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August 29, 2006

Intro and Outsourcing

Hello. I'm Michael Heller, and I will be contributing to this Production SIG blog along with Craig Derrick and Heather.

Most recently, I was the project manager on Eragon at Stormfront Studios. Prior to that, I spent many years managing technology projects and products at companies including Apple, HP, GM Hughes and Charles Schwab. I studied electrical engineering and computers, but my interests include everything that's necessary to get a product out the door and make it successful.

As for gaming, my passion began with oldies like Trek-80 on the Sol computer and the Fairchild Channel F console. I wrote several games for the Apple II. Today, I am an avid console and PC gamer, and I struggle every day to find time to play some of the best from multiple genres.

For this first post, I'm highlighting some recent content about outsourcing. The use of outsourcing in game development seems to be growing, driven by a desire to lower costs ("your mileage may vary", as they say) and the sheer volume of assets now used in many games.

From a production standpoint, this shifts some of the challenge of managing internal resources and/or a primary developer to managing multiple company-to-company relationships, often across thousands of miles and many time zones.

GDC recently had their Game Outsourcing Summit. Although I didn't see any silver bullets, those in production might at least benefit from reviewing some of the checklists in the slides. Gamasutra also had write-ups of the presentations by Rajesh Rao (Dhurva Interactive) and Shiraz Akmal (THQ).

Comments are welcome: war stories, lessons learned, etc.

-Michael

Posted by MichaelHeller at August 29, 2006 05:06 AM

Comments

Posted by: Heather at September 7, 2006 10:10 AM