10 Tips for Successful Game Art Outsourcing at Scale
Your game just launched and players are eating up your content like candy? It’s time to outsource your asset creation and ramp-up production before it’s too late!
Many times over the past decade, I have partnered up with various art outsourcing studios to get new content for our games. This practice is not seen as much within small teams who are used to doing everything in-house or only have experience working with individual freelancers.
So, I have identified 10 best practices to help you get up to speed and massively outsource art at scale!
1️. Anticipate needs early
If your players are stuck and waiting for a content update, they will likely churn and move on to another game. It can take up to several weeks for an outsourcing studio to have a team ready for you (sorting contract stuff, allocating the right people). And as you will see below, there are many steps to take before outsourcing can start efficiently.
2️. Thoroughly document your art guidelines
Art documentation (usually called a Style Guide) is a must-have to communicate the look and feel of your game and the overarching artistic pillars to follow when creating new content. Your documentation should describe your art style do’s and don’ts and how to technically execute it.
3️. Write crystal clear briefs and delivery expectations
Don’t leave anything up for interpretation. Be as precise as you can in the description of the job to be done. Explain what is your definition of done and what steps need to be taken from start to final delivery. For each asset to be created, the more guidance you can give (references, description, game design considerations), the more predictable the delivery will be.
4️. Benchmark assets and test your pipeline
Before outsourcing anything massively, make sure to have a handful of reference assets already done internally. They will set the benchmark for all future works and show the outsourcing team the target to reach, so craft them with care and precision. In addition, it gives you the chance to proof-test the pipeline and potentially tweak it to achieve the best results before involving a third party to take over.
5️. Outsource proven things to make room for innovation
You may feel uncomfortable to take work away from your people that they like to do and outsource it. But once your art team has set the art foundations of your game and crafted the first batches of visual assets, it’s best practice to outsource this repetitive, low-risk, and proven content creation. It gives your art team the opportunity to go back to the drawing board (literally) and work on the innovative, challenging, and unproven upcoming features that will need R&D.
6️. Pick the right outsourcing partner
There is obviously the budget to consider, but not only. Think of the timezone in which they will operate and what impact it will have on your team’s schedule: make sure there is at least some overlapping hours for synchronous communications. Check their portfolio and references, ensure they have experience with the type of assets you need. You can ask them to do a test.
7️. Anticipate delays at the beginning
As the OS team gets familiar with your art style and pipeline, they will need a couple days to ramp up to full speed. This is a moment where you need to give extra guidance to make sure they get things right. After 1–2 weeks you should expect of them to reach the agreed levels of speed and quality.
8️. Account for feedback time
As part of the process, expect your art lead or whoever’s in charge to spend time daily to review the work done and provide feedback. Over time, the amount of feedback should decrease, as the OS team will learn from past occurrences. If you have a huge amount of assets to check and manage every day and it becomes a full time job, consider hiring someone dedicated like an art producer/manager.
9. React fast when things go wrong
Maintain high expectations for quality, communication, and speed over time. If you don’t, you will notice too late a gap between original expectations and current deliveries. As soon as you spot something not going according to plan, setup a call and discuss it. Explain what you observed versus what you expected and insist on the necessity to get things back on track, or else.
10. Give the outsourcing team more ownership over time
Best case scenario is when the OS team is doing a great work, displays high levels of creativity and initiative, and the only feedback you give is about which of their concept to pick. They are ready to own more than just execution: encourage them to propose new batches of ideas (removing this work from you) and suggest ways to tweak the pipeline to get better or faster results. They will be more engaged with your project, thus delivering better results.
And here we are! I hope you will find these tips helpful as you embark on the outsourcing “at scale” journey. Did I miss anything? Can you relate with one particular point? Feel free to comment and share your experience!
Etienne
