Overview
- Art production is the most commonly outsourced discipline, with 3D animation, game character modeling, 2D art, and low-poly art frequently contracted to specialized studios, while art direction, technical art, and iterative game design-related art typically stay in-house to maintain creative vision and enable rapid prototyping collaboration between designers and artists.
- Core creative elements stay internal while scalable production and specialized services get outsourced, with game design, game mechanics, architecture decisions, and gameplay programming remaining in-house to protect competitive advantages and enable tight iteration, while QA testing, audio composition, platform porting, and bulk asset production scale effectively through external partners when supported by clear documentation and dedicated internal liaisons.
Why Outsourcing Decisions Matter in Game Development
Game development is complex, expensive, and time-consuming. No studio – whether indie or AAA – can excel at every discipline equally. Smart outsourcing allows studios to leverage specialized expertise, manage costs, and accelerate timelines while maintaining creative control over their vision. But knowing what to outsource versus what to keep in-house can make or break a project.
The decision isn’t simply about cutting costs. It’s about strategic resource allocation, protecting your competitive advantages, and recognizing where external specialists can deliver better results than your internal team. Let’s break down which parts of game development are commonly outsourced, which typically stay in-house, and why these patterns exist across the industry.
Game Art: The Most Commonly Outsourced Discipline
Game art represents the largest and most frequently outsourced aspect of game development. The reasons are straightforward – art production is labor-intensive, requires diverse skill sets, and scales dramatically based on project scope.
What Gets Outsourced
3D character modeling and environment assets are prime candidates for outsourcing. Many video game companies outsource their 3D animation work to specialized studios with established pipelines and experienced artists. This includes everything from game character creation – modeling, texturing, and rigging – to environmental props, vehicles, and architectural elements.
The 2D vs. 3D decision influences outsourcing strategy significantly. 2D art, including concept art, UI elements, promotional illustrations, and sprite work, is commonly outsourced, especially for mobile games and indie titles. Many studios keep concept artists in-house for initial vision development but outsource production art once the style is established. Technical art, which bridges art and programming, is more commonly retained in-house due to its integration requirements with game engines and code.
Low-poly art has become increasingly popular for indie games and mobile titles, and specialized outsourcing studios have emerged focusing specifically on stylized, performance-optimized assets. These studios understand the balance between visual appeal and technical constraints, making them valuable partners for resource-limited projects.
What Typically Stays in-House
Art direction and style establishment remain internal responsibilities. The creative vision defining your game’s visual identity – color palettes, art style, and game character design principles – needs to originate from and be controlled by the core team. Once this foundation is solid, outsourcing partners can execute within those parameters.
Iterative game design-related art also tends to stay in-house during pre-production. When you’re prototyping game mechanics and level designs, the tight feedback loop between designers and artists makes outsourcing impractical. You need artists who can rapidly iterate based on gameplay discoveries without the communication overhead of external coordination.
Audio: Selectively Outsourced Based on Specialization
Audio production falls into distinct categories with different outsourcing patterns. Music composition and sound effect creation have different requirements, leading to varied approaches.
What Gets Outsourced
Music composition is frequently outsourced to specialized composers or audio production houses. Many studios lack in-house composers and find hiring freelance or contract musicians more cost-effective than maintaining permanent audio staff. This works well because music composition is relatively self-contained – you can provide creative direction, receive drafts, give feedback, and iterate without needing daily collaboration.
Sound effect libraries and basic audio asset creation are commonly purchased or outsourced. Stock sound libraries provide cost-effective solutions for common sounds (footsteps, UI clicks, ambient noise), while custom sound design for unique actions or creatures can be outsourced to audio specialists.
Voice acting and dialogue recording are almost always outsourced unless you’re a large studio with dedicated audio facilities. Professional voice actors work freelance or through talent agencies, and recording studios are contracted for sessions. Even major video game companies outsource voice talent rather than maintaining a permanent voice actor staff.
What Typically Stays In-House
Audio direction and implementation remain internal responsibilities. Someone on your core team needs to understand how audio integrates with game engines, how adaptive music systems work, and how sound supports game mechanics. This person – whether called audio director, audio designer, or technical sound designer – bridges creative audio and technical implementation.
Interactive audio systems and dynamic music that respond to gameplay require close integration with code and game design. These systems need programmers or technical audio designers who understand both the audio middleware and your specific game engine, making them difficult to outsource effectively.
Programming: Strategic Outsourcing for Specific Systems
Programming presents the most nuanced outsourcing decisions. Code is the foundation of your game, and poor architectural decisions create technical debt that haunts projects for years. However, certain programming tasks are outsourced successfully by studios worldwide.
