Work Hard, Play Harder: The Gaming Culture of Yammer
Kyle Gordon
If I told you there’s a strong gaming culture at Yammer, I’m sure that wouldn’t surprise you. Heck, you’d be more surprised if I told you there wasn’t such a culture. Silicon Valley is the center for nerddom, and video games are an important aspect of that culture. But I’m not talking about video games. I’m talking about tabletop games.
Now don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of people here who play video games. Many a Friday night sees Yammer employees joining together for Starcraft and League of Legends. But that’s not the only kind of gaming we do here. In fact, video games on Fridays aren’t nearly the social club that our tabletop nights are.
Never trust someone with green hair!
Saboteur, Dominion, Agricola, Cosmic Encounter, Avalon; these are just a few of the regulars we have at our weekly gatherings. But these games are just a backdrop for the real draw of game nights: the culture.
Culture is immensely important at Yammer. Our game nights have running jokes of their own. Who will be the first person to spill their beer on the game pieces? Someone with colored hair is obviously not someone to be trusted (related: I had blue hair for the longest time)! These are the important aspects of game nights, arguably more important than the games themselves. As someone who relocated to San Francisco specifically for my job at Yammer, the sense of belonging that these game nights inspire was instrumental to my adapting to my new environment. Most of my friends I met through game night, or through someone I met at game night.
…How do I know if I’m the saboteur again?
We don’t game alone at Yammer, either; game nights commonly feature players from companies all around the bay area.
It all started when a group of us from Yammer were gaming late one night after a company picnic. Ely Lerner from Yelp was at the office for an event, and saw us in one of the rooms playing a game of Saboteur. He asked if he could join, and we happily obliged. Ever since then, Yelp and Yammer have been hosts to game nights featuring guests from Twitter, Google, Apple, Zynga, Lyft, and other companies located in the Silicon Valley area. These nights really inspire a sense of camaraderie across companies that can be otherwise difficult to acquire.
Karina: Where did all you adventurers come from?
I’ve never seen so many in one area!
Beth: Comic-Con.
But board games aren’t the only type of tabletop gaming we do here at Yammer. With the help of fellow engineer Karina Chow, I put together a bi-weekly game of Pathfinder (an offshoot of Dungeons & Dragons). The beauty of these role-playing games is that they allow this canvas for creativity for everyone involved. I created the world and populated it with NPCs and stories, and Karina brought it to life with her beautiful drawings and maps. And our players? Every session they surprise me with new and inventive ways of solving problems.
I enter the room, I take out my two shovels and I cross them.
Then I say, “WHAT?!”
One of my favorite instances involved a player (Jed) who was getting frustrated with his character build. He was playing as a spear-wielding tank, but all the monsters we were fighting were especially resilient to his attacks (turns out it’s hard to stab a skeleton…). So what’d he do? He said fudge it, threw down his spear, picked up some nearby shovels, and started to wield them. We now had a dual-wielding madman with shovels. We named him: “The Shovelor”.
…okay, not all aspects of our gaming are that creative. But hey, the name suited him.
Another instance involved the druid (Sean) of our party attempting to outsmart some elite kobold guards (if you don’t know what kobolds are, then you should totally look them up to increase your nerd cred). Jed ran into a room full of guards and Sean, in a, uh, interesting decision, decided to run up to Jed and stab him in the back to make the guards think he was trying to capture an escaped prisoner. Of course, Sean then rolled a critical hit on this bluff, so as a DM I had no choice but to go with the deception, which nearly killed Jed.
But Sean paid for this bluff. In his attempt to sneak past the guards he became the unfortunate victim of some misfired spells, nearly dying in the process. Many times. Actually, Sean has nearly died in every encounter we’ve had. I guess that’s one of our running jokes there too? He’s the little druid that could(n’t quite stay alive).
Setzer: I’m going to roll a common sense check for Sean. 15 plus a modifier.
Kyle: So, a 1?
From getting destroyed in a game of Ticket To Ride by someone from Analytics, to figuring out which person with dyed hair to distrust at a game of Avalon, to witnessing the genius and creativity during a game of Pathfinder, I wouldn’t trade a single moment of the time I’ve spent with friends at game nights… During the day we’re creating code, but at night we’re crushing kobolds, and it’s why I love this place.
Kyle Gordon is Head Dungeonmaster at Yammer. He’s also a talented Bard. He is also a Software Development Engineer. His hair is, currently, black.
