It used to be that a blockbuster game could be made by 9 guys working 12+ hours per day for a year. The early DOOM and Quake games were built this way. The budget for these games was in the low millions. Even a few years ago developers could build and market a title for less than US$5mil and compete effectively with other games in the market.

Seems those days are quickly passing. Development costs for Next-Gen HD console and online games have skyrocketed. We are seeing fewer games at increased size (budgets), more ship dates, and decreased time to market. Typical development budgets are now averaging US$20mil with marketing budgets to match, bringing the total cost to retail for many new games to something around US$40mil!

In the midst of all this massive growth publishers are having a hard time hiring and retaining the armies of people required to build these products. Big games require big development teams. And teams, like armies are a burden when there is no war to fight or product to build. Companies like EA have learned the hard way that they can’t hire someone for a 40 hour week and expect to work them for 90 hours a week. Something’s got to give.

More and more publishers are looking to outside production houses to solve their labor shortage issues. Art outsourcing revenue is set to reach $1.1 billion by the end of 2006 and will grow to $2.5 billion by 2010. These staggering numbers represent close to 40 percent of the total game development spend. And the majority of this work is heading to China and India.

People often ask me why I’m in China. The simplest answer is that this is the best place to build armies. In a country of more than 1.3 billion people (nearly 20% of the world’s population) it isn’t difficult to build factories on scales of tens of thousands of workers. The factory that created the Alice toys, for instance, employed something like five thousand people to assemble, paint, and package each individual toy*. The human assembly line is still more cost effective than automation, at least in places like China.

When looking at where game and film production are going in the US and around the world it is clear that only a factory approach to art asset production will satisfy exponentially increasing demand from the market.** To that end I’ve been working with a collection of industry leaders in China to build the world’s biggest and best art outsourcing factory.

We’re in the early stages now, recruiting our generals and captains. Right now we’re particularly interested in senior game modelers and texture artists willing to live and work in Shanghai. If you’re interesting helping us to build something truly great, then please drop a line:

HR (at) VYKARIAN (dot) COM

After posting, Ken Wong commented on the following:
*The way this is written it implies each toy had 5000 people working on it. Actually, yes. And after each toy was made, those 5000 people were shot and put in the dirt. That’s China for you.

**Factory does not and should not imply low quality or slave labor. Our first and foremost goal is to create HIGH QUALITY. The issue here isn’t cost, it’s scale.

While politicians like Sen. Clinton attack entertainment, mostly video games, for causing all of society’s ills it seems we’re allowing other, more insidious evils to run rampant throughout the world. It is my belief that these things are destroying the moral fabric of our world and must be banned from existence if we expect to live long enough to eventually die of natural causes.

Case in point: Woman Attacks Dog Breeder With Chihuahua

A woman angry that her new puppy had died pushed her way into a dog breeder’s home and repeatedly hit her on the head with the dead Chihuahua, authorities said.

Here’s a clear case of a dead chihuahua causing crime and violence. Not even in GTA3 do developers stoop so low as to allow the player to beat other characters with a dead dog.

Ban: Dead Chihuahuas.

In celebration of 6-6-6 day I thought I’d make mention of several new apocolyptic Bad Day LA videos which can be downloaded here.

The one titled “Traffic” shows the cataclysmic opening scene from the game. “Subway” and “Hospital” are also pre-rendered cinematics from later in the game. These videos serve to tie together the action between the levels and generally set up the next disaster the player will encounter.

I don’t know who named these files. I would have named them “terrorist attack”, “train wreck”, and “meteor storm”. Not sure how compelled people will be to watch something called “hospital”. Snore. Anyway, boring names aside, the videos are fun to watch.

PS, here in Hong Kong we already lived through 6-6-6 day. It was pretty uneventful, although there were scattered reports of Apocolypse Ponies eating Chinese villagers.

So it turns out that last week’s news report on Islamists using US video games to recruit and train new terrorists was complete bunk. The supposed recruiting tool was in fact a video made by a US game player using existing voice over from the movie “Team America – World Police”, among other things.

The really scary thing about all of this that the media and Washington officials were so willing to fall for this story. When reported last week it was treated as absolute fact. A Pentagon official named Dan Devlin was quoted, saying:

“What we have seen is that any video game that comes out… (al Qaeda will) modify it and change the game for their needs.”

I’m curious what Mr. Devlin has to say about the issue now. He makes a blanket statement regarding “any” video game being used by al Qaeda. Does this mean that terrorists trainees are at this moment doing reflex training to Dance Dance Revolution in the middle of the desert?

No. Really. At this very moment, terrorists all over the world, are modifying video games into murder training simulators, and conditioning themselves to attack you.

Islamists using US video games in youth appeal
SAIC executive Eric Michael said researchers suspect Islamic militants are using video games to train recruits and condition youth to attack U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.

I was going to get all pissed off about those pesky Islamists subverting video games for use against the US until I read this:

Churches Use Violence to Develop Warriors for God
There is currently a nationwide movement to use pop culture to bring teens to God through use of a video game called Halo 2.

“What?!” you say. Well, clearly boys and girls, what we have here is the making of the first Global Interfaith Deathmatch Showdown: Jesus vs Allah vs. Muhammad Vs Buddha vs Shiva. Shiva the DESTRUCTOR! Sunday Sunday Sunday! It’s Monster Deity Demolition MADNESS! Be the first to watch from a distance lest you get too close and lose a soul.

Someone please call the Cyber Athlete League and tell them to get working on setting this up right away. Seriously, this is the solution to all the world’s problems. Think about it: Cyberwarriors from Iran to California duking it out ONLINE in Halo2 deathmathes. An end to war. An end to violence. Brilliant!

And all this time I thought video games were all bad.