Post by leunas on Feb 20, 2007 12:43:25 GMT -5
Nice to see completely original reporting from blogs, with Kotaku's story about new Chinese-headquartered developer Balanced Worlds, founded by two ex-Insomniac developers who "decided to pack their bags, depart Insomniac and form their own studio".
Not quite sure whether they're going for original from-scratch console titles or just insourcing art/code elements from Western studios, with Chris Pfeiffer commenting: "US game companies will be increasingly focused on 'iteration time'. The lower the time it takes to test, modify, improve, test...the less expensive games will be to create... there is no doubt in my mind that successful US/Japanese game companies will have to heavily rely on outsourcing large portions of their games to companies like us".
When I checked out the Chinese game biz last year, it was clear that outsourcing from the West - and to a minor extent, original game creation for the West - is very swiftly on the rise in China, since artists there can produce modeling/texturing work of a similar quality at salaries of closer to $5,000 per year. And programming and QA is rapidly getting big for outsourcing, too.
The establishment of Epic China and this latest announcement is just another example of the trend - and notable names like American McGee and Paul Steed are also making for Shanghai. Look for the Western-centric game scene out there to only get denser and more interesting over time - and the native game biz also continues to be fascinating, as our 'China Angle' column at Gama regularly examines.
Article:
feeds.feedburner.com/~r/gamesetwatch/~3/93257127/balanced_worlds_try_chinese_ap_1.php