Managing individual contractors is a huge pain in the ass. I used to do 15 at once, and that was a complete nightmare. Part of the appeal of the studio model is, naturally, outsourcing the bulk of the actual art management.

And studios are more expensive in general, yeah, but you can do a *LOT* depending on where you look, what you ask for, and the way you treat them. :)

Sounds like you are using individual artist contractors more than studios ( allthough you DO say “studio” and “team” in there a couple times) Does that give you better rates (because they have lower overhead)? Doesn’t managing all those different artists eat up all your time?

I’d have imagined you’d outsource all this stuff to one or two experienced studios, but that’s probably way more expensive, just from what experienced pricing things out.

As for the breakdown… everything I detailed that I’ve done so far was for under $15k.

Most of that expense was for the two external particle FX artists I have right now, which are currently running me $4500/mo on a temporary basis… but who each do the work of ten men.

The character, creature and weapon trees all cost roughly 3k — total. Each individual asset I’m having animated and put into the game costs $50 to $300. Marketing renders I get for $30 each. Polishing artist gets $15 per icon.

The expense will go up over time but I think I can cap just the asset integration stuff at about 3k to 5k per month. And that’s for dozens of creatures, characters, weapons, etc. :)

I’m aggressive — but fair — with negotiating prices. I also pick my vendors very carefully, I never waste a dollar, I reuse whatever I can and get crazy creative with everything I need to in order to make ends meet. It’s not that I have that much money to spend, it’s that I spend it where it counts and make sure I get my dollar’s worth.

I also have excellent contractor retention and happiness rates. :)

As animation director, I outsource and supervise all the animation asset creation, and sometimes characters. We have a new employee here that manages the assets, but I still personally have to get them into the game. I’d love to outsource that, but Im not allowed to set the outsource studio up with our engine/tools etc. ICK.

Vidar: what a coincidence, this is my first post to jons blog, and I visited your website for the first time today too. Fate? Nah, I just spend too much time on the internet.

Keep up specializing on it is my advice, the industry is only growing and the management aspects are becoming more important every day.

Even though I’m still just a grunt worker in the game industry I find most of your musings inspiring and thoughtful. The only managing I get to do is outsource supervision (which is not quite as exiting as outsource planning etc).

Btw, feel free to visit my blog and tell me what you think about it so far.. I haven’t really had the time to write anything worthwhile, but there’s some pretty pictures. ;)

I have a bit of a post written up on how I started outsourcing the particle effects successfully, but since I’m still in the middle of it, it’s still early.

But you’ll hear about it all. :)

Thanks for the encouragement! Sometimes I realize what a niche audience I’m targeting with this stuff, and that’s an ongoing concern of mine.

So many great ideas in this article, it’s mind boggling. Please write more on this subject in the future, when you have had more time to try it out. I would be interested in hearing what worked well, what you would rather have done different etc.

Cheers!