Slashdot Mirror
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'."
Standby for a flood of "In Soviet Russia" jokes in 3....2....1....
<Sarcasm>This is great! No really -- now my video games won't cost $50+ each.
What? You mean the price won't go down? But we are saving so much money on the labor -- where is all that extra cash going?</Sarcasm>
Sarcasm aside I think those three sentences pretty much sum up my feelings (and most other /.'ers?) on all types of outsourcing (techie or otherwise). It's an excuse to pad the pockets of the fat shareholders at the expense of the middle class.
Too bad smarter people then me have looked at it and can't come up with a solution. I've said this before but I'll say it again: If this trend towards globalization continues I fear we may wind up proving poor old Karl Marx correct. It's really a crying shame too because capitalism actually does drive innovation. Too bad it also drives greed.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
This will probably just be labelled as flamebait or trolling, but whatever.
The fact of the matter is, outsourcing is the end result of the bloated salaries of programmers and designers in the US (among others.) The fact that they can make it for HALF as much in St. Petersburg just goes to show the problem. If someone is willing to do the same job, just as well, for half the price, why would a company NOT do so?
People bitch about this, and that's fine. But at the same time, those people claim to be for free-market economy. But of course, only when it supports THEIR cause.
Such is life, I suppose.
Moderate this! *finger*
Games outsourced to Russia are known for their quality
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If the shareholders benefit so much from all the outsourcing, why don't we all buy stock in programming-related industries? Not only would we benefit from the outsourcing itself, but the Slashdot effect would drive stock prices sky-high!
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.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
I wonder how "All your base are belong to us" translates from Russian?
changing my name to Grigori Kasamentov doesn't sound like a bad idea at this point. :/
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
The problem with such an approach is that cultural differences will likely cause numerous rifts between the marketability of a game and its ultimate appeal. Not only is guy outsourcing game programmers, but he's also outsourcing game designers, which usually has disastrous results. Games are highly subjective, and you can't have one part of the world design a game for another part of the world and expect it do well with no exceptions. Examples abound. At least 80% of all Japanese video games never make it stateside. Most every FPS in existence has little to no appeal in any part of Asia. The most popular MMO in the world, Lineage (soon to be surpassed by its sequel), is virtually unknown in the western hemisphere. Ad infinitum. These methods to save a quick buck rarely pan out in the end, though they look good on paper.
~Tirinal
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.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
1)Cultural differences. A culture founded on Confuscian ideals has few reference points with one founded on Hellenistic ones, for example. This pretty much ensures you can't outsource design. It also introduces communication difficulties between designers and coders.
2)Work ethic. Missed deadlines, shoddy work etc are mentioned in the article. What isn't mentioned is the shit approach to aftersales-Eastern European games are notorious for never being patched.
Essentially, the only real part that can be outsourced well is the art. This has already been going on for years, and it's only a logical step now to use the company in Saigon rather than the one in London-right up till Kinetix questions how the people you hired could afford the site licenses.
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Simpson's animation has been outsourced more or less since the beginning. Its only that you've just noticed now. http://kn.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/200 1/08/27/200108270029.asp
Thing is outsourcing has been an issue since before you were born. Its not going to get a quick fix or go away in a hurry. Its just that its impacting you for the first time. The rest of American industry has had its turn(s) before.
Um...since when did "video games from Russia" become a new thing? Tetris anyone?(although I seem to recall the original programmer got screwed somehow out of most of the profits).
And Asia? Has anyone forgotten that true jem, "all your base are belong to us"?
Oh, and since nobody else has said it, I might as well get it over with:
"In Soviet Russia, video game PLAYS YOU!"
Please help metamoderate.
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.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Who now works at Microsoft
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When a company has 50% or more of its "high pay" employees outside of the US, kick them the fuck out - they're not a US company anymore.
At the least, put a HIGH tariff on thier products - the same way we currently do with imported steel.
If the company isn't willing to give back to the country that allows it's existence, the country should cease to allow it's existence.
Unfortunately, this'll never happen with our current gov't.
By that definition, you'd end up banning imports - which would completely destroy the economy of the United States and its trading partners (i.e. the industrialized world.) A better way to handle it would be to crack down hard on overseas tax shelters and then provide tax benefits for companies keeping their labor in the US (or your appropriate nation, international /.ers. I'm not greedy.)
+++Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot.+++
Well, let's just hope that Vange gets paid half of what is normal in the U.S. and the price for the games are half as much so that the unemployed, underemployed, and those working a minimum wage to compete with Russia can afford the games.
Unless, of course, the primary market for these games is Russia.
I don't really see outsourcing as such a big deal. I just don't understand why some CEOs get paid so much money to supervise a workforce halfway across the world for a company that is officially located in a third world country. It really seems the company could increase shareholder values by moving the CxO to those cheaper countries as well.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What? You mean the price won't go down? But we are saving so much money on the labor -- where is all that extra cash going?
Unfortunately, that isn't how the economy works.
When you are producing a commodity product, like lumber, coal, or oil, then competition drives the price of your product down to the average total cost of producing that product. In theory, in a commodity market the profit margins are enough by the end of the year to leave each firm in the industry with exactly zero profit. If games were a commodity, reducing either the variable costs or the fixed costs would result in a reduction in price.
Games, however, are not commodities. In fact, they are much closer to a monopoly market. When a company makes a game, no other company can produce that same game. If I want to purchase Diablo II, I have to pay Blizzard exactly how much they are asking - no one else can provide that product.
I can purchase Fallout 2 instead, and there is some price sensitivity there. However, I would not necessarily purchase Fallout 2 over Diablo if Fallout was $10 less. Game companies run the demand curve, and price their games accordingly - $50.
In general, when you are the sole provider of a product you should charge as much as necessary to maximize the equation:
Profit = (Price - Variable Cost) * Quantity.
Quantity = Func(Price)
Changing the cost of producing the game has no effect on the Variable Cost or the Quantity, and therefore should have no effect on the price you pay for the game.
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
This is an outrage! Next thing you know, Nintendo will outsource to some obscure place, like Japan!
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
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
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.
Soon, programming will be required education rather then an added skill set to profit on just alone.
Life is not for the lazy.
How utterly and completely stupid. Boycott, but don't pass laws outlawing outsourcing. This is brainless.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
This isn't like outsourcing tech support or even office software. Games are inherently creative things and I think there will be a quality issue, real or percieved, with games made like this. I'm not saying games can't cross cultural bounds, but what kind of heart can an a Malaysian put into GTA game set in New York? (Just an example, I don't like GTA).
Heh, if I was running things, I'd outsource all video game making to Japan, I'd much rather play Japanese games then 90% of the crap that comes out here (relax! a joke kinda - among my favorite games are TIE Fighter, X-Wing, Dungeon Master, but nearly everything coming out here seems to be Tony Hawk games, FPSes, and RTSes).
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Just because the US middle class hasn't been fully impoverished YET (and we're NOT better off than we were ten years ago!) doesn't mean that continuing outsourcing WON'T do it. Why should one expect a relatively highly-paid workforce with political rights and high expectations to be able to compete with much-lower-paid folk who can't unionize and don't get health insurance or retirement benefits, and will work for peanuts even by local standards 'cause any job is better than none?
With outsourcing trends as they are, we are rather likely to get what Neal Stephenson describes in Snow Crash as an globally-distributed layer of what a Pakistani bricklayer would call prosperity. Unfortunately for us in the US, *we* will call it "abject poverty".
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
You've (typically, I must add) confused cause and effect.
Greed is the thing that drives both capitalism and innovation, not the other way around.
The reason centrally planned economies don't work is because, at the heart of it, they tell people not to be greedy. And people don't listen.
Greed is the thing that causes companies to form to make games. Greed is the thing that causes programmers (fresh off a hit game) to demand the big bucks. Greed is the thing that then drives the _people with the money_ to go elsewhere to hire the programmers.
It's their money.
Saying they can do what they like with it is capitalism. Saying they can't pad their pockets is, my friend, central planning.
