Report: next-gen developers turn to outsourcing, immediate future is bleak

This is kind of a confusing article. It's very interesting about the ramifications of entering a new generation of hardware, and the "requisite" support of HD. It doesn't mention, though, this is exactly why Nintendo is *not* supporting HD. From the start they've wanted to make budget games possible on the Revolution, and so want to keep development costs down.

Also, I don't understand where the author arrives at the conclusion that demand will outpace supply. That's a strong statement and requires a lot more evidence than he's shown. Unless he argues otherwise I have no reason to believe that the outsourcing trend will continue to grow, as will the realization that programming jobs are available (in the other countries), as will the flow of those people into colleges or training. It doesn't take *that* long to train a programmer for the kind of stuff they're talking about.

In other words higher profits for companies because outsourcing just means they want cheap labor for cheap wages and in the end the customer gets screwed because it also means cheap quality!

There is a trend in IT called "backsourcing" that is growing according to Ephram Schwartz at InfoWorld.
The concept of cheaper labor sounds promising (except for IT workers)but it often yielded disasterous effects.
1. It often required 1 Project Manager for half dozen outsorces. The time difference and language barrier proved to be difficult.

2. Business process and corporate culture. It is more than code. Working on projects is a collaborative effort and workers must function as part of a system.

3. Customers complain. Look at Dell moving support back to the US.

4. Experience. We have so many talented folks in US, Canada and the UK. Experience matters!

5. You can have it cheap. You can have it fast. You can have it done right. Pick 2.

Agreed about the confusing article.

They fail to reveal the results of the study, but it seems as if their study basically said: Outsourcing is growing.

They then make some wacky claims about what this means.

First for the industry: less jobs. This is not true. There are more and better artists and animators in America. If outsourcing is the new business model, it beats the old one, where animators are hired by the game or effects company for a single project, then laid off at the end of it. If anything, it means stability for creative types. I know someone who works at a media outsourcing company in Chicago (dnadmg.com), and they do work, including games, for foreign (European, Australian, more) companies.

Then for the consumer: worse products. Also not true. You end up with artists, animators, programmers, etc, who have a breadth of experience and can knock out quality work in shorter periods because of it. Don't relate your bad experience with an outsourced helpdesk at work to what outsourcing does for games. It ultimately speeds up the production cycle.

I hope some of those jobs are going to be outsourced to this country to make up for microsoft outsourcing their work.
This is why, as much as I love animation and video games, I didn't enter the field as my career.

Aside from cost, outsourcing could prove beneficial for the video game medium.
For example, in Forza Motorsport many of the car models were outsourced abroad leaving many of the designers here free to accomplish in their areas of specialization. The end result was a fantastic racing game which many game developers saw as equal, if not better in quality to the Gran Turismo series.
Outsourcing the smaller tasks such as modeling, texturing, and to an extent animating gives more freedom to the artists here.
The lower cost for these outsourced artists also frees up some of the budget for games. This potentially allows video game producers to allocate more funds in other areas of video game production, such as voice talent or sound design and music.
Outsourcing bad? Not necessairily.

Revolution = Low Prices
Low Prices = Makes Developers Happy

Therefore,

Revolution = Makes Developers Happy

As an animator recently out of college and unable to find work in the field, I can't say it looks good. But ironically, I'm currently working on an IT helpdesk in a time where so many helpdesks are outsourced, so I guess there's always hope for animation as well.

It is slightly disingenuous to say tat Nintendo will not support HD. They do support HD upto 480p i think. However, they do not support full HD. What is more important, is that they have not made it mandatory for their developers to produce only HD games...

"It is slightly disingenuous to say tat Nintendo will not support HD. They do support HD upto 480p"

Well in that case, every game console in history also supports high def. 25yr old caffa ray tv's run at 480p. I actually think it was the standard for the last 100 years.
Hell, I knew I should of kept my snes & megadrive , as they were both hd ready.

25 year old CRT TV's don't run in 480p. NTSC TV's run 525 lines per frame, drawing them in two passess(aka interlaced). PAL TV's run 625 lines per frame, also drawing them in two passess. In a progressive scan setup an entire frame is drawn in a single pass

The Genesis/Megadrive could only support 224 lines of resolution, the SNES could do up to 448, but interlaced, not progressive.

HD support doesn't raise the price of the game, like Nintendo claims. PC games have been running at extremely high resolutions(higher than the HDTV spec even) for years after all.

Extracheeze is entirely correct. I work for a games company that does exactly this, outsourced art work. Modeling, detailing, texturing, and the like. Our studio produces some awesome work for THE major publishers of the world.

And of course it makes sense to outsource when the cost of games production costs are rising otherwise how can we expect AAA quality games at reasonable prices?

Naturally processes need to improve, tools need to be created to allow for fewer people to do the same task that is currently requiring dozens of people to do. Look at what 3D Realms is doing. They have developed their own tools and techniques that keep their team sizes small, even when developing on next gen systems. They scoff at the EAs who believe that teams need to be ramped up to in the hundreds.

However, most publishers aren't nearly as effective as a 3D Realms, especially since most publishers have a large number of projects planned for down the pipeline and alarge number of studios doing them. So for most publishers, efficiency means more artists at a lower cost and thus outsourcing will be the fundamental step in producing high end content at a within budget price for the long haul.

Major publishers take outsourcing content seriously. They won't forgo quality simply for cheaper dev cost. If quality wasn't an issue then we all know that they can simply kiss their market share good bye.

ben, Sorry about my lack of tv knowledge Being aussie we run on pal, & I seriously did think all caffa's were 480p. Obviously I am wrong (obviouly the 1st time ever, so I salute you.).

More importantly though, it's not just nintendo saying games will cost more, as plenty of 3rd party developers have stated development costs will rise.
But, none of them said it was because they were high def that they would csot so much. Most developers simply said costs on next gen games would go up. Now does this mean that nintendo are not making a next gen machine. Is this saying that they will just resell their leftover stock of gamecubes with a new casing & controller. They have already done the nintendo thing by flipping the bird to HD compatibilty, now a they also did this with the catridge to cd format & lost ground fast.

Nintendo have made sure that gamers in need of a totally next gen console will have no real desire to buy a revolution. They will solely rely on the customer base of past instances & te gameboy product will continue to carry them. This is a bad move by nintendo, as PSP has shown competitors like MS, that the handheld market is very accessible to competition. Although nintendo fanboys will lead you to believe that the psp is a total flop, crap machine & has the disastous sales figures to match.
We all are smart enough to know that sony's 1st effort in the handheld market has made quite substantial headway.

Get with the times nintendo. You once were a shark in this tank, then decided to spawn into a dolphin, your now in the tank with the biggest, hungrier sharks & it's time you got that killer instinct back.