Study Indicates Game Outsourcing On the Rise

Amritt Ventures, a corporate advisory service, has published a summary of its findings in a survey of trends in video game outsourcing. The study indicates that more and more developers are outsourcing game production, and that the majority of the 259 professional game respondents intend to increase the level of outsourced work they use in the coming year. 78% of respondents said that they would increase outsourcing, compared with 11% who declared they would not. The most-outsourced skill is art, with 81% of those who outsource saying they used outside agencies for art needs, with programming being the next-most-outsourced skill. Reasons for the increase in outsourcing were cost-effectiveness, cited by 34% of respondents, and capacity, cited by 30%. Of the outsourced work going overseas, the majority of the work is going to China and India: 42% said they would be sending more work to China, while 38% said they used Indian agencies. However, the increase in outsourced work won't come without its cost: 38% of respondents said they were worried about loss of control of their projects, and 32% saw language as a barrier to productive outsourcing. 22% worried about the quality of outsourced projects, according to the survey, which, it should be noted, was commissioned by a firm which is "dedicated to helping American corporations leverage offshore resources in order to maximize their competitiveness and profits." "As the industry gears up for next-generation games, 30% of respondents cited capacity as the top reason for increased outsourcing, compared to 34% who cited cost,” said Gunjan Bagla, Principal of the Game Industry Practice at Amritt. "This indicates that smaller game developers as well as large ones are likely to be thrust into becoming global players very shortly."