It's 2020, and it's increasingly feasible for game teams to be geographically distributed. With the cloud storage, fiber internet, 5G LTE, smartphones, cellular modems and ubiquitous wifi, working remotely is increasingly an option for anyone to achieve at any level of seniority... technically. But what skills and disciplines are necessary to transition from a full-time office worker into someone that works from home, a coffee shop, or the road? It's a lot more than simply VPNing in, syncing to latest from your team's source control, and checking email twice a day. Establishing a persistent, reliable remote presence that attracts and retains clients demands a very particular skillset. If you're wondering how to transition into working from home for your full-time job, wanting to hone your skills as a project manager utilizing remote teams, or even if you're thinking of striking out on your own and going indie, check it out!

1. How to Cut the Tether and
Work from Anywhere
Jon Jones
Art Production Director, smArtist
jonjones.com

2. Who is Jon Jones?
●16 years in game dev, 9 of it remote
●Worked on 50+ titles
●Specializing in freelance outsourcing management and
building remote teams
●Worked with Epic Games, Avalanche Studios, 2K
Games, NCsoft, Sony Online Entertainment, Playdom,
Riot Games, and more.

3. ●Much has been written about the tech,
tools, home setups, and philosophy of this.
●I’m not here to repeat them.
●Here are the less-explored gritty details.
Cutting the Tether

4. ●Same job as now, except from home?
●Freelance from contract to contract?
●Make your own game, freelance to pay bills?
What do you really want to do?

5. Be open and easy to find.
●Communication and ubiquity are key.
● Identify primary channel of raw communication.
● Email? Slack? Skype? Hangouts? Text? Smoke signal?
●BE WHERE THEY LOOK FIRST.
●Have unquestioned mastery of all relevant dev tools.
● Where are submissionsdeliveries expected?
● Where will highest priority contributions be noticed first?
● How can your thoroughness be easy to verify?
● These are not shell games. This is to verify your worth.

6. ●“I just want to spend more time with my cats.”
●Sad truth:
● Sometimes orgs simply won’t allow remote work.
● Management by walking around is the norm.
● Control = see, speak to, observe you physically
● Worst case, remote work = severed senses
● This leads to anxiety. Anxious boss = bad boss.
●You can practice a lot of techniques onsite first!
Scenario 1: Same job from home

7. ●Your job is to BE WHERE THEY LOOK FIRST.
● If they wonder where you or your work are, you screwed up.
●Actively compensate for being out of sight.
●Learn how to get answers from afar, fast.
● Which coworkers ignore emailIM? Who’s always texting?
● If source control is down, where else does info live?
● It’s late and you need help. Who always stays late?
●Challenge yourself constantly on being resourceful.
Project yourself remotely.

8. ●When working remotely, you are responsible for:
● Hardware
● Storage
● Connectivity
● High responsiveness
● Consistent productivity
●It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
●I’d prefer 90% every day to 110%, 50%, 110%, 50%
●Strive to be a high-performing predictable resource
Accept greater responsibility.

9. ●Plan your moves in advance.
● Step up at work and perform better than ever. Sustain it.
● Increase mastery of tools and tech.
● Write about your craft. Blog and publish!
● Speak at conferences, local and national.
● Practice telepresence while onsite. Be a visible contributor.
● Increase your stature inside and out of the company.
●This will make your request to work from home an easier “yes”
Lay groundwork: Increase your value.

10. ●Ask employer about work-from-home policy.
●Clearly define what “performing to expectations” means.
You need goalposts.
●Suggest 1 daywk to start, review in 3 months
●Next, ask for 2 days per week
●Be consistent, predictable, and dependable
● Don’t be sneaky. Anything except full honesty will ruin the
opportunity.
How to ask?

11. ●“I’m not looking to be tied down right now.”
●Sad truth:
● Freelancing is HARD.
● You will spend ~50% of your time doing biz dev.
● Doing taxes for freelancing sucks.
● Chasing clients for payment sucks.
● You’re in customer service now, and that might suck.
●You will truly appreciate what admin, legal, finance, and biz dev
departments silently do.
Scenario 2: Freelancer life!

12. ●Find out what kind of side work your employer permits,
if any.
●Be prolific. Publish and broadcast your work.
● Start months before you want to go fulltime remote.
● This is a marketing campaign focused on you.
● Establish credibility as an expert. Network. Mingle.
Contract work and offers will gradually come to you.
● Never stop doing this once you start.
Where do I start?

13. Where to find clients
●Stay in touch with former employers.
●Contact old bosses and ask about work.
●If no, ask for recommendations or leads.
●Stay up-to-date with game dev news.
● Contact new studios opening up.
● Create an “offering my services” email template
and use it. Email outreach is your life now.

