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Video-Game Publishers Outsource Development

Posted by simoniker on from the global-world-globality dept.

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'."

3 of 786 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Awesome! by back_pages · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

  2. Re:Awesome! by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  3. The irony, of course.... by Alyeska · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...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'....