Vykarian

Outsourcing in the Warzone

My business partner and friend Xin Chung was recently interviewed for an feature article over at China Economic Review. He talks about his company Vykarian and its place in the China outsource scene. Spicy Horse is using Vykarian to build all art assets for the Grimm project. It’s an interesting setup since we’re all in the same building - a sort of in-house outsourcing.

If weapons manufacturing is illegal in China, don’t tell Xin Chung. The American opened his first “munitions factory” in Shanghai last October and plans to open many more.

His company, Vykarian, is an outsourcing studio that builds labor-intensive artwork for game publishers in the US, supplying the ammunition for a global war in the video games industry.

“We provide the bullets” for the wars over market share for video game consoles, online-games and in-game advertising, he said.

Vykarian is one of many studios cropping up across China as rising costs push the industry to outsource.

You can read the full article here.

At some future date I hope to write more about the unique relationship that exists between Spicy and Vyk - and why we think this new model suits episodic game production.