Freelancers versus outsource studio?

Alex_J

How does a studio decide between hiring employee versus freelancer versus outsource studio?

Suppose this example:

Need to create 30 unique characters, AA quality in realism style. Figure 3 weeks per character on average.

Is an outsource studio likely to do it faster because they have a small army? And maybe cheapest, too?

But with freelancer who is speaking your language you might expect easier communications and quality control?

And employee is the most direct control and needing least quality control, but you have to pay health insurance and such so it is the most expensive?

NikhilR

While it depends on the studio, I can say that outsource studios generally have to underbid to get contracts hence they are cheaper.
Not all outsource studios mind, studios like Keos Masons don't need to bid since they operate more like a boutique and contracting them can work out cheaper per character over paying a employee to do the same work in house. Of course there is the matter of skill, ability and a proven track record of quality that allows for this.

And larger outsourcing studios like Virtuous and Technicolor usually handle several projects which can help them break/even profit over the long term.

Lesser known outsource studios certainly underbid and save money by using bootleg software, not paying taxes, working with independent contracters who ought to actually be classified as employees.etc.
Many better known outsource studios subcontract with these lesser known studios to lower costs so their underbidding doesn't sink them.

Certainly with a good freelancer you would have a more personalized experience, better communication and more direct control over the outcome. Freelancers would take care of their own health insurance and taxes etc.
Really comes down to your budget. 

With where tech is, its very possible to do all of this on your own, so personally for me it comes down to what kind of character art I am looking for and what I can't do on my own given my time/budget.
Like generic humanioid characters.creatures with unique props are totally doable. 
If I need character visualization from an idea on paper and don't have concept art I would probably start with a character concept artist first.

Fabi_G

Curious to hear experiences on that topic too.

I think outsource partners are quite divers in what they offer. Then it also becomes a question of what level of collaboration/service one is looking for (and can afford). One extreme would be a collaborator who's able to transfer high level concepts into internal briefs, bring in their knowledge into the project and are involved in the overall process. On the opposite side would be a service provider, delivering assets based on ones input which potentially need additional work to integrate in engine and/or a touch up. Neither one is better than the other, depends on the situation what's more fitting.

Maybe an collaborating partner working for a day rate is more expensive than a service provider working on a flat-rate on the surface. But who knows how much additional time/money is saved on integration and back and forth when addressing surprises? Of course much depends on experience and communication here, as always.

I imagine communication with a studio will involve fewer persons, opposed to talking to multiple individuals, but increase the number of people information has to go through.

Creating smaller packages of things that have to be consistent (enemy family) might help to reduce risk and hopefully allow for a feeling out process. A reduced package size might also make working with individual freelancers more feasible. If you're working with proxy meshes, ideally a good amount of the work could be done parallel to development. It might also be good to have benchmark asset created for each package first, to gage challenges and agree on quality.

Alex_J

thanks @NikhilR @Fabi_G

lots of good tips and things to consider.

my hunch is that any outsource studio which would be professional enough to be worth dealing with probably is expensive enough that only makes sense at a AAA scale. e.g. a studio like rockstar probably has a team of people just to liaison between art team and outsource art. But if you have a bazillion characters, presumably its worth the cost.

Making 30-60 characters on my own is possible but I am trying to wargame different scenarios to figure if and how the time cost could be cut down at trade-off of money. Presumably having more people to help cuts down on time but if I have to define every tiny step of the process and still wonder if what I get is what I wanted then to me I'd just do it myself at that point. I definitely cannot afford anything which adds mental anguish, so in addition to the time savings I'd need a partner who can have the professionalism to ask enough questions to ensure they deliver the right thing. I'd expect a freelancer who is considering their reputation for every job like this would be better than an outsource studio which might be managing tons of similar jobs, or may be used to doing larger, more prestigious jobs.

something more like a partner seems like the more ideal solution, but to get somebody who can handle enough responsibility that I can trust them I think it has to get into senior pay which seems like can be more expensive than a cheaper outsource studio, and no matter how good the person is, it is still only one person with two hands.  So having an outsource studio which could quickly bang out some "okay" work which maybe I have to manually fix up myself could be better use of time and money.

Probably no way to know without trying both and will depend on the studio or the person. I have to see if I can get some time estimates from some outsourcing studios.  It is not something which blocks production though. As fabi mentioned it is possible to work with proxy meshes pretty much up until the end.

NikhilR

Alex_J said:

thanks @NikhilR @Fabi_G

lots of good tips and things to consider.

my hunch is that any outsource studio which would be professional enough to be worth dealing with probably is expensive enough that only makes sense at a AAA scale. e.g. a studio like rockstar probably has a team of people just to liaison between art team and outsource art. But if you have a bazillion characters, presumably its worth the cost.

Making 30-60 characters on my own is possible but I am trying to wargame different scenarios to figure if and how the time cost could be cut down at trade-off of money. Presumably having more people to help cuts down on time but if I have to define every tiny step of the process and still wonder if what I get is what I wanted then to me I'd just do it myself at that point. I definitely cannot afford anything which adds mental anguish, so in addition to the time savings I'd need a partner who can have the professionalism to ask enough questions to ensure they deliver the right thing. I'd expect a freelancer who is considering their reputation for every job like this would be better than an outsource studio which might be managing tons of similar jobs, or may be used to doing larger, more prestigious jobs.

something more like a partner seems like the more ideal solution, but to get somebody who can handle enough responsibility that I can trust them I think it has to get into senior pay which seems like can be more expensive than a cheaper outsource studio, and no matter how good the person is, it is still only one person with two hands.  So having an outsource studio which could quickly bang out some "okay" work which maybe I have to manually fix up myself could be better use of time and money.

Probably no way to know without trying both and will depend on the studio or the person. I have to see if I can get some time estimates from some outsourcing studios.  It is not something which blocks production though. As fabi mentioned it is possible to work with proxy meshes pretty much up until the end.

Also one other thing to consider is what the eventual deliverable is. 
For example, are you making an alpha that would have an early access release so you can get some initial funding going while you develop the game?
A marathon development cycle instead of a sprint if you will.

A sprint could apply to the vertical slice, would you have models you can afford to outsource for this vertical slice/gameplay demo/cinematic.

I'm thinking the best way to go is to work towards an early access release and really do market research on what the audience wants.
Games like Choo Choo Charlie, squirrel with a gun, goat simulator and goose game all seem to have worked because of the hype associated with their concepts. 
Not to say they lack in quality or mechanics, it also helped that for some their development was very public so helped in building support.

I'm not sure about virtuos and technicolor working with smaller character art requests, but you can certainly send them an inquiry to get estimates. 
For these studios it is more a matter of whether they have availablity. 
I know that with Technicolor, they have had to refuse outsource work because there was just too much coming their way. 

A few other studios you can try,
https://thundercloud-studio.com/
https://rocketbrush.com/
https://www.artstation.com/studios

Definitely do your due diligence though.