Wideload Games' "Stubbs the Zombie"

When "Stubbs The Zombie" shuffles onto store shelves this summer, developers will be keeping a close eye on how much life the forthcoming Xbox/PC video game has in it. It'll be the premiere release of what may be the first studio designed from the ground up to take advantage of the so-called "Hollywood model" of outsourcing work to independent contractors. If the title is a success, it could accelerate a shift away from the more traditional method of game development in which an internal staff does the bulk of the production.

That Hollywood model has been described as a means of coming to grips with the runaway game development costs that are expected to balloon even further as the industry transitions to next-generation consoles this year and next.

In "Stubbs The Zombie in Rebel Without A Pulse" -- a third-person action game that uses an updated Halo engine -- players take on the role of a wisecracking zombie who takes on an ultra-modern city using nothing but his own carcass and the weapons of his possessed enemies. The game's soundtrack includes music by Ben Kweller, the Raveonettes and Death Cab For Cutie.

The creator of "Stubbs," two-year-old, Chicago-based Wideload Games, is the brainchild of Alex Seropian, the man who founded Bungie Studios, best known for the huge best-sellers "Halo" and "Halo 2." When Seropian left Microsoft -- which purchased Bungie in 2000 -- to build Wideload, he faced the challenge of creating a stable business in a tough climate that is not much different from today's: costs were rising, successes were hit-driven, and games were becoming more complex, requiring ever-expanding staffs.

"My solution was to have a core team of 12 guys who come up with the concepts, design the games, and prototype them," Seropian explains. "When it comes time to do the actual production work -- that is, building the thousands and thousands of assets that go into a game -- all that is done by independent contributors, by contractors."

According to Seropian, if all the work on "Stubbs" had been done in-house, it would have required a full-time staff of 65-70. Instead, his 12 employees began 18 months ago and spent six to eight months to plan the project. Then, outside contractors took another six to eight months to build the assets. And now the internal team is filling another six months assembling it. All told, contractors accounted for about 75% of the work hours. As a result, the project cost 35% less to produce than if it had been produced entirely in-house.

"As you can imagine, one of our biggest challenges is the planning," he says. "By the time we make the calls to put the production staff together, we have a very good idea of what it is each contractor needs to do. Then we bid out the jobs per asset. We'll tell a contractor, for example, that we need five characters done in such-and-such a timeframe, here's the conceptual work you need to base the work on, here are the specs, and then we manage the process from there."

If done correctly, the business model has three key advantages. First, it allows for a more controllable budget. "I can scale the number of contractors I have," says Seropian. "I can do all the work in six months, or I can double the work in six months by doubling the contractor load. If it had all been done internally, doubling the work would have meant doubling the time as well."

And because the core team is just 12 people, creative conversations are more productive.

"That has an enormous impact on the quality of the game, I think, because ideas can get tossed around, they can get shot down or agreed upon, all in a very efficient and creative way in a casual conversation in my office," says Seropian. "That's a very hard thing to do when you have a 70-person staff."

Lastly, management is simplified.

"I don't have to ramp up, I don't have to ramp down, I don't need a huge management layer to oversee the resources. And I don't have the cashflow crunches that you go through when you have a big staff, the work is over, and you must come up with something for everybody to do ... or let them go," says Seropian.

Another big proponent of the Hollywood model is Mary Margaret Walker, founder and president of Texas-based recruiting firm Mary-Margaret.com, which specializes in the placement of game developers. Her recommendation for small, independent developers is to keep a core team of fewer than 20 as employees and augment it with as many contractors as the budget allows when the deal with the publisher is signed. Mid- to larger-size developers that have five or six contracts going at any one time might want a small staff of engineers, artists, and designers, with contractors brought on as needed.

She cites UK-based Revolution Software and San Rafael, Calif.-based Stormfront Studios as two developers that are particularly good at following the model.

Walker notes that there is a fourth advantage to the business model, one that addresses the industry's current focus on quality-of-life issues in which workers are asked to work overtime for little or no additional wages during ever-expanding "crunch periods."

