Pains And Gains of Game Development Outsourcing

Pains and Gains of Game Development Outsourcing

You have a creative idea for a super awesome game which could be the next sensation of gaming world. But you lack the necessary skills to develop the game or don’t have enough time to build it yourself. In such a situation you obviously turn to a skilled developer to help you shape your idea into a game. In business parlance it is called Game Development Outsourcing.

Outsourcing is a very important solution to be considered. As a start-up or for that matter any business enterprise time and money are keystones for any decision making. The savings in this resource has a direct bearing on revenues of the company. However, some may not like the idea of involving a third party in game development project.

Let’s take a look at what you stand to gain or lose if you outsource the services of a game development company. Read on to find out if game development outsourcing is the right fit for you.
First let’s consider the pros of outsourcing a game development company  

Saves Money and Time

The cost of recruiting in-house developers in high cost economies like USA or the European Union could make a big dent in your revenues. The differential in hourly cost of hiring developers from Asian and CIS countries and that from develop countries is too big to be ignored.

If you outsource a game development company you make big savings not just on hourly rates but also in terms of office space, infrastructure and taxes. These costs are borne by the outsourced game development company. It is estimated that outsourcing your game development project can save you up to 50-60% compared to fully in-house game development model.

Businesses who outsource can free their resources to focus on internal process improvement. Now your company will be able to commit your employees and resources in achieving goals of high revenue with focus on marketing and business development. Leaving the worries of game development in the expert hands of an outsourced developer you will save a lot of time. And time is money.

Helps you Leverage Expertise

The game development cycle comprises of many phases starting with concept development, pre-production and production phase, testing and finally distribution. Your team of talented professionals may have strong competencies possibly in many phases of this game development cycle. However, there may be skill gaps that can be accessed from outsourced resource pool.

Evaluating core competencies and weaknesses of your team will give you a fair idea which piece of game development project can be outsourced to leverage the expertise of the specialists. Some art outsourcing studios have a superior resource pool of talented artists, while IT outsourcing companies can provide better solutions for back-end development.

It is next to impossible for any start up to get proficient in all aspects of game development. Therefore it will be a viable business decision to go for outsourcing to get the experts on board their project.

Helps you avoid Repetitive Work

Game development projects like any other business have some series of repetitive and time consuming work. How boring they might be but they are essential for the company. Outsourcing such routine work can relieve your team from the burden of banal job. This makes more sense if your company have many projects in its kitty to deliver. They would now rather focus on their special areas of work with much enthusiasm. This will also cut the overtime for your staff, keep them motivated and happy. They will be more productive in such a positive atmosphere which lets them focus on their talents, expertise and area of interest.

Outsourcing does comes with its pitfalls. If not manged well this can have disastrous effects for your business. The key is to keep a balance and check on the outsourced project. Let’s talk about what can go wrong if you outsource.

1.  Low Quality Work and Team Incompatibility   

The biggest pitfall of outsourcing is lack of shared vision and getting desired quality of standards. Outsourcing multiple game development contractors essentially mean these independent firms work as per their set work standards. There could possibly be a disconnect between what is desired and what actually is delivered. It is therefore imperative to choose the right outsourcing partner.
The most annoying issue could be bugs in codes or the animation does not fit the concept. These could be prevented if you are careful in the beginning while choosing the developer. In the initial stage itself it should be made amply clear to the outsourced game developer to share the results as well as the work process.

This way the bugs can be fixed and models can be tweaked during the process reducing the time and cost for you. Negotiate your contract with the freelance developer well in advance for constant reporting. This will reduce the pain of a failed project or the effort of re-doing it partially or completely.

 2.  Unreliable 

There have been cases where the outsourced partner disappeared midway after getting paid on reaching a milestone. You and your project will be left in a lurch in such a situation. And then you will have to go through the entire process of hiring another developer. This will add cost and will be a shameful waste of time. Unreliability is an intrinsic part of this outsourcing deal Therefore, always go in for an agency which has a reputation of honoring the contracts and delivering high quality results on time.

3.  Security Threat

There’s a fat chance your data security is compromised when you deal with a third party. You share your concept ad solutions with the outsourced company. There is always the risk of breach in confidentiality. It is no secret that businesses thrive on information.

To prevent a data breach one should sign a NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement). This however has limited application. This is because NDA is adjudicated differently in different parts of the world. The best thing to do would be to contract a reputed developer with a god track record.

In a nutshell, outsourcing gets you cost and time benefit but one needs to be careful in selecting the game development partner. As a bad tie-up can be detrimental to your project and company’s overall profitability and reputation. Chalk out a well structure plan in detail before you enter into any agreement.