So far from "proving Carl Marx right" what you're actually doing is making the case for why he is still wrong.
said Vange, president of Ketsujin Studios
Did he outsource the name too? Man, it's so annoying when Westerners use Japanese to sound cool.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
While I agree that helping to improve the economies of poorer nations may reduce terrorism, I feel that game design and programming are considered good jobs that many American programmers would be more than willing to do.
And, while writing the graphics engine would be hard work, it's far from being dirty work that needs to be sent elsewhere.
If companies wanted to find American programmers they could do it very easily.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
a programmer from sneaks in some malicious code which is missed by the company which outsourced the job?
_________ Help me get a PSP!
no it is not. Game prices won't not go down because prices need to be at a certain minimum anyways. Harddrive prices have remained the same for a long time (except the size of the hd increases) but the price does not drop. Good luck looking for a new 5gig hd to buy, they don't make em anymore. unprofitable.
With games they cut their costs but prices remain the same. The savings only go to line the pockets of the fat bastards
did you forget to take your meds?
The 28th Amendment on Economic treason would be aimed at corporate offenders. Consumers would not be liable. Of course, my original post implied that, but I suppose inferring that would require a certain minimum reading comprehension level......
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Dude! Get a hold of that kid and tell him he's wasting his time in school. What he needs is a resume describing his skills.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Russian education in math has been good for decades. There's a huge pool of people with strong math skills. That's a huge win for game development.
game prices will go down?!?!??! yeah right. pretty soon games will cost more than a pair of Nike's at the mall.
C++ was offered at my high school. Given it was an elective and taught by a math teacher who hadn't coded in her life, it was still offered.
Of course, someone has to drag out Smoot-Hawley. So I'll drag out a different pov.
http://www.etherzone.com/1999/bend040199.html
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Here's the moderately simple and brief explanation for outsourcing: Inflation in this country is really out of control, in things we can't trade like health care, tuition, real estate, and things we can't control like gasoline and metals. That's because the government has been pumping so much money into the economy to try to get it to go somewhere via lower interest rates and increased government spending. With all this money flying around it would have already have caused a ton of inflation, and wages would be very high in world wide terms, except people have been able to send the work overseas. That was less possible 20 years ago and almost totally impossible 30 years ago so we have this weird kind of recession where we are losing jobs in anything importable put a lot of people are doing really well in anything we can't export like real estate. The main export of the United States now is inflation. Here's the slightly longer explanation.
Today, video game enthusiasts throughout the country announced that they are outsourcing their playing to countries like Burma, Zaire, and Elbonia, where people can be found to play video games much cheaper than in the USA.
And try watching Family Guy or South Park sometime.
Going overseas for ports or original game development is not nearly a new thing. This has been happening for quite some time.
My first personal experience was with "Out of this World" back in the early 90s (92-3ish). The original game was done in France. (I guess you can say it was actually an import into the US.) The Windows 3.1 version was done by a Russian company.
I've seen many games started up in Canada, Australia and Eastern Europe because of the exchange rate of the dollar. All this occured in the early 90s.
It's also been common to outsource concept art, models, animations, movies, music (especially if you want an orchestral score, eastern european orchestras are cheap compared to US ones), and, yes, even programming for sometime.
There are plenty of good development houses in Europe that have been making games for American publishers for years.
It's less common to go to Japan and Asia for US published titles, but it happens occasionally.
I don't see any major change in the way we (the games industry) do overseas development, but I don't see the entire industry of course.
I'd say C, not C++. Once you have mastered C, you've grasped the fundamental concepts behind any damn programming language in the world barring assembly. (A good knowledge of assembly requires a background in microprocessor arch too.)
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
The role of a publisher is to publish - not create.
This is non-news.
I'm an independent video game developer and I'd like to point out that the indy scene has been international for quite a very long while.
Does anybody have a fucking clue about what country the words 'Nintendo' or 'Sega' comes from? Can you guess where the international headquarters for Sony is located?
Truth is that the video game industry has never been primarily American. It's always been international.
Everyone needs to quit bitching. Nothing to see here, move along, goddammit.
So many people I know during the DotCom era switched jobs three or four times because they could get more money, more benefits, more stock options. At that time employees had the upper hand, and commanded overpriced salaries ($60k a year for maintaining web pages!?). There was no loyalty.
Now the pendulum has swung the other direction, companies are finding cheaper labor and are taking advantage of it. Not to mention moving jobs closer to where the money will be made, the high growth areas of Russia, China, and India. Companies have no loyalty same as employees So what if tech jobs go away, that is the way of captialism, same as happened to manufacturing in the 80s. Remember the late 80s joke "The cold war is over and Japan has won." People cried it was the end of the US economy because middle class skilled manufacturing jobs were going away. Now is the time to look at innovative new areas like biotech, or optics which can lead to another economic boom.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
What we need is a constitutional amendment defining economic treason as a high crime.
Ah good! Economic direction from the central government in the finest tradition of Stalin's USSR!
Whether it's foreign or domestic programmers, this is a big problem. And I don't think it will be any easier to handle like this.
How many US developers are there now? The US seems now just to concentrate on the storyline and the marketing. It seems that they no longer have any technical skills (those all moved to Russia (I suppose I should say, to conform to all of the other posts, "In Soviet Russia, it moves to them!").
I think your forgettin one other thing in all this: Infalation
Our jobless recovery(damn I have to live in a manufacturing town) is actually driving wages up and causing inflation. Game production cost is going down(ie outsourcing, smaller packaging and instructions, and cheaper cd burning prices) but production cost drop is currently it in sync with inflation.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Your can't ban outsourcing, that would mean every company in the US would have to close their offices around the world. It wouldn't happen, incentives are more likely to work.
American Jobs belong to YOU.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Perhaps it would be a good time to start an independent game company. If Joe P. Shareholder is going to outsource your bread and butter, time to innovate and outclass his outsourcing. Just my two cents on the deal, why let all that creative tallent go to waste locally?
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Actually, yes we are.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Back in the day..like that day 3-5 years ago, i think it was a Tuesday, PC games were optimised again and again to make them run perfect as can be, these days most pc games run like ass on any system regardless of specs, why? Because of junk code...now we know where it might be coming from. Is this the reason alot of games that come out now just utterly suck beyond beleif? I mean wouldnt it make sense for a developers vision to be made by them and not have pieces sold off to the lowest bidder, how much extra time will a dev team have to spend fixing or tweaking the outsourced code once it comes back, and what happens when that code requires patching in a game thats already shipped? Does the publisher do the work? No, the original dev team does, and they dont even get paid for it!
Lots of companies want to (or feel forced to) outsource to take advantage of prices/conditions in the third world.
But when you take the advantages of operating business on the 3rd world model, you get the unexpected baggage too, like >99% of users copying and not buying your games (which is the sit. in Russia, China..etc now).
It will be the same too in America after no one can afford to buy them since everyone's gotten their jobs outsourced. And no one will feel guilty about it since its not American's jobs anyways anymore...
Can't see how this is a business model...
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.
"The big question in our lives is how to be at the same time a hedonist and in a hurry" - Alain Ducasse (?)
Score:-1, Truth Hurts
Ok. Let's have a friggin moratorium on statements like this will probably be modded [insert negative mod].
It doesn't make you sound intelligent, or meaningful, or open-minded, or really passionate. It makes you sound desperate to get modded up (read peer-approval). Why don't you just say what you want to say and get it the *&#$ over? If you @@#$ing meant it, you'd say it whether you'd get modded or not.
Oh, and just FYI: It costs HALF as much to live in St. Petersburg (or Mumbai) as it does in Dallas, NY, LA, SF, et al. You know, those towns where people used to innovate? That's why they can get paid half.
If capitalism is the green-eyed monster in this equation, how is it that St. Petersburg even has this opportunity? Oh yeah, capitalism is what's creating these Russian jobs!! Wow.
Now. STFU and go home troll.
