We know developing a console game is very expensive these days, and we know that like 90% of the budget goes to paying salaries. There are simply too many man hours needed to develop a game. Imagine you have a 100 man team earning an average $80k a year, working for two years, and you already have $16m there.
This is why the Sony method of making games is not meant for todays age IMO
MS on the other hand has been adopting this for years. Publishing, not developing for themselves with XBLA games, with the occasional retail game. Very cost effective, low risk, and potential high rewards.
Xbox: Best hardware, Game Pass best value, best BC, more 1st party genres and multiplayer titles.
BasilZero said: It is a good idea (cost wise for the developers/publishers) however....
You end up with games like DmC and Star Fox Assault.
Yea slave labor that gets paid nothing. Worker who get beat or killed if they try to stand up for themselfs but hey lets support it and send more jobs their. Good idea. Lets reward coutry's that don't pay sh-t and have slave conditions for their workers. Yea lets be happy about it too. My god!!!!
What does creating a game have anything to do with sweatshops? Please dont bring political agendas into discussions about GAME DEVELOPMENT.
If it was about Production and not development I would agree but my post was talking more about Development - not production , anyways so please kindly keep your NWO like discussions in the political section of the forums - these are the gaming discussion forums.
This very much is about politics. Even the votes reference to politics.
"Excuse the ignorance if this is common knowledge but I know nothing about how the games industry works. I've just watched the credits roll on Uncharted 3 and I noticed the artist credits. I watched for the art section, and was surprised to see only about 7 environment artists and 2 character artists. I was thinking 'surely they've missed a few people, that would've taken them a millennium to create all that art with under 10 or so people'. Then I saw the 'additional art' section with loads (and I mean LOADS, there must've been a hundred or more) of Chinese names and what appeared to be Spanish names from about 5 different outsourcing studios. Is this pretty normal practice on games of this scope? If so, what do the in-house guys actually do? Just clean things up?"
"Yes this is pretty common practice nowadays. Usually the idea is that outsource would do stuff like props, weapons and vehicles that don't have much effect on gameplay and just need to look pretty. Stuff like environments are more likely to be done by in house environment artists because they are so integrated into gameplay and will be constantly iterated. Environments do get outsourced though, and even when they are done well will usually require a ton of cleanup. Main characters would be done in house and go through a lot of planning and iteration, but background characters and npcs could be shipped out to outsource as well. I think that the bigger use of outsourcing is it part replacing the massive hiring at the end of a project, and then the massive layoffs after it is done to create those 6 months worth of extra assets. So instead of hiring 200 temps, they might outsource most of that work so they don't have to hire to that unsustainable level and then lay everyone off afterwards. This is just my experience, how outsourcing is used will differ from studio to studio. In house guys don't just do cleanup, though that is a part of it, but they usually work on the more important assets that have a direct impact on the game."
If you have the time, may as well check for yourself:
"Excuse the ignorance if this is common knowledge but I know nothing about how the games industry works. I've just watched the credits roll on Uncharted 3 and I noticed the artist credits. I watched for the art section, and was surprised to see only about 7 environment artists and 2 character artists. I was thinking 'surely they've missed a few people, that would've taken them a millennium to create all that art with under 10 or so people'. Then I saw the 'additional art' section with loads (and I mean LOADS, there must've been a hundred or more) of Chinese names and what appeared to be Spanish names from about 5 different outsourcing studios. Is this pretty normal practice on games of this scope? If so, what do the in-house guys actually do? Just clean things up?"
"Yes this is pretty common practice nowadays. Usually the idea is that outsource would do stuff like props, weapons and vehicles that don't have much effect on gameplay and just need to look pretty. Stuff like environments are more likely to be done by in house environment artists because they are so integrated into gameplay and will be constantly iterated. Environments do get outsourced though, and even when they are done well will usually require a ton of cleanup. Main characters would be done in house and go through a lot of planning and iteration, but background characters and npcs could be shipped out to outsource as well. I think that the bigger use of outsourcing is it part replacing the massive hiring at the end of a project, and then the massive layoffs after it is done to create those 6 months worth of extra assets. So instead of hiring 200 temps, they might outsource most of that work so they don't have to hire to that unsustainable level and then lay everyone off afterwards. This is just my experience, how outsourcing is used will differ from studio to studio. In house guys don't just do cleanup, though that is a part of it, but they usually work on the more important assets that have a direct impact on the game."
If you have the time, may as well check for yourself:
Very informative. Seems as though most outsource the little things that may be time consuming and non-vital - props, weapons, vehicles. Smart business decision.
It's not a cell center. If you don't have your best people working on the actual game and constantly making sure it's perfect, then you get something like Aliens: Colonial Marines.
The Screamapillar is easily identified by its constant screaming—it even screams in its sleep. The Screamapillar is the favorite food of everything, is sexually attracted to fire, and needs constant reassurance or it will die.
Very informative. Seems as though most outsource the little things that may be time consuming and non-vital - props, weapons, vehicles. Smart business decision.
Yeah, but they need to be careful not to outsource things that are vital:
A month after release, popular opinion holds firm that Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a well-made game. And yet one niggling flaw stands out, an issue that has been highlighted in countless blog posts, tweets, and video game forums. Those accursed boss battles.
As it turns out, those boss battles weren't designed at Eidos Montreal, they were outsourced to a studio called Grip Entertainment. In the video above, Grip's head Paul Kruszewski talks about the process of crafting the boss encounters, from gun-arm Barrett to silent robo stealth-chick to the "boss conversation" at the end of the game's first level.
