Game development offshoring to increase
by Blake Snow 
{ Jul 27th 2006 at 2:30PM }
From basic game art design to QA testing, Gamasutra explores the growing trend of development offshoring to China by publishers like Microsoft, Vivendi, THQ, Atari, and Ubisoft. From the article: "It's clear that game companies are starting to look to outsource more... Whatever the eventual result, it's obvious that the Chinese outsourcing market is set for significant growth over the next few years, and is an area to keep a careful eye on, whether you're a businessman or simply an artist in the game industry."Any Joystiqers feeling the sting of game development outsourcing?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
cringer8 @ Jul 27th 2006 2:41PM
Eh, outsourcing tech positions is "Business 101" these days. Americans tend to have an inflated expectation of pay scales.
As long as someone else is willing to do the same work for less money, outsourcing will be the best way to cut costs.
Let's just hope that they aren't chaining children to computers in a room with no windows or ventilation, paying them 25 cents a day.
zero2dash @ Jul 27th 2006 2:45PM
Development costs go up = cheaper options are used.
No surprise here.
It's sad to hypothesize on gaming's potential future state, where development costs are so astronomical that we don't see any "new" titles anymore because the companies would rather throw all their eggs in the basket of established franchises (Madden, Tony Hawk, etc).
Nintendo's trying to curb this from happening, but they can't do it on their own.
Long live the underdog titles of the world!
Mack Swift @ Jul 27th 2006 2:47PM
What's really sad about all this is pretty soon America is going to recieve most of it's goods and services from other countries; thus making us dependent on them.
That's actually the definition of a third world country, and we are well on our way to becoming that.
Loque @ Jul 27th 2006 2:57PM
I don't feel the sting, but I'm sure our economy does...
Christian aka nsomneia @ Jul 27th 2006 2:59PM
alot of things america has come from other countries, alot of the most important thing atleast .. . oil, technology, etc.. . jsut look at labels in your local wal-mart.. .
but like cringer said outsourcing is 'business 101' .. . if you can find some one to do the same thing for cheaper, of course they're going to do that .. . it's not surprising.. .
does it suck?.. . yes, for us.. .
can you really blame them (them being big business) ? yes .. . and no.. . if we could get off of our high horse and not ask for so much, higher pay, bonuses, things like that .. . maybe we could get these jobs.. . and i don't mean just this job taht joystiq is talking about, i mean everything from customer service to car companies to whatever .. . we (america) have this problem where we feel we deserve this and that, but why should you get it? you haven't done anything to deserve it but bitch and complain .. .
Christopher7xii @ Jul 27th 2006 3:09PM
#2, Zero2Dash -
"It's sad to hypothesize on gaming's potential future state, where development costs are so astronomical that we don't see any "new" titles anymore because the companies would rather throw all their eggs in the basket of established franchises (Madden, Tony Hawk, etc).
Nintendo's trying to curb this from happening, but they can't do it on their own."
Yeah... Nintendo is trying to curb this with Mario Party 2-7, Super Smash Brothers Melee 3, Metroid Prime 3, Mario 642: Sunshine, Mario 64DS, New Mario Bros, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, Legend of Zelda... Yeah, Nintendo is *REALLY* trying to curb this.
And before you say "each nintendo game is entirely new!". Don't BS me. Zelda has had the same gameplay mechanics, new look, ever since the first one. Your sword + other item, puzzles and dungeons. Hearts heal you, fairies heal you, get more hearts to get stronger, use your new item to defeat a boss. Sure, they upped the complexity (just like Tony Hawk 1 is dramatically different from Tony Hawk American Wasteland in terms of open roaming, difficulty of tricks, and NPC/PC interaction)... But it's the same thing. Nintendo has been playing it safe for years (StarFox Command on the DS? Looks familiar... like StarFox64...). Hell, one might even say they're infamous for sticking to their safe established franchises. They refuse to let mario die. Now he goes into space!
Not saying I hate Nintendo or franchises anything, I greatly look forward to StarFox Command, Twilight Princess, Smash Bros Wii, and Final Fantasy XII through XX, but saying that Nintendo is trying to a curb a habbit they've been doing for at least 10 years now is just plain bullshit.
Fenris @ Jul 27th 2006 3:11PM
Outsourcing has been a way of buisness for a while. There are however, a few inherent pronblems with dong it.
1. The country doing the work recieves the production dollars thereby making their economy stronger. The inverse happens to the counrty that does such outsourcing.
2. When you send the work to another country the local user base has less industry and that causes a reduction in spendable income, in most house holds.
3. When the country that recieved the work reaches a certain level they are no longer the "best" choice for the cheap labor and the work is sent somewhere else. Creating a glut of labor in a nitch jobmarket.