The Simpsons were always animated/colored in Korea. This isn't new. They specifically mention some of the problems they had in the commentaries on the DVDs for season 1. The christmas episode (the first one aired) wasn't supposed to be the first episode but there were too many animation problems with the intended first ep.
had a thing for life-sized pillows in the shapes of young girls.
Clear, Dark Skies
Most politicians are lawyers. They will protect themselves.
*cough*Atari*cough*
I thought most games were developed in Japan to begin with. So having these games developed in a foreign country shouldn't be a new thing to anyone.
Games are different than consumer programs. One of them is an artform with a personality. Any country can make a user-friendly interface (I predict an argument stemming from that), but games will be different where they're manufactured. For instance, many Japanese games are distinctly Japanese. British games may not be as distinctive, but I do believe there is a distinction. The country the game is developed in does matter for games. While I have no objections to games being made in Russia, I don't see why anything has to be outsourced. Russia can make their own damn games, not make American games (although apparently they are since I was not aware "Dragon-Fighting" was a genre).
Look it's a joke about my sig IN MY SIG! LOL!
"We can get it done overseas for a fraction of the cost...."
But the games still get sold here for $59.99...
Where are the savings going? They're sure not being passed along to the consumers. Probably, they're lining the pockets of already overpaid "executives."
I just looked up "Ketsujin", figuring that it is Japanese. It means "outstanding person", coming from the kanji for "greatness" and "person".
:(
I would post the characters, but slashdot doesn't allow UTF-8 strings.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
and that's the way it will stay.
The isolated example of software development outsourcing has already been successfully employed in so many other areas, I'm actually surprised it's taken this long to ramp up.
Here in the US, we produce a just fraction of the steel, petroleum, textile, automobiles, and electronics hardware the we did just a decade ago.
As a software developer, I have seen a direct influence on my business because of it, but I think the answer to adapt through innovation. We are not going to stem the tide of globalization and companies that just rely on protectionist measures will likely not hang on for the long term.
For all of the developers that complain about outsourcing, I wonder how much they would like to pay the $2000-$3000 price tag for a low-end PC that had all its components made here in the US? Your cries are the same ones made by all the other sectors I mentioned above, but have we seen even one of those return and be successful?
We have seen the outsourcing of cheap labor. Now we're seeing the outsourcing of cheap brains. As it becomes practical to transfer other cost-centers to less expensive venues, they will be relocated also. Perhaps the medical and legal professions will feel the pinch next.
I just don't think we should limit ourselves to protectionism for the answer. Think for yourself and go out and do something no one else has done. In the US, you have every opportunity if you are willing to put forth the effort.
*sigh* Ahh yes, the horror that is socialism.
Listen pure capitalism is no better than pure socialism. There has to be a balance between the two because many human beings are unethical (see: Worldcom, Enron for capitalism, and the way communist countries seem to innevitably become dictatorships, ideally socialism is pure democracy)
There has to be SOME government checks on capitalism or the the little people get screwed. Outsourcing of highly skilled jobs needs to be checked because once our low-paying manufacturing jobs are gone, and our high-paying skilled jobs are gone there is almost nothing left!
Now in terms of the whole economy, outsourcing in moderation is fine, but its when mass-migration of jobs occurs that a check needs to made. Otherwise the economy could very well crumble
Protectionism does nothing to improve the health of an economy, all it does is rewards inefficiency. It must come as a sharp smack in the face to be faced with such a change in so few years; in 1999 you'd get a sign on bonus and a huge salary and now it is you that are spreading 'em for a job.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"Let's see how much money they make when they wipe out the American middle class. How many games are the CEOs going to buy? There's also a wonderful concept to business called: Not shooting yourself in the foot for the sake of a temporary increase in profits."
Population of China - 1.4 Billion
Population of India - 1.0 Billion
Population of America - 0.3 Billion
"Not only are such global imbalances unsustainable but in the US, a lasting recovery cannot be built on a foundation of ever-falling saving rates, ever-widening current-account and trade deficits, and ever-rising debt burdens."
Morgan Stanley global economist Stephen Roach
America has an old population compared to India. Our Baby Boomers are retiring and asking for handouts and we won't have enough people working to fill the jobs of the impending wave of retirees or to pay for all of the medicine they're going to need.
If the American middle class evaporated it wouldn't be the end of the world for multinational corporations, including those based in the US. Most of our tax dollars are going to go old people who want expensive pills for free.
Education will suffer because kids can't vote and your average retiree is worried about immediate needs not the long term health of this country. I love democracy but America is headed down the crapper because of it.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
I believe This might be a good example of what outsourcing games will get you...
-B
Yes. The shareholder. CEO's take a lot of the heat for the long-term mismanagement of their charges (and by that, I mean sacrificing the corporation's future goals, or even its very survival, for immediate black ink and person aggrandizement) but in truth, they are only a reflection of their investment base, in much the same way that our government mirrors its citizens. Shareholders have discovered that, under U.S. law at least, they have power. And they are using that power to vote themselves more money (in pretty much the same way Congress votes themselves pay raises.) So, while I am hardly defending the actions of a Ken Lay or Bernard Ebbers, I can say with some certainty that a lot of our problems lie with Wall Street, and the individuals who vote at stockholders meetings. What happens to a CEO that doesn't provide the demanded results? He's given a vote of no confidence, or the company is taken over by another, more aggressive organization. The idea that a good investment is one that provides slow, steady growth over the years, one that invests its stockholders money wisely and with forethought, is simply ... out of fashion. And until it comes back into vogue, we will continue to have these problems.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
When you stop looking for work, you're no longer counted as 'unemployed'.
I love it when people claim 'The US has an unemployment rate that's the envy of the world.' No we don't. The rest of the world just reports it in an honest manner.
Why not move development to cities INSIDE the country with a lower cost of living instead of sending them overseas. Programmers don't need multi-million dollar offices to do their work in.
I hate to tell it to everyone getting ready to outsource their programmers, but they are not the big reason why games cost money.
In the field of console games, paying $10 per game
to Microsoft or Sony is part of it.
But most of the cost is in marketing. More money is often spent on advertising than on the game itself, and in most cases you have to spend it to get enough people aware of your game to make a profit.
Then lets look at companies that spend $15 million on a mis-managed game that gets canceled half way through.
The game industry is immensely difficult. You have to mesh designers, programmers and artists.. ALL which are creative talents. It's not like running a construction project or assembly line.
Oh, did I also mention one of the best things you can do to totally ruin team productivity is split them up into diffrent locations? There is a HUGE diffrence between having everyone in an office and having one or more groups a state or world away.
I wouldn't worry... anyone who outsources programmers for game development is doomed.
...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'....
"All your means of production belong to us!"
OK, half a day late but *someone* might enjoy it.
Why do Americans think they're the only ones who deserve decent jobs? Is the rest of the world supposed to sit in poverty forever while America maintains its enormous salaries? I don't think so. The rest of the world is becoming educated, becoming skilled, and deserves good jobs just as much as America. And another hint - there are a lot of gamers in foreign countries too.
Geeks in Russia are more like Americans than American geeks are to other Americans. People are people, and there's no sense in this mindless nationalism and xenophobia.
This is a common misconception. As the American Middle Class suffers and becomes poor the growing Middle Class in India and China provide all the markets capitalists need. They're abandoning the American middle class. Americans want too high a standard of living for their (capitalists) liking. We expect 40 hour work weeks, Unions, job security and maybe even a little real Democracy (very little of that, but it's still a nusance when you're building a new call center and the locals won't let you because it's a death trap, and they passed an ordinance against death traps in the last election). China and India are ideal. They have so many people that it's physically impossible for enough of them to join the middle class and stem off the supply of cheap, desparte labor.
The idea that capitalists can't abandon America is actually part of their rhetoric. It's one of the arguments they like to bring up whenever anyone talks about nasty stuff like tariffs and maybe baning some of those Walmart imports from some of the more brutal regimes. "We can't leave, we need America, we need it's people". Don't be fooled. They can leave and they don't need you.
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...and we're NOT better off than we were ten years ago...
/. readers who were EXCESSIVELY overpaid during the boom to readers who expect companies to take care of them now? That's the unworkable point of view that produces the OP's blather.
