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And the game quality would suffer. General software development gets moved overseas and comes back all the time. Software development is hard. Pushing it to a

And the game quality would suffer. General software development gets moved overseas and comes back all the time. Software development is hard. Pushing it to a cheaper third party usually increases costs a lot in the long term due to the increase is development complexity and generally a decrease in worker skill. A strong union can also prevent companies from moving some jobs overseas.

manfredo 8y ago
> And the game quality would suffer The Witcher 3 was a pretty good game (Polish developers) - many would call that an understatement. The Uncharted series since 2 or 3 relied heavily on outsourced development (especially for art assets). Arma 3 was developed by Czech devs. These countries probably produce lower budget games on average, and don't have lots of existing infrastructure to leverage. But that makes what they have accomplished all the more impressive given what they were working with. What makes you so confident in the class that developers in countries with lower costs of living are worse than ones in wealthy countries? Do you think that Polish or Bulgarian developers are on average worse than American ones, and it so do you have something to back up that claim?
- Jach 8y ago
  There's also, I dunno, all of the Japanese games that people love. Chinese companies are also starting to increase and market overseas, and some of those games are high quality. South Korea too. Asia is a powerhouse for entertainment software, even if we might argue they have a long way to go for business/enterprise/SaaS software.
  - magduf 8y ago
    Japan has been a powerhouse for games since the 1980s. Have people forgotten about the NES?
- anth_anm 8y ago
  The witcher wasn't outsourced to the cheapest devs available.
- yarosv 8y ago
  Witcher 3 or Arma were not outsourced. They were developed in house (in Poland and Czech Republic respectively).
  - manfredo 8y ago
    Moving development doesn't necessarily entail outsourcing. Publishers can contract foreign developers for the whole game. Blizzard is already doing this with Diablo Immoral, handing development off to NetEase
zeroname 8y ago
> General software development gets moved overseas and comes back all the time. General software development also isn't unionized. As soon is it is, moving overseas becomes vastly more attractive. > Software development is hard. Pushing it to a cheaper third party usually increases costs a lot in the long term due to the increase is development complexity and generally a decrease in worker skill. What's actually harder about outsourcing is management and quality control. The developers in cheaper countries aren't somehow inherently worse. Many publishers have studios around the world, working on entire games by themselves. Why keep funding an expensive studio in the US that's getting unionized? That better be high caliber, which most studios aren't. > A strong union can also prevent companies from moving some jobs overseas. Maybe in a big monolithic company, but that's not how game publishers operate.

manfredo 8y ago

> And the game quality would suffer The Witcher 3 was a pretty good game (Polish developers) - many would call that an understatement. The Uncharted series since 2 or 3 relied heavily on outsourced development (especially for art assets). Arma 3 was developed by Czech devs. These countries probably produce lower budget games on average, and don't have lots of existing infrastructure to leverage. But that makes what they have accomplished all the more impressive given what they were working with. What makes you so confident in the class that developers in countries with lower costs of living are worse than ones in wealthy countries? Do you think that Polish or Bulgarian developers are on average worse than American ones, and it so do you have something to back up that claim?

Jach 8y ago
There's also, I dunno, all of the Japanese games that people love. Chinese companies are also starting to increase and market overseas, and some of those games are high quality. South Korea too. Asia is a powerhouse for entertainment software, even if we might argue they have a long way to go for business/enterprise/SaaS software.
- magduf 8y ago
  Japan has been a powerhouse for games since the 1980s. Have people forgotten about the NES?
anth_anm 8y ago
The witcher wasn't outsourced to the cheapest devs available.
yarosv 8y ago
Witcher 3 or Arma were not outsourced. They were developed in house (in Poland and Czech Republic respectively).
- manfredo 8y ago
  Moving development doesn't necessarily entail outsourcing. Publishers can contract foreign developers for the whole game. Blizzard is already doing this with Diablo Immoral, handing development off to NetEase

zeroname 8y ago

> General software development gets moved overseas and comes back all the time. General software development also isn't unionized. As soon is it is, moving overseas becomes vastly more attractive. > Software development is hard. Pushing it to a cheaper third party usually increases costs a lot in the long term due to the increase is development complexity and generally a decrease in worker skill. What's actually harder about outsourcing is management and quality control. The developers in cheaper countries aren't somehow inherently worse. Many publishers have studios around the world, working on entire games by themselves. Why keep funding an expensive studio in the US that's getting unionized? That better be high caliber, which most studios aren't. > A strong union can also prevent companies from moving some jobs overseas. Maybe in a big monolithic company, but that's not how game publishers operate.