So, like we all know, the development of games is very expensive nowadays and a huge part of it should come from salaries. Now we also know that we already have almost all companies of loan intensive industries who went to cheaper countries like Thailand or India. With the next gen it will be probably even more expensive and if i look at the costs of one game alone, i really wonder if it wouldn't be possible to start to invest a big amount in a cheaper country to start developing there.

I understand that you have to have people who know what they are doing but if developers would have invested in let's say Vietnam 5 years ago i think they could have already a decent amount of trained staff. And i also know that we have some Ubisoft studios or other studios in some asian countries but i believe they are more in very expensive countries or cities like Singapore.

I believe i read once that Turn 10 studios has a team in Vietnam which is working at the car models so it seems as it is possible to find already staff there or to train them for some years which shouldn't be too expenisve compared to the costs they will have in UK studios or wherever else.

I thought about that because you could read a lot of times the last months that as example Microsoft invested a lot in new Studios or old Studios in Canada/UK and now there is a thread about a possible new investment of Sony in SF

Maybe it's much harder in that branch as i think to build a team in a country with much lower costs but i really wonder if developers even try enough to reduce costs longterm to stay alive. I mean, that could reduce the costs enormous over a decade or so.

I'm surprised there aren't more indian studios considering how massive the IT industry is there

Yeah that's also one reason why i thought about it, i know as example that the german company SAP is huge there.

It still has to be somewhere with educated people, safety and political stability, and good infrastructure. But low costs.

We've seen a lot of Eastern European development recently for this reason. (People Can Fly, The Witcher, Metro 2033, DayZ, S.T.A.L.K.E.R)

This economy is not the time that companies feel like investing for 5 years in the future though. They want cash as close to now as possible.

They are already many games developers in India and it is a growing industry. Many western developers already have branches there, the biggest probably being Ubisoft.

This is nothing new.