I sure as hell am. Of course, that's because I'm not a bottom-dwelling scum-sucker with the attitude that I'm entitled to being taken care of by those with the acumen to make themselves into something.
Of course, I'm often vilified for this mindset, mainly by those who want the handouts and the easy way. What is the ratio of
Not that I'm pointing a finger or anything...
Remember, being an American worker is not an entitlement, it's a privilege that must be actively maintained. Contrary to apparent opinion, bitching is not maintenance.
I was going to do this AC, but screw it, my karma can take the hit.
One more thing:
With outsourcing trends as they are, we are rather likely to get what Neal Stephenson describes in Snow Crash as an globally-distributed layer of what a Pakistani bricklayer would call prosperity. Unfortunately for us in the US, *we* will call it "abject poverty".
Or the US will no longer be the economic leader. That's hardly the end of the world. In my opinion, that's inevitable. Nature tends toward equilibrium. The fear of global competition does nothing to head it off.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
1989 Graduate with a MS in Computer Science
1989-2004 Work at softwre jobs, save loads of money, take on no debt except a house
2004-2010 write software, pay off house, save money
2011- write software, save money
20?? retire, do contract software part time, save money
I anticipate that we will have to take stagnating software development wages for a while, then slow growing wages.
I also anticipate that the federal, state and local government will want to tax me at a total rate of:
2004 - 50%
2010 - 60%
2015 - 85%
2020 - 90%
2050 - 90%
That's total taxes.
The entitlements (social security, medicare, food stamps, welfare, and government jobs) will grow at double or triple the rate of inflation and at least double my wage growth.
Net result, save money, prepare to make less money in the future.
Wish I had mod points right now. Most corporatism- and globalization-related problems would go away if companies couldn't hide behind the argument that shareholder dividends are priority #1. I think it would be better if it were enshrined that every company's priorities were:
1) To better the living conditions and well-being of society and mankind as a whole;
2) To ensure that current and future employees cannot be 'let go' unless there is *no* other way to reduce costs for the company (ie., senior execs ' pay is based upon company performance -- they lose first, then employees).
3) Maximize shareholder value.
Of course no one will ever let this happen, as it means the end of the golden parachute/handshake/Enron behaviour/etc.
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
It's not altruistic if someone outcompetes you for a job.
Then why don't they make games for themselves? Why does everyone want in on the American economy?
First, many great games are created by foreign developers. Second, there is no such thing as an "American" economy. There is only a world economy.
That's why this "chicken little" crap doesn't make sense. People predicted that Japan would kill us back in the 60's. They didn't. The fact is, that as a foreign economy steals jobs, it also adds consumers. This is an overall GOOD THING for the total world economy. And it's mainly the shittiest jobs getting outsourced anyway.
I've said this many times on slashdot, but as long as America innovates and steals talent from overseas through our university system, we'll be fine. If not, we'll fail.
People used your same arguments in the 50's to argue that textiles and manufacturing jobs needed to stay in America. Today, if our economy was based on that, we'd be decadeds behind Asia and Europe.
America's economy is a constant process of innovating new high-paying jobs and exporting of old, no longer "cool" jobs. Anyone who can't see this has neither a historical perspective nor grasp of basic macroeconomics.
I genuinely don't mean to troll (be ACing if I meant to) but what benefit do these outsourcing stories have for Slashdot? As far as I can see they inspire some rather ugly rhetoric, the same tired arguments about capitalism and a dreadful level of casual racism I hope is genuinely unrepresentative of the Slashdot community. It seems some people just don't have any control over their emotions. I ask the editors to seriously consider whether they need to publish "more of the same" on future occasions.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Strangely enough, cult cinema may provide a clue as to what's going on with this kind of corporate behavior.
Think about it this way: about five years ago, the Bill Lumberghs of the world were mid-level managers. If they've sucked up enough, and been lucky enough to not have their office burned to a smoldering pile of ash, they've probably reached upper-management levels by now.
Outsourcing is just the kind of moronic, inconsiderate idea that a Bill Lumbergh would jump on as a way of sucking up, too. As so many others have pointed out, it's a short-sighted maneuver, but it looks good on paper with the company letterhead at the top.
In the mean time, the outlook from the working-man's perspective is getting dimmer; for the US working man, it could get as bad as it was in the late twenties and thirties.
I've been unemployed for seven months, and I need to make at least seven thousand per year to stay in university and keep myself alive. Once I'm out of uni, I'll need at least twenty thousand to keep myself alive (due mainly to medical expenses and the fact that my parents will not be supporting me, anymore). Working for road construction is an option, but it's a hard industry to get (back) into, and it's in decline, too.
I have skills and talents, but I don't have (much of) a credit history, so getting a business loan to start my own company is probably going to be difficult if not impossible. Minimum wage won't be enough; it isn't enough even now.
I have very few options open to me now, and I recognize that my situation is equal to or better than tens of millions of other people's situation just in the northern half of the "New World". I hate to drag out a tired and ragged "rally cry," but all of us can and should vote this November to do what we can to improve things for ourselves. If you're lazy or if you're probably going to be working on polling day, get an absentee ballot. It's not that hard, and it ensures that you have a vote. Maybe it's not an immediate one, but it leaves a paper trail and it does count.
In the mean time, all I can do is plod along, try to get a job, and hope for the best but plan for the worst. It's probably all anyone else in a similar situation can do, too.
(I'm sorry if I've sounded whining, trite, or naive, and for dragging the conversation a bit off topic.)
In the mean time, good luck to everyone out there. I think we all need it.
~UP
Eat the Path.
Game prices will go down
Not if the company wants to make more money... that's probably why they are outsourcing in the first place.
Also bringing jobs to these countries reduces the terror threat
I don't think this will reduce terrorism, if people are crazy enough to be terrorists, i dont think they'll all the sudden decide to become a game programmer or designer when the opportunity arises.
These are jobs none of us are willing to do, not the good jobs
Game programming and design is a job no one wants to do? I for one do and I know several of my friends are in interested in game design aswell.
Too bad the don't write the code under the GPL, then we could see real productivity increases.
Just because a program is under the GPL does not mean coders productivity will automatically increase.
"Software is like sex: it's better when it's free."
- mritunjai
political rights and high expectations
I don't know about the high-expectations, but Indians and Russians have political rights too.
who can't unionize
You do realize that most of US white coller workers cannot unionize?
and don't get health insurance or retirement benefits
Says who?
God damn-it. At least get your fucking facts right! Its phenomenal how ignorant people on Slashdot are about this. Guess it goes to show you that technical knowledge doesn't mean you necessarily have a clue in any other area.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Learn to read. Thank you.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
I'm someone who bypassed the whole dotcom economic blowout way before it happened. I quit my $85k a year job and moved to Malaysia. Now I'm working again, for what amounts to minimum wage in USD, but actually quite great pay based on the cost of living (except for cars, which cost as much as houses here). One of the positive things that may happen with outsourcing, is that there will be new and CHEAPER tools for developers. When "third world" developers have to use "first world" tools, they usually pirate it. In Malaysia though the SBA's been cracking down hard. End result, my developers spent a few weeks designing flow-charts in MSPAINT because there was no budget for Office yet. So my point is, local companies will sprout to support local developers in 3rd world countries. But the savings will be passed on to 1st world countries, creating competition, and driving software prices down. Because when you have such a huge knowledge transfer, it's only a matter of time before the "outsourced" become competitors. And just like companies are willing to screw employees for the bottom dollar, the consumers will be that much more cruel when they buy the foreign software, developed completely by former "outsourcers". -A
There has to be SOME government checks on capitalism or the the little people get screwed.
The text of the proposed "economic treason" amendment was undeniably intended to screw little guys.
Great! Got a corresponding cost of living index to go with that? Because numbers without context are useless....
Apart from the fashions and faded film stock, you'd swear this film was made last month.