Granted these are absolute worst case senarios. We are seeing it in the manufacturing world, and gas prices in the US and the skyrocketing cost of copper and metals are a direct result. Given that we have given China so much money in labor costs, they are now one of the hottest economys and car markets in the world. On the flip side now that prices are getting more expensive in China, maufacturers are looking to cheaper markets such as Mexico.
My two cents based on what I have seen.
Neil @ Jul 27th 2006 3:12PM
This happened (still happening?) at a company I used to work at that I won't name, yet ryhmes with Pidway and starts with an M.
Christopher7xii @ Jul 27th 2006 3:13PM
Oh, and Christian, #4. Yes, we can blame the companies. For them saving money penny-pinching every nickel and dime they can, they're helping to ruin our country. If all that matters is money, sure they're gonna succeed. But when they realize they don't have customers to sell to because everyone like them is outsourcing and jobs are scarce, the fun will end then.
It's just a matter of looking long-term, and outside your own circle of interest. It's the same process as people that buy SUVs cuz they have the money. Sure, you have the money to kill people, doesn't mean that you should. It's just plain dumb to not think of the cause and effect of things.
JimmyHACK @ Jul 27th 2006 3:16PM
sounds like common business sense, can get more people to work on a game for the same taotal production cost..
can't complain about a business trying to make money... that is the 1st point to have the business, 2nd is to make the product
nick @ Jul 27th 2006 3:30PM
Outsourcing is much more of a threat to things that don't require real talent and skill. The reason many automotive jobs get outsourced is because it's basically factory work in many instances, it's not like a factory worker designs a unique part for a car, they merely repeat a process machines cannot be made yet to do. China's economy improves, but the companies that recieve the most profit are still in the first world nations, and unless china starts opening their own companies to make games that compete (see South Korea) then it's all for nothing. Besides, I'd much rather have a design team make a game all in one place under the same roof so that decisions can be made effectively and efficiently.
Someone mentioned earlier that Midway does a signifigant amount of outsourcing, notice also that midway does not produce very many good or compelling games.
PS3 needs good press @ Jul 27th 2006 3:36PM
Christopher, I think the point Zero was trying to make is that Nintendo is keeping development costs low as opposed to developing for Microsoft or Sony.
The reason they are outsourcing is because they can have more people work on it for more hours than they can for local talent. Businesses do it ALL the time, especially big ones. If a business is profit driven, it will find ways to cut costs without sacrificing quality. To many corporate heads, outsourcing is the answer (although it's not always the right answer).
Aion @ Jul 27th 2006 3:37PM
Hmm, it's all fine and dandy, the notion that we should just ask for less money, but dunno if you ever looked at the current cost of living...
Kinda hard to earn less than 20k and afford basic necessities, let alone raise a family. Western world has a high living standard that's true, but there's a limit to how much you can lower wages.
Wages haven't even followed inflation rates since the 60ies, we're getting poorer while the Ceo/shareholders are reaping the profits.
zero2dash @ Jul 27th 2006 3:39PM
#5 Christopher7xii
I was talking about Nintendo trying to curb high development costs, I wasn't saying anything about their sequels, theirs vs. everyone elses, gameplay etc.
Panadero @ Jul 27th 2006 3:39PM
Christopher7xii, you completely missed the point as to how Nintendo is trying to curb development costs. They are trying to curb development costs by not insisting on using cutting edge technology and hardware just for the sake of it and because it's what's expected. The fact that the Wii uses the Gamecube's API alone is a big factor in helping cut costs. Not only does it make it cheaper to port Gamecube games in development to Wii, but time and effort - and therefore money - is saved when starting on new Wii projects. Dev kits end up being cheaper, enabling smaller developers to join in if they want.
Sequel abuse or not (and I'd argue that the only series Nintendo has truly abused is Mario Party but it continues to sell well and is only a sub-franchise anyway), when games are cheaper to produce, they're less of a financial strain on developers who just might be less likely to outsource development to other countries. Sony and Microsoft's touting of bigger and better, cutting-edge, HD content does nothing but drive up development costs.
Dave @ Jul 27th 2006 3:51PM
I pirate all outsourced games.
marioman79 @ Jul 27th 2006 4:04PM
outsourcing is fine. The problem is the company's have the expectation that none of the savings has to be passed to the consumer. The flaw in the logic is the belief that they can continue to sell at the price point. As someone stated earliar as jobs are moved off shore the purchaseing power of the orginial company is diminished. As discretionary income decreases so does demand for games. And basic supply and demand tells you that a price reduction will result thus erasing any margin improvement that was gained by the offshoring. Granted the process will take time but the result is inevitable.
