What is game development outsourcing and why is it worth entrusting game development to professionals

Outsourcing is a trend that has seen significant growth currently in the game development field. In fact, outsourcing can help studios extend their creative reach and reduce administrative costs. By selecting external professionals to handle some of the project work, game development companies can focus on their expertise and let specialists perform their services at high-quality levels. In this article, we will review the pros and cons related to outsourcing in game development.

What Is Game Development Outsourcing and How Does It Work?

Outsourcing game development typically involves hiring external teams to develop some aspects of the video game project. This can involve game art, coding, or sound design. A game dev studio will partner with experts in various fields such as game design outsourcing to develop a portion of the game. The outsourced company will maintain a singular focus (to whatever extent they can) and will work to maintain the overall vision while executing their specific tasks for the game, remotely from their own location and team. 

Outsourcing has the potential for flexibility, scalability, and can provide specialized skills and knowledge services without requiring the studio to have an in-house talent pool or team.

Which Parts of a Game Can Be Outsourced to External Teams?

The potential to outsource various elements of game development exists:

• Game Art and Animation: The creation of 3D models, textures, animations, and environments can typically be contracted out to other artists;
• Programming: Developers might outsource AI programming, gameplay, or optimization tasks or assets;
• Audio/Sound Design: Outsourced composers and audio/sound designers can deliver an expansive audio landscape;
• Quality Assurance (QA): Outsourcing testing to a third party can provide games that are far more likely to have minimal bugs and work across devices;
• Localization: For games released globally, outsourced parties would take care of translation, and culture and any other adaptation to the target market.

Outsourcing certain aspects of game development enables game development companies to concentrate on core competencies, outsourcing expertise for some of the other aspects of the game.

Why Do Studios Choose to Outsource Instead of Building In-House Teams?

Outsourcing game development is often a better option for studios compared to assembling large in-house teams for a few reasons:

1. Access to Expertise: There may be certain expertise needed in production studios that they can’t get in-house. Selecting outsourcing allows game developers to access 3D artists, animators, coders, etc., so they can specify talent that’s at a very high level.
2. Cost Benefits: By outsourcing, studios reduce the costs of permanent staff which include salary, benefits, and training.
3. Flexibility: Outsourcing can allow studios to adjust their development team – up or down – to fit the requirements of a project. This is important when working against a release date but you cannot afford to establish permanent employee rolls to match.
4. Faster Production: Outsourcing can allow another team to work parallel to the in-house team which can enable the whole development cycle to be considerably faster.

For many game development agencies, outsourcing provides a cost-effective and time-efficient solution.

What Are the Main Benefits of Outsourcing Game Development to Professionals?

There are a few clear benefits to game outsourcing:

• Expertise: – Outsourcing gives studios the chance to work with professionals in individual fields of game art design, animation, and coding. This means the output quality is much better. 
• Cost: – Outsourcing can be cheaper than building a large in-house team especially for smaller studios or studios that must budget. 
• Time: – By using specialized external teams to work on specific tasks, the whole production time is faster than it would have been with a larger in-house team.
• Focus on Value: – When teams outsource certain tasks, it allows the in-house team to focus on the design and story of the game and the high level strategy.

How Can Outsourcing Help Reduce Costs and Speed Up Production?

Outsourcing game development services will allow studios to save both time and money during production.

• Decreased Labor: Studios are able to save on the hiring of a large in-house team and overhead when they outsource work to game studios located in areas of the world with lower average labor costs.
• Concurrent Development: Because multiple teams can work concurrently on different parts of the game, the total production time will be greatly reduced, and the product can go to market faster.
• Reduced overhead: Game studios will avoid the cost of recruiting, hiring, training and providing benefits to full time employees.

With these cost-saving and time-efficient benefits, outsourcing allows studios to stay competitive while maximizing resources.

Are There Any Risks in Outsourcing, and How Can They Be Mitigated?

Although outsourcing has so many advantages, there should be consideration for the potential challenges: 

• Communication Breakdowns: Time zones and language can sometimes lead to challenges in communication. To avoid these, studios should share specific documents outlining specifications, schedule regular meetings and use a project management tool to keep track of details. 
• Quality Assurance: It can be a struggle to maintain the quality of the product when using external third-parties. A clear feedback loop, including specific guidelines and briefing packs, will be crucial to ensure the assets and designs can support the general tone permiss the development to achieve the tone and vision of the game. 
• Cultural Differences: Different regions may have a culture or style they will develop assets and games from. It is essential for a studio to choose an outsourcing team that understands the intended B2C audience and more broadly, the creative vision of the game. 

By selecting outsourcing partners carefully and developing good practices around communication, studios can mitigate some of the risk.

Conclusions

There are many advantages to outsourcing game development such as specialized talent, cost-efficiency and faster production time. In fact, for most game development companies, outsourcing is an effective way to grow their own teams, execute a faster timetable and produce quality results. Outsourcing does have challenges but these can be addressed with transparent communication and quality control. 

At the end of the day, outsourcing is a perfect opportunity for game developers to play to their strengths, everything else can be handled by professionals in the field. Whether you are an indie studio or a big gaming company, outsourcing can drastically increase the opportunity to put out quality games on time and on budget.