Hi everybody. I am finishing my MBA and had to make a study of my favorite industry. So I chose videogames, naturally I am having some problems defining the impact of offshoring (outsourcing in foreign countries) for some issues in the development of videogames. I am asking for some help if any of your companies or teams has offshored any (or all) of the steps involved in the art process. I mean: * Concept art * Textures * Low poly models * High poly models * Intros * Animations * Illustrations, package covers, etc... I am interested specially in: * What country you offshored * Freelancers or a stablished company * How was the quality of the product (are you a satisfied customer?) * Which method was used for charging the price (by number of polys, project, others...) * Do you have your own artists but offshored part of the art process. If you don''t want to reply here directly (confidentiality is basic) you may send your message to santiago.garcia@tpi.es Thanks a lot for your help. If my MBA School allows it, I will try to publish here a link to download the result of my study about the game industry (in case anyone is interested in it, of course). Again, thanks!!! Tayete

I should make a disclaimer that I don''t work in the industry nor do I follow industry news. But as far as I know, outsourcing to foreign companies does not really happen in the video game industry. Creating games requires close contact with everyone involved, so sending things to other countries is not very productive.

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Original post by mtw
I should make a disclaimer that I don't work in the industry nor do I follow industry news. But as far as I know, outsourcing to foreign companies does not really happen in the video game industry. Creating games requires close contact with everyone involved, so sending things to other countries is not very productive.

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So does every other software development company; I disagree.

I think Google agrees with me too:

Video-Game Publishers Increasingly Outsource Production

Game work moves offshore

Offshore Outsourcing World

Looks like art is the most outsourced area, but more is expected to follow.



[edited by - peon on May 17, 2004 10:57:00 PM]

[edited by - peon on May 17, 2004 10:57:32 PM]

thanks for your answers and the links, but if someone has used this kind of services I''d like to know a "first hand" vision. That''s the kind of info I am finding hard to get.

Again, thanks a lot.

Hi,

I used to supervise the art outsourcing for a large game developer in Australia - we sent stuff to India, Vietnam, China and Indonesia, as well as locally in Australia.
We found that our first hurdle was having an accurate brief, to ensure that the studios produced exactly what we required.
Secondly we had to find studios that produced a high enough quality work, and thirdly, we had to manage review and feedback of assets from outsourcers so that the end result was the right quality and style.

With some studios, everything went smoothly, with others there were more issues...

If it''s managed well, and you''re working with trusted studios/freelancers, then it can be very productive, the trick is to hand a fantastic brief (down to the tiniest detail) to a talented company/freelancer. With several companies we had great results, but there were a few that we weren''t happy with and that resulted in budget blow outs, as the work had to be done by other people.

We generally outsourced graphics for which we already had visual reference (buildings around race tracks, non player characters, and cut scenes where the outsourcer was handed environments and characters). More important stuff - player characters, player vehicles, etc was kept for the artists to do in house.

Hope that helps

evey

Thanks a lot Evey, that was the kind of info I was looking for.
One more question: how was their work charged? AS a whole project? By single items? By poly budget?

Again, thanks...