I'm in games as well. I'm pretty mixed on it. For my experience
- first job, fully onsite. More traditional cubicle space
- second job, on-site until COVID came around. Literally a WeWork building as a sattellite office to HQ in San Fransico.
- third job, "0-100%" on site. There was an office and I could come into it never or all the time. More of an open office setup.
I will say it's nice to not need to spend 5 days commuting, and I really don't think we need to do that much collaboration to be productive. If you're local, I think a suggestion of 2-3 days in office would do wonders, reserved for "brainstorming" days or cross team syncs. for job 3, that was pretty much my schedule; typically come in TWTh, unless I was feeling sick (this was still the tail end of COVID).
But some camaraderie was nice. The games scene was really friendly for the most part (in my experience. I have heard second hand stories and don't want to discount those). There were community events, tribal wisdom you'd hear over water-cooler talk, impromptu group lunches, and seasonal parties. It was nice, being around other passionate people who had similar interests to you. I definitely miss that most.
Productivity-wise, I'm not sure I noticed much difference. I had enough space to setup a dedicated office room, so that's definitely one privilege I had. But I had on-off days in office and remote. Maybe my most productive days were in office, but that was usually over guidance from a lead.
I don't think everyone needs to be on-site per se. But I do see some situations where on-site is beneficial to have, at least in partial capacity.
1. Juniors definitely need some on-site guidance (and by that extension, leads need to be available those days). I really cannot imagine those early mentoring being as effective over a screen. There's so much "body language" style of knowledge gained that doesn't come up in zoom meetings (and while proposed, I really hate the idea of an "always on" chat-room)
2. brainstorming, architecturing , and conceptualizing felt much better in person. So some periods may need more in-office time than others where it's focused on development (which feels to have minimal impact, given the nature of "head down" work).
3. Office space might be a consideration depending on your living space. If you are in a small apartment with little desk space, I can see that having a huge impact to productivity.