作者：Anton Wiegert

就我过去十年的外部开发工作经验来看，我相似人们对此最重要的问题之一就是：“为什么我们要外包项目？”游戏工作室内部的美术人员尤其好奇其中的原因。

因为外包意味着“将项目流转包给第三方”，所以很容易出现差错，因为外包工作必须跟上内部工作标准并且符合整体项目方向。但是，这其中的潜在劣势也很明显（例如出现低质量的美术资产）——而外包的许多优势却并不那么显而易见。对于处于制作和管理领域之外的开发者（如内部美术人员）来说其中益处不甚明显，但外包的优势的确超越了劣势。这正是为何它还是能够持续发展，在行业中立足，并且不断扩大规模的原因。

但是，如果你所处的职位并不需要对项目的广阔或长远视野，因为一些偶尔腐烂的树木而忽视了森林之美也就没有什么奇怪了。

为此，我将在此文为那些困惑“为何我们要外包项目”的人作出解答。不得不说，即便是一些外包经理也承认外包只是为了“省钱”，但这并不完全准确：它只能说是其中原因之一，但我认为没有人可以通过外包真正“省下钱”，因为那些“避免浪费”的钱通常也会花到游戏工作室的更多内容或其他事务上（包括一年一度的涨薪和奖金），而不是真的没有动用到那些节省下来的钱。

尽管如此，我们还是要理解即使外包并不具有财政上的益处，但仍然具备许多额外优势，所以从省钱角度来讨论是一个很有误导性的做法。本文宗旨就是列举外包的其他优势处在。

如今游戏开发者外包的工作项目多种多样，但我在此仅专注于美术资产进行讨论。这些资产是最常被外包的内容，对大家来说也是最为熟悉的情况。但是，我所阐述的理念和原则也适用于其他部门和其他类型的工作。

资金

显然，对于西方游戏开发者来说，外包的主要原因就是利用世界其他地区（如中国）更廉价的劳动力。让我们先跳过这一说法。人们的薪资差异要取决于你所比较的地区，你所合作的供应商，以及你们的服务协议谈判情况，但总体上来说，更廉价的劳动力可以用更低的成本创造内容。这对人人来说都不是个陌生的概念，所以让我们转向一些更不明显的益处。

我们很容易看到游戏制作过程中花在外包上的资金是多少，但却未必看得到因此而节省下来的钱。例如，当你的工作室不再需要创造内容时，如果是工作室内部的全职员工，无论项目是处于预制作还是刚刚发布的阶段，你都需要支付薪水。而通过外包，不再需要制作内容的时候就不再需要公司支付薪水。

另一方面来说，如果你有一个巨大的内部团队并且裁减了一些项目的员工，而当准确开发下一个项目时，你再招聘这些人员的时候就浪费了更多资源。除了巨大的压力，这还会影响优秀员工重返岗位的兴趣，这种做法问题更多。

而招聘短期项目的新员工，会直接和间接地浪费管理和培训成本，这种代价十分昂贵。在前三个月的试用期间，没有人会极具效率地完成任务，例如，我们通常需要同事的帮助来跟上新技术和管道的速度。通过外包项目，这笔成本就可以由外部来吸收。首先，你可能不会注意到这一点，并且可以在不需要管理任何人的情况下继续推进工作；其次，如果这个低效率时期的工作是发生在中国而非加州，你也会更节省成本。

时间

时间可能就是金钱，但它本身就是我们所拥有最为有限的资源。即便你有预算和足够的耐心来面对消耗时间的过程，你也最好不要让内部团队卷入其中。

如果你是一家小型开发商，外包还可以让你在没有任何自主研发团队的情况下进入制作阶段。当然，你也没法通过这种途径创造出尖端的内容，多数工作室也不会寄期望于此，如果它们想发布有趣而成功的游戏，也并不需要这么做。

无论你自己的工作室规模大小，比起组建一支同等大小的内部团队，转包项目可以让你相对快速地集合较大的美术团队，让你获得一个良好的开端，扩展你的制作周期。你可以利用外包所提供的这些额外时间的优势制作更多内容或者更快速地获得内容，这样你就可以优化或者更好地在游戏中利用内容。

