May I ask some questions about game outsourcing?
polycounter lvl 8
Hello everyone, I am a Chinese game artist, may I ask a question about game outsourcing. Nowadays, China has too many game outsourcing studios and companies, is Europe same as Chinese game outsourcing market? If you like please add my Skype, maybe we can share something too 
Many thanks for your help
my Skype number:supermali2012
Replies
I don't think Europe has nearly as much overcrowding of small, new outsource studios. At least, not as many as China has. I could be wrong, however.
How many do they have ?
Thanks for your reply. You are right, Chinese situation has changed, since a lot of game content providers were dead in last year,outsourcing market becomes terrible, many studios can't find client eventually closed down etc.
However, I am wondering does Chinese studios able to supply European outsourcing market? Perhaps, Chinese studio might be cheaper than other countries and maybe it is an advantage? anyway thanks a lot:)
The problems start when the project scope increases. Teamwork can be a problem. Communication, especially with the client becomes more important. Project management becomes much more important. At such level quality control becomes much more important because assets now have higher dependency on each other, such as in a level. Technical proficiency with engines becomes more important. The more mistakes you make, the more time is wasted, the more chain-reaction dependency errors you get, which nullifies any advantage for the client.
The cultural problem is that contemporary China does not have a strong focus on quality, because until recently people could not afford it. They went for cheap instead. Non existent consumer laws also don't enforce a culture of quality in production. In general there is often no spirit of ownership and pride in one's work. Company loyalty (aka Japan's Bushido spirit) does not exist, so you can't really expect people to form Japanese style quality circles. Beside the above mentioned problems, this is a hurdle to overcome, especially since skipping QA is "cheap" because if you're lucky the client won't notice and you can offer a lower price in you quote to your client, which is a calculated risk but not necessary a sustainable business practice (this is also what I think as the reason for outsourcing's bad reputation). But the bigger the production the less you can get away with this.
The last problem small shops have is that clients don't want to give the important stuff due to fears of IP theft, which also limits the business they can get.
To overcome these problems these small shops need to seriously invest in management and in hiring employees with the right skills. But if you compete on price, you likely won't have the money to invest in these. That's a serious hurdle I just don't see many small shops taking. Instead they compete with each other on small contracts in a race to the bottom.