"Workers who are contractors will stay on the job for as long as their contract states, no more, no less," she asserts. "The Hollywood model will assist in managing everyone's expectations -- employers and employees alike. Employers will stop expecting an inappropriate amount of loyalty from the people who work for them. By that I mean, employers seem to want employees to stick around for as long as the employees are needed, and when it's convenient for them to lay them off, the employees are expected to walk out the door singing a song.

"Similarly, contractors are not going to expect an inappropriate amount of loyalty from their employer," she adds. "No one is going to say 'I have a job and it's the company's responsibility to keep me employed because I come to work every day.' Everyone is going to realize that these are businesses we're talking about, not families."

She also believes that, under the Hollywood model, contractors will work harder at keeping their game development skills sharp because their reputations -- and their ability to get work -- will depend on it.

Walker estimates that only about 30% of the small independent developers are using any contractors now, and she doesn't expect that to inch up to more than 40% over the next two to three years. That's because it is difficult for most people to accept the idea of not being employed full-time and not receiving benefits.

"But job security is an illusion," says Walker. "There is no job security; there are no guarantees. A publisher can decide to close an entire department or studio any time it wants."

Indeed, there has been a spate of high-profile layoffs recently. Last month, Electronic Arts pink-slipped 60 staffers from its Los Angeles game development studio. And, just this week, Eidos locked up its Austin, Texas-based Ion Storm studio, resulting in 35 layoffs, while Atari shuttered its Santa Monica, Calif., and Beverly, Mass., studios, resulting in an unknown number of layoffs. Meanwhile, Seattle-based developer Surreal Software is hiring, primarily due to its acquisition by Midway Games 10 months ago.

According to Surreal CEO Alan Patmore, the studio tried the Hollywood model with its 2004 console/PC game "The Suffering" -- with mixed results. Training and performance became issues.

"The games industry is still young and peoples' roles aren't as standardized as they are in the film and TV industries," he explains. "In Hollywood, if someone is a director of photography, you know exactly what he does. But a lead designer in my game studio may do a completely different job than a lead designer elsewhere. Similarly, our industry has no standardized technology. So when you hire an independent contractor, there's a huge ramp-up time to teach them how to use your toolset and how your pipeline works; that's a three- to four-month learning curve before somebody is really productive. You invest so much money and resources to turn these guys into part of your team that you start to think, 'Gee, why are we training them to be a contractor for us? Why don't we just bring them on board?' "

Another hurdle to the independent developer model, says Patmore, is that there is a synergy that occurs when a team works together for a long period of time that is missing when outside contractors are brought in.

"They don't always get what the game is about," he says. "They don't groove with the team."

Wideload's Seropian agrees that the model isn't for everyone. If you're not well-organized, for instance, it won't work. And an extra effort needs to be made to communicate well, especially if all the team members are used to working in the same room together.

"There are always going to be developers who don't want to make the investment in a different production methodology," he says. "Maybe it's fear of change. There have been some great games that have come out using the old system. For those guys for whom the old system is working great, I'm sure they don't feel a need to change it."

But Surreal Software intends to experiment further with the technique.

"Given the fact that the next-gen consoles are almost upon us, this is a great time to play with the model, and we definitely have a big portion of our budget set aside for outsourcing," says Patmore. "I want the outsourcing model to work. It's just so much better in terms of scalability. It allows you to get a ton of content into your game without having to worry about where the people are going to go after they're done."

Patmore says that he -- and the rest of the industry -- is watching Wideload to determine whether it is successful with its summer release. He is, however, hesitant to predict how things will turn out for Wideload, describing the company's use of independent contractors for 75% of its work "very aggressive."

"It's taking a risk, that's for sure," he says. "However, if they can pull this off, if they're tremendously successful, I guarantee that everybody will consider moving to that model because, in the grand scheme of things, it's just more efficient."

Despite Wideload's enthusiasm for how well its business model is working, Patmore says he still isn't completely sold on the idea.

"Why is that?" he asks rhetorically. "They haven't shipped a game yet, have they?"

Paul "The Game Master" Hyman was the editor-in-chief of CMP Media's GamePower. He's covered the games industry for over a dozen years. His columns for The Reporter run exclusively on the Web site.