What Gets Outsourced
Specific feature implementation can be outsourced when requirements are clearly defined. If you need a particular system – inventory management, quest tracking, or a dialogue system – and can provide detailed specifications, experienced outsourcing studios can implement these features. This works best for self-contained systems with clear interfaces to the rest of your codebase.
Platform-specific porting and optimization are commonly outsourced. Studios specializing in porting games between platforms (PC to console, console to mobile, Unity vs. Unreal migrations) have deep expertise in platform-specific requirements and optimization techniques. They understand certification processes, platform SDKs, and performance characteristics better than most development teams.
Backend services and server infrastructure for multiplayer games are frequently outsourced to specialists. Companies focusing on networking, matchmaking, authentication, and server hosting provide robust solutions without requiring your team to become experts in distributed systems and DevOps.
Tools and pipeline development can be outsourced when you have established workflows but need technical implementation. If you know what tools your artists and designers need but lack the programming bandwidth to build them, outsourcing partners can create custom plugins, automation scripts, and workflow tools based on your specifications.
What Typically Stays In-House
Core game mechanics and gameplay programming remain internal for good reason. The moment-to-moment player experience – how controls feel, how game mechanics interact, and how systems balance – requires constant iteration and refinement. This tight design-code feedback loop makes outsourcing core gameplay programming impractical and risky.
Architecture and technical direction must stay in-house. Someone on your team needs to own the technical vision, make architectural decisions, establish coding standards, and maintain code quality. Outsourcing partners can contribute code within your established architecture, but the architecture itself requires internal ownership and a consistent vision.
Game engine integration and optimization need internal expertise. Whether you’re working with Unity or Unreal, or a proprietary engine, your team needs deep knowledge of how that engine works, how to optimize for target platforms, and how to work around engine limitations. This knowledge accumulates over time and represents a core technical competency you can’t outsource.
Quality Assurance: The Most Scalable Outsourcing Category
QA and testing represent perhaps the most universally outsourced aspect of game development, particularly as projects approach release and testing needs scale dramatically.
What Gets Outsourced
Functional testing and bug identification scale perfectly to outsourcing. Large QA outsourcing companies employ hundreds of testers who can play through your game systematically, following test plans and reporting bugs. This is especially valuable during crunch periods before milestones or release, when you need extensive testing coverage quickly.
Compatibility testing across devices and platforms is frequently outsourced because it requires access to diverse hardware configurations. Testing on dozens of Android devices, various PC configurations, or different console SKUs is logistically challenging for small studios but routine for specialized QA providers with device labs.
Localization testing for multiple languages and regions is commonly outsourced to companies with native speakers who can verify translations, identify cultural issues, and test region-specific features. This ensures your game works correctly and reads naturally in all target markets.
Certification and compliance testing for platform holders (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Apple, Google) is sometimes outsourced to companies familiar with platform-specific requirements and submission processes. These specialists know certification quirks and can help ensure first-time approval.
What Typically Stays In-House
Design validation and balance testing require design expertise and context that external testers lack. Evaluating whether game mechanics feel good, progression is balanced, and difficulty curves are appropriately designed needs people who understand your design intentions deeply. This type of testing is subjective and iterative, making it difficult to outsource effectively.
Early prototyping and alpha testing stay internal because these phases involve rapid changes and unclear specifications. External QA is most effective when builds are relatively stable, and test cases can be defined clearly. During early development, when everything is in flux, internal testing is more practical.
User research and playtest analysis remain in-house or are contracted to specialized UX research firms rather than traditional QA outsourcers. Understanding why players struggle, what they enjoy, and how to improve experiences requires research methodologies beyond bug reporting.
Game Design: The Core That Stays Internal
Game design is the discipline least commonly outsourced and most critical to keep in-house. Your game’s design – its mechanics, systems, progression, and player experience – represents your creative vision and competitive differentiation.
What Rarely Gets Outsourced
Core game mechanics design stays internal. The fundamental systems defining how your game plays – combat systems, progression mechanics, and economy design – originate from your creative vision and require constant iteration throughout development. Outsourcing core game design means outsourcing your game’s identity.
Level design and encounter design typically remain in-house, especially for the critical path and key moments. While some studios outsource secondary content (side quests, optional areas), the levels defining your game’s pacing and memorable moments need direct creative control and tight integration with the core team’s vision.
Game balance and systems design require a deep understanding of how all mechanics interact, player psychology, and intended experience. This holistic view is difficult for external designers to develop without being embedded in your team.
