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?
Replies
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.
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.
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.