14. ●Preparation
●Discipline
●Security
●Marketing
●Tenacity
Cutting the Tether in Five Acts:

15. ●Decide: Mobile or work from home?
●Buy your own equipment
●Broad software proficiency
Preparation

16. Decide: Mobile or work from home?
●Mobile is good for:
●Producers, PMs, and directors
●Work involving travel
●Cool cities with lots of cafescoworking spaces
●Work at home is good for:
●Artists or devs with serious hardware needs
●VR developers
●Parents that can work with minimal interruption

17. Buy your own equipment
●You are responsible for all your hardware
● Expensive, but absolutely worth it
●Don’t go cheap
● Invest in your ongoing relevance
● Deduct it on your taxes!
●A dedicated work machine is ideal

18. ●You use whatever tools your clients use
● NEVER MIX WORK AND PERSONAL ACCOUNTS!
● Create new work-only accounts for these services:
●Google, Slack, Trello, Skype, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive
● Pay for and license all your own software
● Common tools used in remote work:
●Perforce, Jira, Basecamp, Trello, Hansoft, SVN
Broad software proficiency

19. Discipline
●Ubiquity
●Workspace
●Responsiveness
●Disaster readiness

20. ●Use the services your clients use
● “You use this app? I’m already on it. Here’s my work
account info.”
● Integrate with the team in the tools where they work
● Never ask a client sign up for anything - you adapt.
●Establish a powerful, reliable remote presence to
build their trust in you
Ubiquity

21. ●Set aside a dedicated workspace
● Do not work and play in the same area
●That is purgatory: never fully working or playing
● Remove attention-distracting items
● Establish work-time boundaries with family
●You can’t work remotely with constant distraction
●Mismanaging this weakens both work and family relationships
●If you say yes to every contract, you will quickly hate your life
●Learning to balance this takes time
Workspace

22. Responsiveness
●Always:
● Respond quickly and follow up when you say you will
● Communicate in the channels they expect
● Show up early and dress well for remote meetings
●Remote work on an ongoing basis is earned
● When working onsite, attendance means “I see that seat is
full.” When working offsite, attendance means “they
consistently respond to us quickly.”

23. ●Realistic scenarios to plan for:
● Power outage
● Internet cell service outage
● Hard drive crash
● Stolen hard drive laptop
● Hospital or family emergency
● Non-specific hardware failure
Disaster Readiness

24. Security
●Encrypt your drives
●Use a Password Manager
●Two-factor authentication on everything
●Virtual Private Network on everything

25. ●Professional website
●LinkedIn
●Networking
●Publicity
Marketing

26. Professional website
●Use your name or a new company name
● Short, easy to remember, professional
● Get the .com or .net
● Avoid weird TLDs (.biz, .radio, .xxx, etc)
●Summarize your services
● 3 - 5 bulletpoints. Ask friends for input
●List prominent projects and employers
● Only list roles where you did what you’re selling

27. ●Being on LinkedIn is not optional
● Top biz networking site in the world
● First place people with money will look you up
● No LinkedIn presence? You look riskyunprofessional
●Polish your LinkedIn presence
● Update rolesdescriptions, spellcheck, use proper tense
● Give and request recommendations
● Add projects, link to coworkers on those projects
LinkedIn, part 1

28. ●Connect to your coworkers
●Connect to recruiters (this expands your network reach)
●Always add people you know, and be polite
●Join relevant LinkedIn user groups
●Get in the habit of cold emailing and introducing yourself
● Don’t be shy. Rip off the band-aid. You must be constantly
communicating and networking
●Follow industry goings-on with LinkedIn
LinkedIn, part 2

29. ●Attend trade shows constantly
● GDC is the highest value, in my experience
● Also XDS, E3, Gamescom, PAX, Steam Dev Days
●Look up and join local game dev user groups
● Attend meetups, game jams, workshops, game nights, beer
nights, drinkups, job fairs
●Always have business cards ready
● Zazzle and Moo offer great quality cards and designs
Networking

30. ●Publish articles on your area of focus
● Publish on your site, cross-publish to LinkedIn
●Apply to speak at industry events
● Local IGDA chapters are a great place to start
●Publish original content frequently
● Do reddit AMAs, Twitter Q&As, request a guest spot on
industry podcasts, be active and helpful on industry forums
Publicity

31. ●Constant biz dev
●Taxes and expenses
●Cabin fever
Tenacity

32. ●Expect 40% of your time to be biz dev
●Always be networking, always be selling
●You work to secure next month’s income, not this
month’s
●When employed, this is invisible to you
● Respect founders, admin, finance, and legal
Constant biz dev

33. ●Retaining clients means ongoing customer service.
●Understand what “doing a good job” means on a per-client
basis
● They may define it differently. Be explicit. Only their opinion matters.
You’re in customer service now

34. ●Be responsive, aware, present, and always check in.
●Always BE WHERE THEY LOOK FIRST.
●Keep in touch with old clients.
●Manage time wisely. Don’t get greedy.
● Shiny new gig is tempting, but serve your existing client well
How to retain clients

35. ●Work with an accountant from DAY ONE
● Do everything they say
● Remember, taxes are not withheld now
●Start a tax savings account for paying taxes
●Be frugal and focus on savings
● Plan for lean times
● Budget for disasters
Taxes and expenses

36. ●A dedicated workspace helps you focus
●Get plenty of exercise and sunlight
●Create healthy daily rituals
● Do yoga, walk your dog, cook for yourself, take language
lessons, develop a new hobby
●Maintain strict separation of work life
Cabin Fever

37. ●Any questions?
Additional talksresources at www.jonjones.com
Jon Jones
Art Production Director, smArtist
jon@gameartproducer.com @jonjones
Thanks for listening!