You have unintentionally demonstrated why it is that the American economy works so well. At the time that movie was made, those companies you have listed were amongst the most important firms in America. Now companies which were so powerful that they were called "primal forces" and "nations of the world" have been overshadowed or have faded away completely. ITT is in pieces. IBM almost went bankrupt. AT&T's days are numbered. You won't find Union Carbide or Dow at the pinnacle of the Fortune 500. Where are Wal-Mart, Microsoft, or Amazon in this list? America's dynamic economy continues to move forward. Ossified titans don't last, and new challengers can appear out of nowhere. Compare that to Japan, or South Korea, or France.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
I've read many of the posts and there are some good posts with varing outlooks and I can't say that the government should step in (since this isn't the first time this has happened, just because it happens in sector that is interst to me doesn't make it more important than previous outsourcing). When you go and look at a new vehicle, they are required to list origin of parts and assembley. Why not make the american game (and all software for that matter) companies do the same, to inform the consumer by puting a label on the game that part of this game from an american company was outsourced? Then let the consumer make the decision to support a company that practices outsourcing. just an idea.
I've known since 8th grade that i wanted to be a game developer. When I stared College, which was right before the bust and everything was -grandtastic- CS was the thing, and i was like "everything's gonna be great, I finish school and jobs will be wating" then came the, Election theft, the .Bust, and 9/11, and Tech sector hit the mat, and I said " Its ok, I'm going in for game DEV, and gaming is unhurt by the .Bust"
Then the outsourcing started and I'm like "Its fine, I'm in game dev, it survived the .bust it'll survive this"
now this and I say; "Good thing I'm a double major"
I've been in school way to long, changed Universities twice and am finally about to graduate. I dont think an economic revolution is very far off. you know how those bad the 80's were i suppose in 20 years vh4 will be playing I love the 00's and talking about how muhc hte music sucked, our country had inept leadership and everything wnet to hell.
how about this. My second language is japanese, I'm now expanding my job search to japan. I don't want to learn hindi. I've lived in a place where the only jobs there are are service jobs, its bad.
you know what else, economies like this create Crime. and if you look at the FBI total crome report, Crime is in fact up.
Is there anyhope? Can we get these jobs back? can I once again sleep at night knowing when i wake up my cubicle wont be in Bali?
fuck it, if it werent lent, I'd be drinking.
is what allowed me to pay $50 for that video game. Now I will just have to get my vedeo game software the same way those Russian programmers do, warez.
If you refuse to buy a product that was made overseas, they will stop having it dome overseas.
I think it was dell(maybe gateway?) that recently started bring some tach support back from overseas outsourcing due to consume backlash.
Not all of it, but some.
If a game is written by outsourced programmers over seas, save your 50 bucks, and write a letter saying why you are not buying there product.
The most important thing is not to buy the games.
You have to ask yourself
Is keeping coders working in the states more important then that fancy game?
At least wait 6 months for it to hit the 10 buck bin.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's as stupid as a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. You are basically saying we should doom our economy to a populist hell-hole, when people like Alexander Hamilton worked so hard to make it a free one.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Exactly. It all boils down to this... SLAVERY was outlawed here in America. However, hiring foreign workers and treating them like slaves is not illegal for some reason. I'm sorry... but America can not compete with workers who make 52cents a hour. The only way American workers can compete is if they accept 51cents a hour. Of course all of this will in the end, lower the value of the dollar, balance out the worlds currency values, cost of living and so forth. The rich will have gained 400x the wealth, since the value of the dollar will decrease. Ferrari's will cost 100 dollars total. Think how many Ferrari's Bill Gates could own at $100 each. So yes.. The middle class will be hurt in the short term, but it will return once our country has lowered itself to 3rd world standards. But the most insulting aspect is tha the wealthy will have profited off of all of this. They will profit off destroying the middle class and the American economy. In the end all will balance out except for the rich, who will become even richer. So you can see why they're doing this to us. They have the power. We're all fucked. Buy guns now before the rich outlaw them for their safety :)
no.
C is more universal. and kids do not need special languages to learn and understad programming.
They're damn bright and can remeber near anything they desire to.
The trick is, of course, getting them to desire to learn what your teaching.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
cause teachers unions are to damn greedy, and people don't want to be taxed another 50bucks a year on there property. No matter how much they complain about needing better education.
I would tell you how much the LA teacher union costs in over head, but when you saw the number, you would dismiss it out of hand.
What this counter need is to have ever tax dollar spent posted to the internet in an easy to read fashion.
This would educate people on whether or not a tax hike is truly needed for schools, let them know what percentage of there money gets to the children.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
US companies will teach Russians, Indians and Chinese how to write software. Not just how to code, they have excellent coders and designers RIGHT NOW. What they don't have is experience ("been there done that" kind) and a general idea on how to make all the pieces work together. They need to know how to run software projects, end to end.
Then underpaid Russians, Indians and Chinese will form their own companies in their home countries and show their collective middle finger to US software industry. They will simply write better software for less, and no, they won't be in a need of CEOs, CIOs and other C*Os. Neither will they need US middle management which is currently so eager to outsource everything down to their underpants.
It is much easier and cheaper to hire 2-3 Americans to handle "cultural consulting" if the US is a target market than to pay millions to some MBA moron who doesn't know jack shit.
" While I agree that helping to improve the economies of poorer nations may reduce terrorism, ..."
so, conversley, destroying the economy in this country will increase terrorism.
Something more executive should think about.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I completely agree with this actually. Destroying the middle class will only breed more violence. Rich people will fear for their lives. The poor will rise up and kill the wealthy. That is infact what is exactly happening in the middle east with terrorism. The poor who eat dirt are pissed off, and they have access to bombs and dangerous shit. They dont play around because they have NOTHING TO LOSE. THEY LIVE IN FUCKING MUD HUTS!
Indeed, the city is in Ukraine and not Russia, and not only that, but "Kiev" is considered an outdated spelling. It is based on the Russian name of the city, and because Russian is not an official language of Ukraine, it can seem quite offensive. The spelling "Kyiv", a romanisation of the name in Ukrainian, is used the most by most news wire services and publications of the Ukrainian government. The Ukrainian postal service would prefer the spelling "Kijiv" to be used in addresses.
Ahh yes steel tariffs. Did you know steel tariffs have been protecting inefficient US steel companies, as well as forcing automakers and other steel-buyers to cut thousands of jobs to pay for steel that is almost double the price?
Tariffs have a history of driving up prices, causing a net job loss, while protecting greedy-competetitors.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
It's only temporary, until those russian/others developers got some expirience, couple of finished titles under their belt and start their own companies. What are they need their US overlords for ? Life quite cheap in russia, and producing game not require so much investment as in US/Western Europe, considering the main spendings are salaries and art content.
Everyone said the same thing about farmers when they got new machines like combines that enabled them to produce more food cheaper. In the short run, yes, these farmers did reap a good profit.
But in the long run, all the other farmers started to catch up. Video games have consistently been priced at $50-$70, but the quality and complexity has been steadily increasing. Now why is that?
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
People just dont have it in them to this unfortunately. Those cheap ass products at walmart are too tempting. It wont happen.
It's not uncommon for skilled people to be out of work. The question is what policies do we enact to prevent this? Tariffs? Quotas? Bans? Boycotts? Taxes?
All of those polcies are destructively counter-productive. The only real solution, as it has worked in Switzerland, is to cut taxes drastically. This would at least give businesses incentives to hire people again rather than go overseas.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
so could someone please explain this parnkster first post stuff? I can see a troll doing this once in a while, but there is an all out campaign of profane, idiotic, and just incomprehensable stuff...in every single article. It seems like an inordinate amount of work to do in order to have a few jollies. I want to know if it is a bot or if someone really dislikes slashdot or what. Think about what you are doing.. if you are doing this. You are wasting your time and energy to make Linux users (generalizing) look like kids. There's got to be something else out there you'ld like to effect. That kind of communication campaign could make a difference in a political issue you care about. Anyway, outsourcing seems like a fine thing to do to improve a world where people are starving. I don't see america as suffering that badly. I only hope social reforms accompany the outsourcing. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
about being beaten through competion, actually get out there and compete. When they can do it just as well for less, no rational mind can deny the reasonableness of it. Why should America be the only country with a middle class?