我们花在招聘、筛选、面试、管理、培训和让内部员工跟上进度的时间可能非常之多，尤其是在你需要25-100名额外美术人员的时候。这可不仅仅是个金钱或制作延时的问题，它还会给工作室的正常运转增加负担。

日常经费

除了可以避免快速招聘大量员工并在项目完工时进行裁员的负担之外，外包手段还可以减轻大家和一切项目完工时工作室在支持功能方面的负担。否则，你的HR团队就得应对更多员工，你的IT团队也是如此。你认为现在就已经很难再搞一个监测器或另一个软件授权了？那么想想团队规模双倍或三倍增长之后的情况吧。

购买所有软件授权和硬件的成本（游戏邦注：例如Wacom平板电脑、PC、监控器、高端显卡）就可能会让你每增加一名美术人员就投入5000至1万美元之间。如果将这笔钱乘以25或100名美术人员，你就知道一个大型团队究竟需要多少成本了（这还不算你的IT团队替大家安装好一切软件所需要的时间，以及租用更大的办公场地的租金，以及更昂贵的公司保险计划等）。

由于服务供应商要负责管理自己的员工，你就不需要处理涉及其中的员工管理或HR问题了。这也意味着你可以将内部的中层管理人员控制在最小数量内，从而保证公司的精简化和非官僚化。

灵活性

游戏开发对开发者，尤其是内容创造者具有周期性的需求，外包可以在对他们有需求的时候暂时性地增加更多资源，并且在不需要的时候释放他们，并且不会有什么麻烦和困扰。事实上，许多临时工并不总能不负期望，甚至很难在情感、财务或运用上进行取代。但是，如果你在外部团队中遇到相同的问题，你的服务供应商（通常效力于大量客户）却能够为那些跟不上进度的开发者找到更合适的项目，而不是直接解雇他们。

无论你何时外包项目，你都要同那些服务供应商打交道，所以无论任务是否有趣，好玩或者具有创意挑战性都不可影响到外包工作：服务供应商不会因为自己觉得任务很无趣就拒绝接单，所以内部美术经理就不需要因为美工A和B不喜欢做X或Y类型的工作而担心如何分配任务。

这还意味着你可以将一些更无聊或重复性的任务转移到外部团队，这样你的内部团队不但可以从事更有趣的任务，还可以着手那些对游戏来说更重要的任务。

因此，你可以更高效地利用内部员工，他们也可以更为敏捷地处理需要更快转变，更多游戏内部迭代，或者突然出现的任务，例如在制定计划之后才冒出来的出色创意。

价值

那些极耗时间的任务也一样。最好是将这些任务外包给他们，而不是让内部员工长期处理这些事务。通过暂时为多位美工分配同一项资产，可以更快地完成极为庞大或复杂的美术资产。总体来说，外包可以让你同时制作更多资产，这可以缩短关键路径——让项目更易于在截止日期前完工。而对于内部团队来说做到这一点却很困难，因为它需要将任务拆分出来，并分配给多名美术人员。

最好是让内部员工专注于研发和其他不可轻易外包的任务。毕竟，内部员工的最大优势就在于他们与游戏的接近性，能够最快和最先接触游戏引擎和设计师。内部员工总是拥有制定更佳决策的能力，因为他们处于同一个圈子，更了解项目方向、情境和近期发展。

如果不充分利用这一事实，单纯地让内部团队从事本可转交给外部团队的工作，从而忽略、遗忘或者延迟了那些必须由内部工作室完成的任务，那就真的太遗憾了。

能力

由于外包就是利用工作室外部人员，你的团队规模并不会受到工作室实体大小或者管理层人员、支持人员数量的限制。

你实际上可以在保持较小规模的情况下制作非常庞大的游戏。这包括将你的工作室控制在你知道所有人姓名这种规模的情况，你并不会每天都看到新面孔，你的企业文化也会更为人性化，较不“企业化”。

