Video-Game Publishers Outsource Development

randomErr writes "According to a San Jose Mercury News article reprinted at the Miami Herald: 'Mark Vange is in the vanguard of globalizing the video-game industry. He employs 30 game developers in St. Petersburg, Russia, who have worked on everything from flight simulators to dragon-fighting games. 'We can get the work done for half the cost that it takes in the U.S.,' said Vange, president of Ketsujin Studios. Similar outsourcing of video-game production is being done in places like China, India, Vietnam and parts of Eastern Europe. California game developers, who are the creative force behind a $10 billion industry in the U.S. market, view the trend with a combination of fear and anticipation'."

Comments

Sim City

[BWJones]

I seem to recall that Sim City was ported to the Macintosh by a group in Russia and that a significant amount of the original programming was outsourced to Russia as well? Given that the sim was incredibly slow on a Pentium 3 I had and not that much faster on an old G4, I wondered about the "cleanliness" of the code that went into the sim. There certainly is a huge pool of programming talent in Russia (at least in Kiev that I know of where estimates range from 10-16% of the populace having CS skills), so perhaps the sim code was simply so big that it resulted in the slow performance?

Even the Simpson's.....

[SwedishChef]

Yup... the Simpson's - perhaps the most biting commentary on American life - now has credits for offshore production. From the name of the manager it's likely India or Malaysia. The voices are still American but the graphics are probably done in a country where the sarcasm will not likely be noticed as sarcasm. Nothing is sacred and I'm seriously reconsidering my Simpson's habit.

Re:Even the Simpson's.....

[silentbozo]

Since you are a student of animation, can you explain to me how they actually outsource the drawing? I mean do they say... "ok... Homer walks into Moe's and then, like, he gets hit by Grandpa... no, no, Grandpa is standing on the left. Oh yeah and draw in that Love Tester thing too. Thanks".

First is the script. They call the actors in and record the audio. Then come what are known as storyboards. For the storyboard, the script is broken down into scenes with specific backgrounds and settings. These are drawn out on notecard-sized slots, and are essentially the whole episode, in thumbnail roughs. These storyboards are then refined into what are known as layouts. Layouts are one step removed from the final background, and have all the info the background artist needs to draw/paint the background, done at full size, minus the coloring. With the layout are basic starting key poses, which are drawings at full size that show which characters start off where, and in what pose, etc.

Along with the layouts and basic key poses (and model sheets, don't forget the model sheets) are the exposure sheets. Exposure sheets for TV animation differ greatly from feature animation - TV animation has to pack a lot more info into the X-sheet because the work is being done overseas (and because the animator probably doesn't speak English, or doesn't speak it well.) The foreign animator must not only do inbetweens but key frames as well. Very often on the x-sheets for TV animation, the timer draws dozens of thumbnail sketches describing the arc of movement, poses, etc. Although these are not full-size key poses, they are used as the definitive guide as to how the overseas animator should be drawing, posing, and timing key poses and the inbetweens.

So, essentially, the entire scene is planned and laid out here in the states, the overseas animator/bg artists get layouts and model sheets that tell them how things look, and the exposure sheets and thumbnail notes dictate how the characters move. Is there any creativity left to the overseas animator? We hope not (I'm only partially joking here) - otherwise we might just be looking at a reshoot (overseas studios are actually picked based on whether they "get" a particular style of animation or not. For example, Disney TV animation tends to be a bit more "cushioned", and picking a studio that's used to doing animation that way would make the Simpsons look like they're moving way too much.)

I'm putting a big emphasis on timing because for US TV animation, timing is the road to being a director, and it's usually the closest thing to actually animating that you're going to get working in TV animation in the US.

Need Constitutional Amendment on Economic Treason

[Cryofan]

What we need is a constitutional amendment defining economic treason as a high crime. Economic treason might be defined as sending "high value" work to a location where wages are substantially lower than Americans would earn.

Good and bad?

[doormat]

I suppose it can be good and bad. One of the good things would be cutting development costs, and maybe lower prices. But with the high piracy rates of Asia/Eastern Europe, I'm not sure I'd trust anyone with a large chunk of the code. And I'd say its a lot less likely than it happening here merely because of the legal reprocussions. Going half way around the world to a different legal system to try and apprehend and punish the guy/gal who did it is far more difficult, when compared to staying in your own backyard (USA/Canada) where you know the law.

Re:Awesome!

[black mariah]

Isn't this the same bullshit argument that people have been using for the past 20 years to prove that the outflow of jobs to factories in Japan is going to destroy the American economy within 10 years? Hey! It is!

Westwood / EA

[wo1verin3]

Not too long after the EA takeover of Westwood studios, some of the work was contracted out to a group in Germany, keep in mind they did very good work.... but still

Re:Awesome!

