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Here are some pets to make your day better

GamesIndustry.biz comes through with perhaps its most important feature yet

When we consider any new type of coverage at GamesIndustry.biz, one of the key questions we ask ourselves is, "How does this serve our readers?"

For the purposes of that question, our readership is a little more specific than just anyone who reads the site. Because we are a trade site, serving our readers means serving an audience of people working within the games industry or looking to get into it.

If we can't provide a convincing argument for how any piece of new content would serve the interests of that audience, then the coverage in question doesn't belong on the site.

Ordinarily that keeps us focused squarely on matters of serious importance to the games industry rather than whatever we think people might personally enjoy reading about.

But as you may have noticed, we are not living in ordinary times. The news has been dominated by COVID-19 these past few months, and it's not the kind of thing you can escape from by simply shutting down the computer and enjoying the world outside. Partly because you're probably not allowed to go outside.

You didn't come here for cold, hard numbers. You came here for soft, fuzzy furballs

Honestly, we're tired of writing about it. We believe many of you are tired of reading about it. Neither of us are going to be able to stop that entirely for a while yet, but there's nothing that says we can't take a break. In fact, we were thinking our readers would probably be well served by a little breather from the news.

So in the interest of serving our readers, we approached a number of contacts throughout the industry recently and asked them to send us pictures of cute pets, figuring we could bundle them all up into an article and just let people scroll through adorable picture after adorable picture of soul-soothing fluffballs, scaly pals, or what have you. It turns out this was not a particularly original thought. A number of the people we approached told us that when their companies shifted to everybody working from home, employees spontaneously created dedicated Slack channels specifically for the sharing of employee pet pictures. Electronic Arts even got back to us with stats:

  • 123 - Number of pet photos posted on EA Studio's Slack on a single day -- Friday, March 13 -- as the company settled into working from home
  • 279* - Number of pets posted to the channel
  • 48% - Percentage of pets posted that were dogs
  • 44% - Percentage of pets posted that were cats
  • 17% - Percentage of photos with more than one pet in them. Most of those pics were of two (or more) cats
  • 55 - Number of pet pics from EA Tiburon employees, about 20% of the channel and the most of any EA studio

*Number slightly lower if you don't include plants, rocks, or sourdough starters as pets.

But that's enough pet metrics for now. You didn't come here for cold, hard numbers. You came here for soft, fuzzy furballs. And we have lots of them. Too many, in fact.

The response to our inquiry for pet pics has been so overwhelming that we're going to spread them out over a number of features, hopefully helping to bolster spirits for as long as it takes for us to get through this. So thank you to everyone who shared their pictures with us, and everyone who helped us compile them here. If you're in the industry and would like to join the effort, you can send your pet pics to us at news@gamesindustry.biz.