这还更便于控制你的工作室总人数。因此你的工作室可以拥有非常特殊或模糊的职位（例如，MMO游戏经济学家），甚至是你通常不会在游戏工作室找到的职位。你还可以选择直译更多直接影响到玩法的职位（例如，玩法程序员和关卡设计师）而不是内容创造者，如果你认为这样可以增加创造优秀游戏的机率的话。

稳定性

人员的高流动性会增加游戏工作室内部的不一致性，不确定性甚至是恐惧感。因此，正确使用外包资源可以为你的公司提供一定程度的持续性和稳定性，因为你不会看到大批同事随着项目的制作和完工，或者由于目标变化而进来或离开。

保持团队稳定性也有助于维护团队效率，因为社交团队动态也会随着新成员的加入而发生变化。通常情况下，团队构成发生明显变化时，大家又会返回“相互认识”这种友好阶段，会因为有意避免冲突而导致大家责任不明确，从而影响工作效率和项目进展。

说到工作效率……在内部工作室的成员都去度假时还可以通过外包继续推进工作。这种情况时有发生，但很多人却忽视了一点，多数内部员工甚至根本就没有意识到这一点。

专长　

擅长制作美术内容的公司通常因其业务性质和专注性而拥有更多美术人才。除此之外，由于世界各地都可以找到外包商，他们还可以弥补文化差异和语言障碍，让开发者接触那些他们无法直接联系上的出色人才。比起在本地招聘和重新安置人才，这是一个巨大的优势。

通过使用外包手段，你还可以找到世界上最出色的自由职业者，而后者可能由于一些不可控制因素（如是无法获得工作签证或者自己的家人在某地有工作或者上学）而无法接受异地就业。

联系到行业领先的专业人士（如高端自由职业者）还可以减少内部研发所需的时间和成本，因为你的内部团队可以通过观察这些能手的作品而快速掌握新技术和做法。

竞争力

总体来看，外包可以让开发者在多个方面更具竞争力：在内部人员离开的时候它可以继续推进生产，极大减少内部的加班和赶工需求，令内部团队的工作氛围更具吸引力，支持更棒的工作与生活平衡。它还可以为你内部人员提供更好的补偿，因为你可以在相同预算的情况下，更仔细地考虑总人数并限制一些新职位的招聘。

外包辅助开发操作可以让你腾出更多时间加强你们的核心工作，例如在美术部门，这就意味着使用内容而非制作内容（例如，放置道具而非创建道具）。从根本上说，你可以制作游戏，而不是制作游戏的内容。理论上来说，只要内部员工心中都有同一个目标，这就可以创造出更具竞争力的游戏。

如果由专业人士来创造你的内容，你就可以得到更好的道具、角色以及武器，这总比由一名美术人员来创造出所有的内容要好。通才型成员在速度、质量和灵活性上永远比不上专业人士（如果他们看起来如此，那就说明你找到的并不是真正的专业人士，或者说你阻碍了他们）。

最后，利用外部资源还可以允许你的项目在半途中急剧变化（例如，美术或游戏方向的重大调整），但却不会对整个工作室造成损害。虽然这种情况很罕见，但极端的变化却可能很致命——假如你招聘的是一支只会制作某一类型游戏（而你今后不会再制作该类游戏）的内部内容团队的话。

在游戏开发中，没有多少事情像看起来那么简单。生活充满矛盾，世上有许多事情实际上与它最初呈现的模样是相反的。

所以外包乍一看可能像是一种威胁（例如让某些成员面临失业），实际上它提供了截然相反的好处：它通过降低许多风险，真正保住了内部成员的工作。如果没有外包，工作室的游戏可能成本更昂贵，或者会更为短小和单调，或者图像质量更差。因此，大家可以制作的游戏就更少了，因为AAA开发者通常在保证盈利性并维持运营方面会遇到更多麻烦。

这正是为何开发者需要外包工作，以及我对这项工作乐此不疲的原因所在。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Why Developers Outsource: The Less Obvious Advantages of External Production

by Anton Wiegert

From my experience of external development over the last decade, I believe one of the most important questions being asked, or thought, is: “Why are we outsourcing?” Artists inside game studios are particularly interested in why.