[back_pages]

You are absolutely correct about one thing. When enough American jobs have been outsourced, there won't be enough American economy left to purchase the luxury products being produced. All the outsourcers are basically freeloading the system. They make profits off of high paid American and European workers while paying low wages to external workers.

But seriously, what do you expect a single game company to do about this? Stand up and be the good guys? Compete with other companies with much lower labor costs? Save the world?

The problem is here to stay; no question about it. Unfortunately, I don't believe this is a problem that the free market will solve without first bleeding the American and European middle classes to the brink of survival. I don't claim to have "the right" solution, but one solution is an export tarrif on wages. Let the Russians develop Russian software, let the Americans develop American software.

Re:Awesome!

[Shakrai]

Get an education before blaming the world that you don't make enough.

I had a skill. It was working in a factory. Then they decided that I made too much money so they sent that overseas.

So I maxed out my credit cards and went back to school to work on computers. I found a job and just about when I had my debt paid off they decided I made too much money -- so they sent my job overseas.

Now I'm 55 years old with no savings and no job. WTF should I do? Go back to school for bio-tech? What happens when the CEO who makes $20,000,000 decides that I am making too much money and sends my job overseas?

And no that's not the boat that I personally am in but it's hardly a unique story either.

Re:Need Constitutional Amendment on Economic Treas

[dann0]

Nonsense. You need to read some first year economics. Just to help you, try the sections on Comparative and Absolute Advantages.

Also, read the section on Protectionism. Why, because the next logical step in your statement is to propose subsidies to American developers and restrict imports from overseas (through quotas, traiffs and embargoes), read up on them. You'll learn that protectionism increases the cost of living while preventing a short term increase in unemployment or a financial loss to some of the less efficient producers.

If anything is "economic treason", surely increasing the cost of living so that more people live under the poverty line (ie don't earn enough to live in the most basic of conditions) is.

Before you argue, read up on the topic. Also don't forget that unemployed people must get retrained or get left behind. We've been through this all before (check out the automobile industry prior to Ford's Mass Production). How many farriers are around today? Do they meet demand?

Western cultures are moving into more service based industries. This includes research and development all the way down to tourism. Why? Because we are good at it, can often provide excellent quality at a low cost. Don't be close minded and freak out because some code monkey jobs were lost to overseas, learn extra skills (project management, a language other than english, teaching etc) so that you can enter industries that your economy excels at. We are still designing, specifying and developing new products, we just get them made OS.

Re:Awesome!

[ewhac]

Solution...become a shareholder.

Seeing this reminded me of a brilliant monologue from the film Network, which will be thirty years old before too long.

In this scene, Howard Beale, an insane TV news anchor, is being given a dressing down by the president of the network for exhorting viewers on the air to stop an important business deal. Ask yourself if this is the kind of world you want to live in.

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I... WON'T... HAVE IT!! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance.

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars. It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet.

That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! AND YOU! WILL! ATONE!!! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21 inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. Our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock -- all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

See this movie. It is at least as quotable as anything by Quentin Tarantino. Find it, rent it, watch it. Apart from the fashions and faded film stock, you'd swear this film was made last month.

Schwab

The irony, of course....

[Alyeska]

...is that just a generation ago, it was computer technicians and programmers who put millions of Americans out of work by replacing their positions with machinery. ...just sayin'....

Re:Awesome!

[black mariah]

So if my profession is outsourced to the point where I can't find a job within the Tri-State area that's a symptom not a cause of my unemployment?
No, moron. That's a symptom of the economy being shitty, not the REASON the economy is shitty. Companies are losing money so in order to cut costs they ship work overseas. You losing your job is yet another symptom.

Yeah it has nothing to do with the massive amounts of unemployment caused by outsourcing and the general lack in confidence that the American middle class has these days.
Pretty much. People that are in industries that can easily be replaced by cheaper foreign labor need to start finding something else to do.

I'll see if you are still so detached and clinical about it when you are in the process of applying for your unemployment extension or filing bankruptcy.
Already been there. Two years ago I lost my job when the company I worked for was sold to a competing manufacturer. Instead of whining to the unemployment office, I started working freelance (I'm a guitar tech, BTW) and haven't needed to do anything else. If suddenly everyone stopped buying and playing guitars and nobody was getting repairs done instead of bitching about it I'd find something else to do. It's quite simple. Work or die. Paint yourself into a corner and you're fucked. I have enough experience in several different areas that I'm qualified for several types of jobs instead of just being able to do one thing.

Re:Face Facts

[mritunjai]

Why isn't C++ being taught in public schools now? Being that everything can be reprogrammed (software, robotics, sales metrics, accounting...etc). Programming should be like any of the major subjects such as Science, English and Math.

Psst... tell you what, C++ and computer science *is* taught in public schools at least here in India. Infact, "computer science" is just another (optional) subject that you take in your equivalent of grade school... thats right, its just another subject like English, Maths, Science...