Offshoring is a cop out for firms who cannot grow revenue and to please outside investors they hope to show PTI improvement by adjusting their cost structure. Short term fix that has a major and long term reprecussions
Tofugorilla @ Jul 27th 2006 4:18PM
As a game developer (artist) who has been on the recieving end of outsourced work I can say this- 90% of the outsourced work I have delt with in the past is crap. Most outsourcing companies, and especially ones that are over seas, do not deliver quality work. I spent more time fixing work that was outsourced than it would have taken to create it in the first place. I honestly think that it is more expensive in the long run to outsource work unless you don't care about the quality. The remaining 10% that does do a decent job on the work still needs fixes in most cases.
All in all I think outsourcing art is probally just as expensive as making it in house after you calculate the time and manpower it takes to correct other peoples work.
K1ller 1nst1nct @ Jul 27th 2006 7:16PM
If a game is outsourced, you can bet that their wont be that many patches for it either, because if they are into cutting costs, not patching bugs is another way to cut costs
TopaZ @ Jul 27th 2006 11:40PM
Yeah screw those U.S. game testers and their boujee $9 /hour lifestyles!
PhoenixJ @ Jul 28th 2006 1:53PM
@Christopher7xii :
They're curbing development costs and introducing new kinds of gameplay. Games that take place in the same universe don't all play alike. Take Paper Mario and Super Paper Mario, for instance.
Skandall @ Jul 28th 2006 8:22PM
For almost a year I worked as the lead game designer at a small game design studio that was just getting started. We were developing three 2d adventure games at the same time. We had 2 programmers for those three games and about 20 artists. Of those, only 4 artists were actually in our offices. 3 were in Canada and the rest in China or Taiwan. In the end, the publisher decided they didn't want the games despite the fact that we reached beta. I have since left the game design industry and I wouldn't consider going back for any reason. Why?
1. Outsourcing is only going to increase as the cost for development increases. As someone pointed out, the savings aren't as much as you'd expect because you do tend to have a lot of fixes because they'll submit work that is totally off character. You also have a language barrier and that can cause them to do things that you didn't mean. Of course, even people in the office make mistakes or do something you don't want. My first job in games was as a game tester (no I didn't get to sit around and play the game all day, that's not testing). I was hired because the outsourced (Canada) game testing group was doing a terrible job. Their bug reports made no sense and it took them a week to give any feedback on new versions. In the end I alone was a far more effective source of testing than that entire testing company. I was there in the office. A programmer could call me over to help test a bug in real time rahter than sending a build to some place where they may get to it next week if at all. Yes, outsourced labor is cheap, but you get what you pay for.
2. The pay is crap. You can all say that Americans ask for too much money. Piss off I say, all I wanted was to make enough to survive. As lead game designer in charge of 4 other designers I made a pathetic $2k a month. Worse yet is I know that I was making the same as the rest of the designers. Why so little? Because it's a small company and the boss claims that's all he could afford at the time. Is he telling the truth? No way of knowing for sure. My point is that at a small company you will get screwed over on your pay left and right. Nevermind the times where you don't get paid for weeks on end.
3. Publishers don't want to pay for the work you're doing. They will find every excuse to get out of paying you. It's reaching the point where a Publisher will get a developer started on a game, and then refuse to pay any money claiming that the developer isn't meeting the milestones properly and finally the publisher will cancel the contract and demand the the developer hand over the work. Don't believe me? Look at JoWood and the Stargate video game that was being developed. That's exactly what the publisher did.
4. It's so painful to work on a game and have the publisher come along and ask you to make totally retarded changes to the game. It will happen, many times over the course of a project. Keep that in mind the next time you're playing a game and you think to yourself, "what retard thought this would be fun?" It was probably some suit at the publisher who doesn't even play video games. In fact, go to YouTube and look up Superman and Kevin Smith. His story about writing a Superman script sounds a lot like the conversations that our development company had with publishers. Point being, just because you're a game designer, doesn't mean you'll get to design the game. More likely that you'll come up with ideas that some guy above you will butcher into something stupid and then you'll be forced to build that game instead.
5. Of course you have heard of the hours. My worst was 30 hours straight and for what? To deliver a document that no one is even going to read? Forget it. I have a family and they should take priority, but that's not how the company thinks. To them you're either working 24/7 or about to be replaced by some other eager sucker that thinks working in games would be the coolest job ever. Don't fall for it.
I think that the video game industry needs to die so that it can be reborn with realistic business practices and fair treatment of their employees (like actually admitting that they ARE employees rather than trying to claim that they're independent contractors which is total BS). I'd rather only see 12 new games a year than all the junk the industry is pumping out today.
Do I sound bitter? I should, in 2 years I went from making a decent living to being nearly homeless, all while working in the game industry. In the end most of the blame belongs on the shoulders of the Publisher.