MOOMANiBE
@MOOMANiBE

This is a really interesting and thoughtful article but I feel like there's an understated undercurrent here that has me worried, which is; many publishers are becoming more comfortable outsourcing entire development processes to countries specifically because they are cheaper. The thing is, I've seen this before (and still am seeing it) in the tv/film animation industry and uh, you know what happened there right?

  • Basically all animation is produced in countries with few to no labour laws
  • Even japan is becoming too expensive to make animation in locally because of downward pressure on salaries
  • CEOs love countries like the phillipines and colombia where they can just assassinate union reps if they get uppity
  • The US animation industry basically doesn't exist anymore outside of storyboarders and management

if this starts happening with games it's going to be apocalyptic for the north american game industry. There's things that could prevent a slide like that from occurring but seeing even the beginnings of it is deeeeeply worrying, ngl. Get unionizing, yall


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in reply to @MOOMANiBE's post:

This isn't just AAA and publishers contributing to this problem. This comes from indie game studios as well. Speaking from experience, this is what burnt me out on contract work. Can't compete with talent that costs less than minimum wage and makes better work than you, so you get less work, and as a result don't improve, can't survive, etc... It's bleak.

I think there's still a bit of competitiveness in Canada via government funding and tax credits, and that's exactly how Canada still has an animation industry AFAIK... but yeah