Rare Exceptions
Some studios outsource secondary content creation once core systems are established. If you’ve built a solid foundation for side quests, collectibles, or optional content, external designers can create additional content following your templates and guidelines. This works for live service games needing constant content updates or large open-world games with extensive optional activities.
Specialized design consultation happens occasionally when studios need expertise in specific areas – monetization design for free-to-play games, accessibility consulting, or UX design. These consultants provide expertise and recommendations while your team maintains final design authority.
The Hybrid Approach: How Modern Studios Operate
Most successful video game companies use hybrid models combining internal core teams with selective outsourcing. This approach maintains creative control and builds institutional knowledge while leveraging external expertise and scalability.
Internal Foundation, External Scale
Establishing style and direction internally, then scaling production externally. Studios create concept art, model key game characters and environments, and define technical standards in-house. Once these foundations are solid, outsourcing partners produce additional assets following established guidelines.
Specialized Core Teams with Flexible Capacity
Maintaining small specialized internal teams supplemented by outsourced capacity. Rather than large permanent game art departments, studios keep art directors, technical artists, and a few generalist artists in-house while outsourcing bulk production to scale flexibly based on project phases.
Resource Augmentation
Many studios use resource augmentation to temporarily expand their teams with specialized talent without long-term hiring commitments. This model works particularly well when you need additional capacity during production peaks or require specific expertise for limited periods.
Algoryte offers resource augmentation services, providing experienced 2D artists, 3D artists, Unity developers, Unreal developers, and backend support developers who integrate directly with your internal team, working as extensions of your studio while maintaining your creative direction and workflows.
Iterate Internally, Expand Externally
Iterating systems internally until mature, then outsourcing expansion content. Core game mechanics stay in-house through prototype and refinement. Once systems are proven and documented, outsourcing partners can create additional content – levels, quests, items – within established frameworks.
Episodic & One-Time Outsourcing
Using outsourcing for one-time or periodic needs rather than ongoing requirements. Recording voice acting, creating marketing materials, or performing platform certification testing happens episodically, making outsourcing more logical than maintaining permanent internal capacity.
Conclusion: Strategic Outsourcing Empowers Studios
Outsourcing isn’t about cutting corners or avoiding difficult work – it’s about strategic resource allocation that lets studios punch above their weight. By identifying what to outsource and what to keep in-house, studios maximize their strengths while accessing specialized expertise they can’t efficiently develop internally.
The most successful studios use outsourcing strategically: keeping creative vision, core game mechanics, and technical direction in-house while outsourcing scalable production work and specialized services. This hybrid approach combines the benefits of internal creative control with the flexibility and expertise external partners provide.
Understanding these patterns helps studios make informed decisions about team composition, budgeting, and project planning. Whether you’re an indie team building your first game or an established studio scaling for larger projects, thoughtful outsourcing strategies turn resource constraints into competitive advantages.
FAQs
1. What’s the most commonly outsourced part of game development?
Game art is the most frequently outsourced discipline, including 3D game character models, environment assets, 2D art for UI and marketing, and animation work. Art production is labor-intensive and scales based on project scope, making it ideal for outsourcing to specialized studios with established pipelines. Most video game companies keep art direction in-house but outsource production once the visual style is established.
2. Should indie studios outsource programming or keep it in-house?
Indie studios should generally keep core gameplay programming in-house to maintain tight iteration between design and code. However, outsourcing specific systems with clear requirements (inventory systems, dialogue trees), platform porting, or backend server work can be effective. The key is maintaining internal ownership of architecture and game mechanics while outsourcing well-defined, self-contained technical tasks.
3. How does the choice between Unity and Unreal affect outsourcing decisions?
Both Unity and Unreal have large outsourcing ecosystems with studios specializing in each engine. Your choice between Unity vs. Unreal should be based on project needs, not outsourcing availability. However, more widely used game engines have larger talent pools and more outsourcing options. Maintain internal expertise in your chosen engine for architecture, optimization, and integration work regardless of which you select.
4. Can game design be outsourced successfully?
Core game design – game mechanics, systems, balance, and player experience – should stay in-house, as it defines your creative vision. However, secondary content creation (side quests, optional areas) can be outsourced once core systems are established and documented. Some studios also use specialized design consultants for specific areas like monetization, accessibility, or UX while maintaining internal design authority over the overall experience.
5. What’s the biggest mistake studios make when outsourcing?
The biggest mistake is insufficient documentation and communication. Outsourcing partners need comprehensive style guides, technical specifications, and reference materials to deliver work matching your vision. Studios often underestimate the time required to create proper documentation, manage feedback cycles, and integrate outsourced work. Assign dedicated internal liaisons to own outsourcing relationships and budget adequate time for integration and revision.