Since outsourcing simply means to “subcontract a business process to a third party,” it’s a practice that can easily go wrong because the work being done externally must match internal standards and fit into the big picture. However, while the potential downsides are often clear – both immediate and visual (such as low-quality art assets) – the many advantages of outsourcing are less obvious. They’re less obvious in particular to developers outside the production and management field, such as internal artists, but the advantages of outsourcing far outweigh the disadvantages. This is why it has seen steady growth, why it’s here to stay, and why it will only keep expanding.

However, if you don’t work in a position that requires a broad perspective or long-term view of projects, it’s natural to overlook the enormous size, importance, and beauty of the forest because of the occasional rotten trees falling in your way.

Hence, I’ve put this article together for anyone who has ever thought about asking “why are we outsourcing” but never did – or asked without receiving a very deep or satisfying answer. Admittedly, even some outsourcing managers would say that you only outsource “to save money,” but that’s not completely accurate: At best that’s only one of many reasons, but I’d argue that no one really “saves” money by outsourcing because the money from “costs avoided” is regularly spent on more game content or other things within the studio (including annual raises and bonuses) rather than being kept around and not utilized, which is really what “to save money” means.

Nevertheless, it’s crucial to understand that even if outsourcing was not beneficial from a financial point of view, there is in fact a very long list of additional advantages that still make it a desirable practice, so discussions that solely revolve around money tend to be misleading. If you’re wondering what those other advantages are, then this article is for you!

While a wide variety of work is being outsourced by game developers these days, I’ll focus on art assets; these assets are the most common content to be shifted externally and hence what is most familiar to the biggest audience. However, the concept and principles I address apply across other departments and other types of work. I will also avoid the typical esoteric business answers, such as “outsourcing will release capital for other investments” and how it “converts fixed costs into variable costs.” While both statements are true, such explanations are too abstract for most of us and will just lead to further questions as they leave too much to the imagination.

Money

Obviously, the primary reason for outsourcing by Western game developers is the availability of cheaper labor in other parts of the world, such as China. Let’s get that out of the way. How big the difference in wages is depends on which regions you compare, which vendors you work with, and how well you’ve negotiated your service agreements, but, in general, cheaper labor makes for lower costs on an ongoing basis while content is created. This should not be news to anyone, so let’s move on to the less obvious benefits.

While it’s easy to see money being spent on outsourcing during a game’s production, you don’t see the money NOT being spent thanks to it, for example, when your studio no longer needs content created. Unlike internal full-time employees who must be paid all the time, regardless of whether your project is in pre-production or has just shipped. By outsourcing, the periods without the need for content production won’t cost your company the salaries of professionals who are waiting for the next project to go into production.

On the other hand, if you have a larger team internally and lay off employees between projects, you waste more resources having to bring these employees, or their replacements, back into the workforce when the next project is ready. Besides the tremendous stress this causes and the unlikelihood that the best employees are interested in or available to return, this practice is even more problematic.

Hiring new staff internally for short-term projects can be very expensive, directly and indirectly, due to the costs of onboarding and training. No one is very productive as an employee for the first 1-3 months on the job, and we often require assistance (and thus time) from our colleagues to get up to speed with new technology and pipelines, for example. Through outsourcing, this cost can be absorbed externally, which would be beneficial. First, you probably won’t notice it and can get on with your work without having to onboard anyone, and second, it’s less expensive if this period of lower productivity is being paid for in China versus California.

Time

Time may be money, but by itself it’s also the most limited resource we have. You can rarely get more of it, so even if you have the budget and patience for time-consuming processes, you’re better off not to get involved with them internally.

If you’re a smaller developer, outsourcing can also allow you to go into production without any R&D of your own how to build assets most effectively. Granted, you cannot make cutting-edge content this way, but most studios aren’t trying to; nor do they really need to in order to ship entertaining and successful games.