I'm curious as to how much of the development cost actually comes from writing code, as opposed to producing art and music.
May we never see th
I'm no expert on the subject so I can only guess, but I think that the economies of Switzerland and the U.S. are different enough that a solution worked out in Switzerland would probably not work out for the U.S. Aside from the whole population size differences thing, there's the composition of the economy and upper/middle/lower -class ratio differences. Beyond even that, there are already considerable tax incentives given to businesses, large and small alike.
In the case of the "mega-corporations," the state and federal governments give enough breaks and incentives for even one factory, that they can produce a net profit for the company. The reasoning behind it is that the corporation is getting paid to give local (relatively speaking) citizens jobs.
Tax cuts won't make much difference, unless they are specifically for small businesses, as small businesses typically are not the ones which are outsourcing jobs.
Tariffs, bans, and boycotts probably won't work, no, and I'm not so sure about quotas (of outsourced jobs per year?) because the highest penalty which can be given to a corporation in the U.S. is (if I recall correctly) 500,000 USD per day. I haven't taken a look at the numbers, but I assume that the 'mega-corps' are the ones who contribute the most number of jobs outsourced. If those corporations can still make up for that 500k USD in "savings" produced by outsourcing, they'll just shrug off the fine.
Taxes, if targetted correctly, may help, but only if the tax revenue goes toward job creation (ala FDR's New Deal). What may eventually slow or stop U.S. outsourcing is a combination of "New Deal"-like job creation programs and "quotas" or other restrictions on the numbers of jobs outsourced, along with bold courts or a bold FTC to enforce the fines and new law(s) appropriately.
But that's only a guess, and probably not a very accurate one at that. I also have my doubts that any of the above would be done.
Personally... I may try to move out of country if I can. I've been limited to a fairly homogenized view of the world, and I'd like to experience another perspective of the U.S. and the world. (BBC World News over the radio can only do so much....) If it will help me financially, then all the better.
~UP
Eat the Path.
If you are in the software industry (not talking about OSS, which does not deliver games), you only care about the demand curve mostly. Each game is in a sense a non-commodity (and faces a "private" demand curve), same with music, patented drugs and movies. You either choose one movie or an entirely different one.
:-) (Un) Common sense and real statistics are better teachers i've found out.
So basically, to maximize income here, you only care about the demand curve for your game/drug/movie/sound, completely disregarding costs (95% or more of total cost are fixed costs).
Mhh, so yes, changing the cost of producing a game has no effect on prices, nor the quantity...
Erhh, anyway, as producing games becomes more attractive, more games are produced by the competition (and the company), and games though each face a particular demand curve, can be seen as imperfect substitutes of each other as you mention, so prices will have to go down or each players share will shrink (that may be what's happening, each sells less, but has incentives not to lower the prices....I am not really sure what is really happening, I don't see prices falling down, but I do see more games being produced).
That's/was the problem with basic microeconomics, too much assumptions or ceteris paribus
unfinished: (adj.)
I said outsourcing is good, and you can cite the words of Alan Greenspan and George Bush. It's only liberal protectionists who want to raise taxes and make the USA into a mini Canada who are against outsourcing.
Outsourcing weeds out the strong from the weak, the weak don't have a job because they don't deserve one. It's simple, work smarter and harder and you keep your job.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
and raise everyone's standard of living. That's really the problem with America. Not only is our Middle class too well off, but our poor are _far_ too rich. I mean, what good's being a rich capitalist if you don't have some truly desperate people to push around?
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Why can't you just work harder? Why must you blame everything on the system, everything on the recession, the economy, outsourcing, the CEO, the President, what? who are you going to put the blame on next?
If you can't keep a job its because you aren't working hard enough, and if you aren't smart enough to survive it's your fault. Work harder and smarter.
What we need to do is lower taxes and encourage outsourcing, low taxes allow a company to save money which they can later on re-invest into their business in the form of R&D. Low taxes encourage growth of industry, outsource increases productivity which can allow a company to make products for cheaper.
Don't you understand the capitalist system? Take a class on economics, or maybe you really are a socialist.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
When you outsource, you save the company money and increase the profits of the company. Healthier companies mean more competitive companies. More competition between companies mean lower prices for consumers and more jobs.
You should do everything you can to support the health of businesses, this means lower taxes, increased outsourcing, increased productivity, increase of modernization in the form of automating tasks which once required people to be hired. The best way to help your country is to support outsourcing.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
The world will become middle class and they will buy more American products. You forget about all this don't you.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Nothing stops you from moving from the Tri-State area.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
India and China are no longer third world countries. India has lots of jobs, a good economy which is growing at a faster pace than ours. Why not move to India?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
In Communism everyone is poor or everyone is rich, with no winners or losers. What you are is a communist, you want us all to be equal.
Capitalism is not about being fair, its about winners and losers. Look let me put it to you straight, if you arent smart enough to have a job you deserve to live in India/China third world country. Lazy stupid people deserve to be kicked out of our country.
You think you deserve a job as a birthright while people who work their whole lives to get in this country just to cut grass and wash your car arent complaining? Shut up, please!
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Taxes should not exist at all. Why do we need to care about stupid people who cannot get a job and support themselves? Why should we care about income disparity? That's what capitalism is all about, income disparity and when you try to level off the income levels its called socialism or communism. Taxes should not exist, social programs should not exist, the market should solve all these problems.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
You should be quoted because you are exactly right. Why should we change into a socialist country just to support stupid people who can't survive in Capitalism?
Why should we go against Darwin and support the burger flipping idiots?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
At this point in time, what possible incentive is there for a corporation not to outsource?
Hey I'm on your side, But I'm also for file sharing and open source for the exact same reason. Yes it kills certain big companies, but it increases productivity, competition, and its progress.
Which are are you on? The side of progress or would you like us all to go back to working in factories just so some idiot who isnt smart enough t do real work can survive?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
And I am a Democrat. Look, go to college, get your education, work hard and you WILL have a job.
Or you can whine and complain that Indians took your job while you sit on your ass and do nothing. What? You going to ask for the government to bail you out and give you MY money? You can't earn your own damn money so you losers have to tax me and take mine?
If you are stupid it is under your control, work harder if you arent as intelligent as me. Get degrees, spend 10 years in college, and write a great resume. IF you still can't find work then you can always be a teacher.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
The rich don't use all the social programs, they dont benefit from the taxes so why should they pay them? Why should Bill Gates have to pay taxes for education, healthcare, or even military defense? He can defend himself, he can send his kids to private school, he can afford his own healthcare. What's in it for him?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
1 Get an education. A masters degree is now the ground floor. Get your masters or even a PHd/Doctorates.
2 Work harder and smarter. If you were actually the best at your job, the boss would think twice before outsourcing you. Do the work of 10 Indians and perhaps you'll be worth the price of 10 Indians.
3Start a company if you can't be the best at anything. You can always hire labor from India and start a company much much easier when labor is cheap. By encouraging outsourcing and decreasing the cost of labor you decrease the cost of running a business which also decreases the cost of starting one.
4 If you can't do any of this, become a teacher. Get your PHD and teach, write books and sell your books to India while teaching here.
5If you can't do any of this. Die.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
This has always been a country about competition, from the very beginning. Racial competition has turned into national competition. Now we compete with other countries and not with individual races or genders within our own country.
Your point? Fact is its a global competition, work harder or die.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Start a company
Create new industries
Win the battle of ideas
Be smarter and more educated
If all else fails then you teach the uneducated in America.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Slavery did help build this country. Without slavery do you honestly think the USA would have been built? The whitehouse was built by slaves, as were the railroads, and most of the cities.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
the capitalists in charge will be replaced by those who do care about the people living in this country, whether through peaceful means or not.
I personally cannot wait for the day when we'll be able to punish the greedy.