Bagel (left) and Pie, submitted by Blue Byte junior game designer Patricia Kamen
Anika, submitted by Blizzard game producer James T. Yen
Blue, submitted by PR consultant Susan Lusty and Joseph Staten, Senior Creative Director, Xbox Game Studios Publishing
Jax, submitted by EA Shanghai studio technical art director Mark Carter
Chanka, submitted by Galo Balbuena, support representative at Ubisoft's US Customer Relationship Center
Hanabi, submitted by Resident Evil 3 remake producer Peter Fabiano
Soa, submitted by Monster Hunter: World director Yuya Tokuda
Jonesy, submitted by Ubisoft Toronto narrative designer Nuha Alkadi
Cherry, submitted by EA Bucharest software engineer Iliescu Sebastian Aurelian
Cita, submitted by Snowcastle Games developer Christian Lassem
Colin, submitted by Paul Ireland, senior support desk technician at Creative Assembly
Dewey, submitted by Double Eleven QA tester (Minecraft Dungeons) Courtney Raine
Diggle, submitted by Double Eleven production assistant (Minecraft Dungeons) Andrew Nisbet
Dusty, submitted by Creative Assembly associate environment artist Ashley Heppell
Carlton, submitted by EA Tiburon associate development manager Alex Quinn
Ellie, submitted by Mediatonic concept artist Kate Price
Fizz, submitted by Mediatonic client programmer Craig Purkiss
George, submitted by Mediatonic office manager Anna Vancouver
Lexi, submitted by Double Eleven junior marketing associate (Rust) Ryan Smith
Harvey Birdman, submitted by Phoenix Labs' Greg Hennessey
Heidi, submitted by Nicolas d'Offay, gameplay programmer at Splash Damage
Hen Solo and Princess Laya, submitted by Phoenix Labs' Isaac Epp
Jack Daniels, submitted by Phoenix Labs' Rachel Tung
Jack, submitted by EA Redwood Shores producer John Faciane
Leah, submitted by Fatshark CTO Rikard Blomberg
Lexi, submitted by Fatshark CEO Martin Wahlund
Lily, submitted by Phoenix Labs' Andy Burt
Luke, submitted by Devolver Digital founder and spiritual adviser Mike Wilson
Signe, submitted by EA SEED Sweden people director Effeli Holst
Mali, submitted by Ubisoft San Francisco senior brand manager Jon Bailey
Maui, submitted by Maxis Austin senior game designer Lisa Farina
Kuma and Ragnar, submitted by Double Eleven (Rust) production assistant Rostt Scott
Pambo, submitted by Double Eleven product design manager Natalie Wicks and QA lead Daniel Schwendener (Minecraft Dungeons)
Max, submitted by Creative Assembly relocation coordinator Tyla Head
Meeko, submitted by Blizzard principle narrative designer Dave Kosak
Milo, submitted by Fortitude office manager Kirsten Stewart
Mooshie Squish Miller, submitted by Modus Games senior graphic designer Elena Miller
Mouse (left) and Tuna, submitted by Ubisoft Toronto corporate affairs director Lesley Phord-Toy
Doug, submitted by Indigo Pearl managing director Caroline Miller
Mr. Cadbury, submitted by Mediatonic game designer Tom Coppen
Nessie and Peaches, submitted by Splash Damage operations project manager Cinzia Musio
Noctics, submitted by EA Redwood Shores experience designer Howard Moen
Gracie, submitted by Double Eleven lead designer (Minecraft Dungeons) Matt Dunthorne
Hikari, submitted by Double Eleven producer (Minecraft Dungeons) Steven Taarland
Jerrie, submitted by Double Eleven junior environment artist (Minecraft Dungeons) Stewart Morrison
Nova, submitted by Blizzard brand manager Katie Simpson
Nugget, submitted by Annapurna's Jeff Legaspi
Ollie, submitted by DICE Los Angeles systems designer Stephen Auker
Ori, submitted by Snowcastle Games concept artist Domen Kozelj
Peaches, submitted by Maxis Redwood Shores senior producer Grant Rodiek
Pebble, submitted by Double Eleven 3D artist (Minecraft Dungeons) Stephen Sharples
From left to right, Pinky, Puff, Pi, and Pumpkin, submitted by Ubisoft Toronto art director Joshua Cook and level artist Cindy Cook
Quilliam, submitted by Phoenix Labs' Jeanne-Marie Owens
Henry, submitted by KO_OP narrative designer Kate Gray
Rocky McPuppy, submitted by EA Tiburon UX designer Chris Husein
Siren, submitted by Ubisoft Singapore narrative designer Ian Fun
Sebastian, submitted by Blizzard software engineer Cody Childers
Starbuck, submitted by Blizzard analyst Melissa Lee
Pogo, submitted by Double Eleven artist (Minecraft Dungeons) Ben Exell
Boomer, submitted by Phoenix Labs' Lindz Williamson Christy
Smokey and Juno, submitted by Creative Assembly senior VFX artist Steph Anderson
Charlie, submitted by Tag Games UI artist Joanne McInnes
Samus, submitted by Double Eleven associate producer (Prison Architect) Adrien Dugue
Tao, submitted by Snowcastle Games lead artist Fredrik Tyskerud
Tigerlily, submitted by EA Worldwide Studios Content Team's VP of EA Create, Molly Mason Boulé
Titch, submitted by Double Eleven programmer (Minecraft Dungeons) Samuel Steven Neesam
Toby, submitted by Splash Damage lead UI designer Tom Gantzer
Kira, submitted by Tag Games artist Kerri Targett
Willow, submitted by Mediatonic video producer Alan Campbell
Wricky, submitted by Snowcastle Games CEO Erik Hoftun
Zippo, submitted by Ubisoft Bucharest associate lead online programmer Felix-Aime Millon
Ziggy, submitted by Blizzard community development manager Andrew Kauz
Cooper, submitted by Double Eleven QA tester (Prison Architect) Darren Arquette
Louie, submitted by GamesIndustry.biz senior staff writer Haydn Taylor
Robo and Lucca, submitted by GamesIndustry.biz staff writer Rebekah Valentine
Kya, submitted by GamesIndustry.biz North American editor Brendan Sinclair

Additional reporting by Rebekah Valentine and Marie Dealessandri

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Brendan Sinclair avatar
Brendan Sinclair: Brendan joined GamesIndustry.biz in 2012. Based in Toronto, Ontario, he was previously senior news editor at GameSpot.
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