Regardless of your own studio size, subcontracting allows you to assemble a large team of artists relatively quickly and thus gives you a head start, basically extending your production period in comparison to staffing up an equally large team inhouse. You could take advantage of this extra time that subcontracting provides to either make more content or get content back faster so you can polish and/or use it better in-game.

The time spent recruiting, screening, interviewing, onboarding, training, and bringing internal employees up to speed can be immense, especially if you need 25-100 extra artists. This is not just a problem about money or the production delay staffing up internally would cause, but also about the burden it would impose on support functions inside studios.

Overhead

Besides avoiding the burden of hiring lots of employees really quickly and then laying them off once production is complete – only to repeat the same procedure for each project – the use of outsourcing also lowers the burden on support functions once everyone and everything is set up. Otherwise, your HR team would have to deal with many more employees, and so would your IT team. You think it’s hard getting one more monitor or another software license right now? Imagine asking for the same after doubling or tripling your team size!

The cost of buying all the software licenses and hardware (e.g., Wacom tablets, PCs, monitors, high-end graphics cards) could easily land between $5,000 and $10,000 US per additional artist. Just multiply that by 25 or 100 artists and you get an idea of what a larger team would need (not to mention the time it would take for your IT team to install and set everything up, the extra rent for a bigger office space to fit everything, and a more expensive company insurance plan to cover everything in case of theft or other cause for claim).

Since the service providers are responsible for managing their own workforce, you don’t have to deal with management or HR issues involving individual employees. This also means that the number of middle managers inhouse can be kept to a minimum, thus keeping your organization lean and less bureaucratic.

Flexibility

Game development has cyclical demands of developers, especially content creators, and outsourcing allows for temporarily adding more resources when they are needed and releasing them when they aren’t, without hassle or hard feelings. The truth is that temporary employees don’t always live up to expectations, and may be difficult to replace emotionally, financially, or practically. However, if you run into the same issue within an external team, your service provider, which usually works for multiple clients, is in a better position to find a more suitable project for those who cannot keep up instead of having to let them go.

Whenever you’re subcontracting work, you are dealing with service providers whose very business and livelihood is to provide services to their clients (e.g., to create art assets for game developers), so whether or not tasks are fun, interesting, or creatively challenging is not part of the equation when the work is done externally: Service providers don’t refuse to work on something because they feel the task is beneath them or would be boring; hence internal art managers can worry less about who should work on what because artists A and B don’t like to do X or Y type of work and would become grumpy, depressed, or lower morale if forced to do it.

This also means that the more mundane or repetitive tasks necessary to ship all games can easily be shifted externally so that your internal team not only works on more interesting tasks, but also works on tasks that are much more important to the game.

Thus, internal employees can be utilized more efficiently: They can be more agile and work on tasks that require quicker turnarounds, need more in-game iterations, or appear out of nowhere, such as great ideas that come up after plans and schedules are officially completed.

Value

The same goes for tasks that are very time-consuming. It is much better to offload these tasks externally than to lock down someone internally for a very long time. Extremely large or complex art assets can be completed much more quickly, and thus can be back in the game faster, by temporarily assigning multiple artists to the same asset. In general, more assets can be produced in parallel, which could shorten the critical path – making it easier to meet deadlines and milestones. This would be very difficult to do inhouse as it requires splitting work up and distributing it among multiple artists.

It’s much better to have internal employees focus on R&D and other tasks that cannot be outsourced easily. After all, the biggest advantage an internal staff has is its proximity to the game, with instant and firsthand access to the game engine and designers etc. Internal staff members will always have the ability to make better decisions simply because they are in the loop and better informed about the project’s intentions, context, and recent developments.

It would be a shame to not take advantage of this fact and have the internal team work on tasks that could be shifted externally while work that simply must be done inhouse is overlooked, neglected, or postponed.

Capacity

As outsourcing is all about utilizing extra people outside your own walls, your team size won’t be limited by the physical size of your studio or the number of managers and support staff you have.

You can in fact make very large games while still staying small. This includes being able to keep your studio so small that you actually know everyone’s name, you don’t see new faces every day, and your company culture is more personal and less “corporate.”