What did you say Mr.Bin Laden? You should be quickly detained for saying shit like that. Joe_Lightning@hotmail.com?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
The cost of living is high because we are a very rich country. If what you say is true and suddenly we all lose our jobs, the cost of living will go down as well and things will balance out.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
If you try to keep all the third world countries from being able to compete for jobs, thats racist. Remember when in America whites tried to keep blacks from getting an education or from getting equal access to the workplace just to avoid the competition?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
I think you'll find that's Edinburgh, Scotland.
From The BBC
I say we take-off and slashdot the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure
Yeah, it's called the "consumer price index," and the numbers I linked to have already been adjusted to compensate for the CPI.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
So let me get this right you are against gloablization because it might affect your software job but your for Opensource. With globalisation we see a rising middle class in other countires with disposable income. Which in turn will want to buy things including high price quality import good. I see this as a huge export opportunity. No business can remain static or isolated in a true capitalist system...but I guess you don't really want capitialism do you
Roses are red, violets are blue, and in Soviet Russia all my base are belong to you.
or.. IL2 - Sturmovik, Lock On -Modern Air Combat.. Or, maybe.. Tetris?
i had a sig, once..
What we've got here is something different though. The Average American Consumer, the kind that shops at Wal-Mart picking through bins of $5.50 DVD's willing to put up with a movie because it's cheap and not because they actually like it, is willing to spend $10-$15 on some piece of tripe to play when they get home (like that Big Rigs game - tell me that's not aimed at redneck consumers). These are the people who gave us that Deer Hunter trend. These are the people who made the Dukes of Hazzard game a success. These people have a demand for cheap games and they're not as concerned about quality as serious gamers are.
That's what's being outsourced - verse/chorus/verse games. You think EA would outsource a LOTR game? Not on your life.
APEX provides the Wal-Martians with cheap DVD players (and I should know - I have three in my house). But do you see Sony going out of business with their high-end DVD players? No. So do you think outsourcing of the crap games is going to put id/Valve/Epic/Dice out of business? No way - people still upgrade their hardware to play id Games.
Schnapple
This is not the last thing to happen in PC gaming.
The gaming industry is one that can get away pretty easyly with a high throughput of titles, because gamers always want the new and shiny with more polygons.
I expect the gaming industry to take a hit as soon as OSS gaming engines and tools like crystal space or Blender get a grip. We'll have games for free, the mod community utilizing them (they work for free allready) and the money will be made in providing not a game but the service around it: Servers, special distributions (just like Linux), gaming leagues, high quality mods, automatic online updates - think 'Loki Linux Installer' which makes maintaining UT under Linux easyer thatn under Windows - and other stuff like that.
Closed Source Games are going to be the last thing to experience the OSS impact, but they're going to feel it nonetheless.
In fact, this outsourcing thing is a shure sigh for a local industry to get moving into service rather than pushing for cheaper production. No way can anyone in Europe or the US outprogramm a slavic, indian or far-east programmer for the same amount of money. As soon as people hereabouts will get that, the pain will stop.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Yeah no doubt I totally agree I men hell i certainly don't want to live in a third world country. What all the ignorant ppl in favour of rampant outsourcing don't seem to understand is that we need to hold the line here before it gets worse. Before were all living in countries live india where their are no services or china where the goverment tramples people rights and pollutes the environment.
There are still plenty of jobs in the real estate and non-tradeable economy, at least until they figure out how to import houses.
I believe it is called conquest and invasion.
Let's see how much money they make when they wipe out the American middle class.
- want-to-call-them are using cheap labor in other countries to increase their profits, while selling it anywhere they can (hint: not just USAmerica). So you get these guys building products in Malaysia, selling to Europe, while living in one of the best places in the world to live, when you're affluent.
*Sigh* You see, that's the big part of your problem, right there. The US thinks they're the center of the world. "Who's going to buy their products when the American middle class is wiped out," you ask? Oh gee, I don't know, how about THE REST OF THE FRIGGIN' WORLD???? I know, I was shocked when I found out too, but apparently, there are HUNDREDS of other countries out there, and many of them can even afford to buy some of our products!
Don't you see it? These CEOs/visionaries/risk-takers/leeches/whatever-you
How exactly are they "shooting themselves in the foot?" So far, it seems to be working out pretty well, seeing as they actually are rich. Do you think maybe, just maybe, they know more about making money and milking this system than you do?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Think I'm wrong? How many CEOs know what they are doing? Do they know how the product is made, what problems are encountered? No.
Do they know what challenges their company faces on a fundamental (as opposed to the hazy/theoretical) level? Do they realize that by simply removing useless employees and streamlining their business practices they can save much more than "outsourcing"? They rely on their VPs and Middle Managers to cover up the truth ("Doing great, Boss!!"), while the CEO plays golf and plans the next merger so he can trigger the merger clause in his contract and get paid a few extra million.
These people are no more qualified to fix our economy than you are.
Yeah, right.
Well, maybe not everyone believes in it that strongly, but personally when I do believe in something I stand by that belief through thick and thin.
Really? So, if you were the CEO of a gaming company, you'd conduct 100% of development locally, using USAmerican citizen developers? You'd compete against other companies, who do take advantage of outsourcing, and who products games just as good or better than yours, but priced 20% lower? You'd drive your company into the ground, to make a point? You'd let all your developers lose their jobs? Watch your stock price fall through the floor as investors realized you were on a suicidal, kamikaze run, and let your employees retirement and pension funds vaporize?
Just to make a point? Would you really?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Some of us spent years at university to study for our profession, you know.
I can't keep doing a degree in the latest new trend. I'm just glad I don't live in America - where business and politicians seem intent on sending high-paid jobs abroad.
Why doesn't the government there realise they will have less tax returns and more social costs if this trend continues?
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
Now with a 4 year engineering degree I'm a part of the fucking unwashed masses
Have you considered bathing?
Trust me, you don't need and MBA to take a bath.
a $2800 Gibson (which will ALWAYS have buyers)
Funny... As I recall, they said a similar thing about eCommerce web portals about 5 years ago.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Now developers will have to compete with people who will live on poutine!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Everything looks great on paper and in budgetary meetings, but there's a reason that foreign films do only moderately well in the United States, and that's due to the cultural ties. We cannot fully appreciate the humor, nuances and style of a culture that we're not a part of, and as a result its difficult for us to fully relate to the film.
This carries over into the video game industry, though there have been certain exceptions, most notably with Japanese style gaming. From what I have noticed, those that enjoy those types of game also have an appreciation for Japanese culture, which bridges the gap. I don't see that link currently with other nations that development is going to be outsourced to, though that could change in the future.
I think at best you could get some engine and source work done in another country, but the style and the heart of the game are going to have to be developed stateside in order to keep its finger on the pulse of what appeals to our culture, which would result in a more profitable game.
American corporations have ALWAYS been short-sited and always will be. There are extremely few individuals leading any corporation that think out past the next quarter or two.
Don't you recall history?
Didn't the president of IBM or some other high-level executive say that there was and would only ever be a market for something like 5 computers the world over?
I am sure that many other executives at many other businesses the world over thought and think the same way as well...
Oh, wait. Ford Motor Company has had a history of that as well... Look up all the information regarding the Pinto and all of the short-sited remarks about safety at Ford during that time period. I believe you will find something regarding a REALLY inexpensive piece of plastic that could have been added to the Pinto that would have significantly cut down on the explosion problem those vehicles had during rear end collisions.
Anyway, Corporations always have been and always will be sgort-sited.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
How in gods name did my post become moderated flamebait? I'm quite, *quite* serious.
When you get an education you are making an investment in your future - in the same way that when you get stocks you are making an investment in your future.
If somebodies stocks go belly-up because a competitor company now makes $widget$ cheaper in Inida, that's OK because they were taking a risk. Somehow it is different if the investment was education instead of shares?
You've got a point. Now, who should do something to prevent this long-term impoverishment (i have just made that word up)? Corporations or Government?
I mean, John CEO could be very altruistic, but while he keeps all the jobs here, their competitors outsource and cut costs and leave him out of business. Quite a dilemma isnt it?
