The worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic led to widespread changes in how many business approach their employees' safety, with video game developers likeJagex working from home on the MMORuneScape. While some places are beginning to return to normal, the United States is still highly affected with over 61,000 new cases reported since yesterday according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and as a result Google has decided to keep its employees working from home until at least July 2021.
This announcement was made through an email to staff from Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., following a Wall Street Journal report. According to the Wall Street Journal,Googleis the first major U.S. corporation to formalize an extended work from home timeline that will affect roughly 200,000 full-time and contract employees in offices across America, the UK, India, Brazil, and elsewhere.
RELATED:Skully Interview: Dev Talks Theming, Inspirations, and Working From Home
Pichai wrote in his email that, “We are still learning a lot from our experiences of working from home and will use that knowledge to inform our approach to the future of work at Google.” Though less convenient than working in person, companies likeBungie have worked from home through tech such as Google Stadia, the conglomerate’s game streaming platform, showing options are available to persevere in certain industries.
Variety reports that Google workers “will be able to choose to work from home” through the new July deadline, as per confirmation from the company. Some parts of the work have been more successful at tackling the outbreak, which has led toresumed television filming in places like New Zealand, so it does make sense for this restriction to be a choice.
The affect of the pandemic on an innumerable amount of industries and worldly affairs is hard to overstate, but the entertainment industry has been hit especially hard by public gathering restrictions and social distancing. In a survey of 2,500 people ahead of its digital-only summer convention, the Game Developers Conference foundone third of developers had games delayed by COVID-19.
Despite this, businesses such as Google are slowly adapting to this new normal, and in some cases are carrying on with major work endeavors. For instance,Google Stadia confirmed partnerships with major studiosincluding Harmonix, Uppercut Games, and Supermassive Games to create new titles for the platform earlier this month.
MORE:Google is Replacing Nest Thermostats That Won’t Connect to the Internet