It also makes it easier to keep within your headcount limit if your studio has one. Thus, very special or obscure positions could be filled internally (e.g., a proper economist for your MMO game) even if you normally wouldn’t expect to find those positions in a game studio. You can also choose to fill more positions that affect the gameplay directly (i.e., gameplay programmers and level designers) instead of content creators if you think that would increase your chances of creating a good game.

Stability

Periods of high employee turnover add inconsistency, uncertainty, and even fear inside game studios. Hence, the right use of outsourcing provides a level of continuity and stability to your company, as you won’t see a surge of colleagues join and leave as projects go in and out of production or as staffing needs suddenly arise or disappear due to milestones being met or priorities changing.

Keeping teams more stable is also important to maintain productivity at even levels, as the social team dynamics tend to change whenever new members join a group. Usually, every time the composition of a group changes significantly, it’s normal and human to slip back into a friendly phase of “getting to know each other,” with responsibilities being vague and conflicts intentionally avoided at the cost of productivity and progress.

Speaking of productivity… Subcontracting also enables production to continue while everyone inhouse is away on holidays and vacations, even during weekends if necessary. This occurs regularly, but for obvious reasons it’s out of sight and thus something which few internal employees are even aware of.

Expertise

Companies that specialize in creating art content usually have access to a significantly larger talent pool of artists due to the nature and focus of their business. In addition, because service providers can be found all over the world, they also bridge cultural gaps and language barriers, giving developers access to amazing talents with whom they could not communicate directly. This is a huge advantage compared to trying to recruit and relocate talent locally.

Through the use of outsourcing, you can also gain access to the world’s best freelancers, who may not be interested in relocating or cannot relocate due to issues beyond their control, such as inability to obtain a work visa or because their family has jobs or attends school.

Being able to involve industry leading specialists, such as high-end freelancers – despite not having them onsite – can also reduce the time and cost needed for internal R&D because your internal team can acquire new skills and best practices quickly by seeing these experts work (albeit remotely).

Competitiveness

Overall, outsourcing enables developers to stay more competitive in a multitude of ways, including as employers: As it enables production to continue while everyone inhouse is away, the need for overtime and crunch can be significantly reduced internally, making the work environment more attractive and allowing for greater work-life balance. It also makes it possible to offer better compensation for the staff you do hire internally because you can consider your headcount more carefully and limit hires to fewer new positions, but for the same budget, if you wish.

Outsourcing ancillary development processes gives you more time to strengthen the processes that are at the core of what you do; in the art department, for example, this means using content rather than making it (e.g., placing props, not building them). In essence, you can make the game, not the content for the game. Theoretically, this will lead to better games that are more competitive as products, as long as everyone has been hired with that goal in mind.

If specialists are creating your content, you will get better props, characters, and weapons than if one type of artist does them all. Generalists will never be able to beat specialists when it comes to speed, quality, and ingenuity (and if they seem to, then you’re not working with real specialists or you’re getting in their way somehow).

Finally, leveraging external resources allows your project to change direction drastically half-way through without jeopardizing the entire studio, for example, if there’s a significant change in art direction or even game direction. While rare, such extreme changes could otherwise be devastating – if you’ve recruited and staffed up an internal content creation team for one type of game that you’re no longer meant to produce.

I could keep going, but I think I’ve made my point. In game development, few things are as simple as they seem. And life is full of paradoxes; a lot in the world is in fact the opposite of what it first appears.

So, while outsourcing may seem like a threat at first glance (in particular, the risk of jobs being lost), in reality it provides the complete opposite: It actually helps secure jobs internally – across all departments – by reducing a lot of risks. Without outsourcing, games would be more expensive in the shops or they would have to be shorter, have less variety, or offer lower quality graphics. As a result, fewer games would be made, as AAA developers would have even more trouble (than many already have) staying profitable and thus remaining in business.

This is why developers outsource and why I love being responsible for it – regardless of the occasional hiccups, the common misunderstandings, and the added layer of complexity.（source：gamasutra）