I don't have a sig.
Here's an example of outsourcing being a Bad Thing (TM):
Bigs Rigs: Over the Road Racing has been hailed as the worst game ever, and that seems to have been outsourced to a company called Stellar Stone, LLC. Stellar Stone offers several services, including that "Your music theme can be performed by top Eastern European Orchestras" (which would be fine, except that In Soviet Russia, your music performs the orchestra).
Their website also says:
Unlike many development companies, we do not charge our clients on per hour basis.
Ah, I guess that would explain why it seems like they spent as little time as possible on Big Rigs.
There is an option on the main menu to view the credits, but when you click this option, the game either displays a blank screen or mysteriously crashes. I guess nobody wants to take credit for it!
This kind of thing is not a good sign for the video game industry.
Big smile, logically-impaired although somehow convincing rhetoric, (People can't grok the fact that the person in the nice tie could have such a poor grasp of logic and the English language, and so fall over backwards to fill in the gaps of the psychopath's thinking and speaking so as to form a pretty picture in their own minds of what they would like to hear. This is part of the psycho's power.) Psychos rise quickly to the tops of power structures. You've probably seen this in action during your own life.
The Psycho is about destruction. Period. They will happily mangle working structures for no other reason than it causes misery, pain and confusion. They probably don't realize that they're doing it; They have diseased brains, after all. Psychotic humans are like an advanced virus. They easily infect large systems, and explode them from the inside out. And the classic defense mechanisms do not seem to work.
Bush and his fellow psychos in industry, (think Enron et all), are doing everything in their power to bankrupt the U.S. The normal people are falling all over themselves to justify this activity; "If they're doing it so blatantly, then it MUST be good. No intelligent person would deliberately sink the ship. This must simply be something I cannot understand. Now if I can only think of a good argument to explain it. .
--You can see this very thinking all over Slashdot right now! People are largely falling into one of two categories; 1) Confusion and hurt. 2) Attempting to rationally explain the insane behavior so that they feel comforted. As the ship goes down. The psycho doesn't care. He's just an infernal machine clicking along.
And the end result will invariably be ruined lives. Lots of them.
Bush needs to be put down. In fact, if we destroyed 80% of the CEOs and Politicos in the U.S., the insanity would probably stop cold and we could begin to heal.
-FL
Except that housing has been removed from the CPI. You put housing back in the CPI, the picture changes dramatically.
So what? We could add and subtract things like numbers of crickets in the backyard and number of cars on blocks all day, but ultimately what you see is that YES, Americans ARE better off now than ever before! In the 60's: get breast cancer, you're almost certainly gonna die from it. Now? Get breast cancer and it can probably be cured (or at least the longevity of your life can be extended substantially in comparison to the 60's). Not to mention the fact that American's disposable income is higher, life expectancy longer, and spending power higher than in our entire history as a nation.
Granted, who's to say that our quality of life is better or worse: that's a highly subjective measure. And yes, I worry about tech jobs moving overseas to make the rich even richer, but c'mon, do you "have enough" of everything in your life right now? No? Than you're no different than the rest of us who constantly struggle with wanting more than we have right now. It's a universal trait, and the rich have it just as much as you or I do. And I'm a middle-class American, which makes me a lot richer than probably 95% of the rest of the world.
Just becuase you can write doesn't make you a good writer. If your newphew also knows how to do some simple operations, would you let him perform brain surgery on you? Heck why go to the doctors at all? We all know how to take care of our own diseases...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
A few issues: You cite household income as rising -- but you leave out that working hours have increased per worker, and, more importantly, more households now have two wage earners instead of one who supports an entire family. That is the biggest difference -- instead of one wage earner supporting someone who can stay at home and participate in local schools and local non-profits and supervise and care for children, we now have two wage earners and latch key kids and less civic participation. Granted some of this is in part because people now feel they need bigger homes, more and bigger cars, more expensive private education, and more other consumables to keep up with their neighbors or various expectations derived from watching television -- but it is a serious lifestyle choice to drop out of that competition with many consequences (good and bad). Also, many health issues such as breast cancer may be caused in part by ground water pollution from pesticides (esp. on Long Island) and other environmental factors including stress -- so overall, it is hard to say whether quality of life has improved in the USA overall. In the specific case of medical care, for those with great insurance or a lot of money, many advanced treatments are available, but for many US citizens without health insurance a trip to the doctor or hospital for routine health care has become unaffordable (unlike much cheaper vet visits for pets) -- so what good are treatments if they are never used or applied too late? Note that overall, US life expectency is something like eighteenth in the developed world, and infant mortality is up there too. What is clear is that some US citizens think they are are better off than they were before -- the devil is in the details of who and why. Just like with the Iraq war -- the "America" getting the benefits (e.g. rich defense and oil company execs) is not the same American (e.g. working poor wanting a college education, unemployed people whose states can't afford to extend unemployment insurance in an economic depression) who is paying the costs.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
While your point is a good one to remember, it's also important to note that it doesn't rebut the underlying argument that the character in "Network" was making. His argument was that in the modern world, companies are more important than nations. If we wrote a similar speech today the companies would be different, and that is indeed a sign of a dynamic economy -- but the fact that the big companies now are by and large bigger, even in inflation-adjusted dollars, than the ones at the time "Network" was written would seem to support the premise.
The rich will have gained 400x the wealth, since the value of the dollar will decrease. Ferrari's will cost 100 dollars total. Think how many Ferrari's Bill Gates could own at $100 each.
How do you figure? If a Ferrari is worth $100,000 now, and the value of the dollar is decreased, why would the Ferrari be worth less? It's not the value of the Ferrari that is going down, it is the value of the dollar being used to purchase the Ferrari that is going down. So in this hypothetical future, wouldn't the Ferrari be worth $4,000,000?
Or will the value of property also be decreasing as the value of the dollar decreases? I'm confused.
IANAEconomicsMajor and all that...
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And for hundreds of thousands of years before that, people just picked fruit off the trees or killed game animals (who were not as afraid of humans then). The Hunter-Gatherer civilization -- possible when the population is low relative to what the ecology produces. With advanced technology -- like a Star Trek replicator in every home -- we may well return to those roots. See: http://www.deoxy.org/endwork.htm
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Did you read the adjusted table? Every fifth went down. The top 5% went up.
"I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them." ~ Isaac Asimov
Only from 2000 to 2001. I was responding to the claim that we're worse off after 10 years (1991 to 2001), which is false.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
As in were you born yesterday, or do you think we all were?
You actually said " The cost of living is high because we are a very rich country."
Post WW1 Germany was dirt poor paying war reparations, it took a wheelbarrel full of high denomination notes just to buy a loaf of bread, if you could get it. This situation provided the fuel to push your namesake into power.
And then you said " If what you say is true and suddenly we all lose our jobs, the cost of living will go down as well and things will balance out."
Ok, it was you who was born yesterday, not us. Cost of living and jobs ok ok. Look, the cost of things don't mean a damned thing if you have no income, but you have obviously mis-schooled in supply and demand economics. If an item has a very low sales rate (because few people can afford it) the price does not go down, the price goes up to match (a) your cost of production and (b) to provide enough revenue to make it worth producing at all.
Minimum quality levels do not apply universally and you will never be able to sell anything for less than the cost of production to people who cannot carry the real price for long.
A coffee maker does not equate to a Jaguar anywhere at any time.
Your perception of 'wealth' and 'means' indicates an immaturatiy of knowledge and experiance.
Tarrifs have been used historically to prevent irresponsible behaviour that results in a race to the bottom, and tarrifs are the only way to control the current race. Corperations and consumers are caught in a trap that they cannot be freed from without intervention. Lowered consumer spending power drives them to the lowest cost option, the lowest cost option becomes the driving factor for business and business does what it has to to meet that demand, driving jobs to the lowest cost provider and further decreasing the purchasing power of the consumer by the elimination of jobs.
The business has no choice because if they leave production and jobs in the higher cost domain of the primary consumer, they will see the competition beat them in cost and take the primary consumer.