think about if you’re running teams or companies, what values you communicate in both your work and your outward presence... :)