Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 443 - 426 Can Still Be Faster!_2

Chapter 443: Chapter 426 Can Still Be Faster!_2

Lilith even thought about speeding up the game development by throwing money at it, but that’s probably just a daydream.

However, Gu Fan slightly shook his head, "To say that you can’t speed up the game development by spending money... is not entirely impossible."

"The method is very simple: outsourcing."

Zhou Yang was taken aback but quickly shook his head, "That’s not going to work, President Gu. If we outsource it, how do we ensure the quality of the game?"

Lilith’s eyes lit up instantly, "We don’t need to ensure it!"

Gu Fan was silent for a moment, "No, we still need to, otherwise we can’t ensure that the outsourced code won’t have some magical bugs."

Lilith immediately deflated, "That’s true... So what’s the deal with this outsourcing?"

Gu Fan explained, "It’s simple, we just have to ensure the quality of development as much as possible while outsourcing. This will take some time, maybe two or three projects to adapt, but once successful, we can further speed up the game development."

Zhou Yang and Wei Chengjie listened, both feeling somewhat inconceivable.

Outsourcing, as the name implies, is when a company, to reduce operating costs and concentrate resources, entrusts non-core business to external professional companies.

And the outsourcing companies are those that specialize in a certain area while offering their services to multiple other companies.

In plain language, it’s using money to find other companies to help share the workload.

For instance, many start-up game companies would outsource art directly.

Because in game development, maintaining a full art department is wasteful; once all the art resources for the game are developed, the art department has nothing to do, and the company still has to pay them. But if it’s an outsourcing company, once the art resources for one project are done, they can continue with the next project’s art resources, which optimizes resource allocation.

But outsourcing isn’t a cure-all, for the same reason that there are limits to a company’s organizational structure.

If the company’s organizational structure is unreasonable, more resources will be needed for internal coordination and rules unification, which can increase workload and be counterproductive.

As far as Nitiandang’s current situation is concerned, art resources, which are most in need of outsourcing, are actually not the biggest problem.

Although the larger the game, the longer the art department of Hell takes to produce art resources, generally speaking, no matter the size of the game, Hell’s art department can produce resources in a shorter time than it takes for program development.

Therefore, there really isn’t much need to outsource art; the bottleneck is with programming.

And programming is precisely the part that is not very suitable for outsourcing.

Because it’s easier to establish standards for art, and online communication is also more convenient, whereas for programming you need constant coordination, online communication is inconvenient, and it’s better to have offline communication, to unify standards. If there are any problems or bugs, they can be solved immediately.

Furthermore, if there’s a problem with programming, it’s a big issue; such a crucial thing is something most game companies aren’t keen on outsourcing.

Of course, some amazing Western game companies, to save money, have outsourced programming to Indian programmers, and the end result is invariably disastrous.

Although Lilith doesn’t care about the quality issue of programming, the various strange bugs she has encountered before have turned her into a startled bird, no longer accepting any occurrence of bugs.

After being ambushed and still frequently encountering issues, if they were to let things run wild, wouldn’t that be the "Ascension" happening all over again? Absolutely not!

Gu Fan explained, "My idea is very simple, exponential growth!

"So far, all the programmers at Nitiandang combined amount to about 300 people, and among them, the reliable senior programmers familiar with the workflow are about 240 people."

"We select about 100 people from these 240, forming about 10 teams."

"Each team will move directly into an outsourcing studio and take charge of a portion of the development work."

"As for the remaining 140 people, we will recruit roughly the same number of programmers and have them work in pairs to complete the development tasks."

Zhou Yang was somewhat surprised, "President Gu, are you saying 140 turns into 280, then 560? Such an exponential growth?"

"But I’m afraid that won’t work well, because the process of old employees training new ones will severely decrease their own work efficiency. Having two people develop software together might not be faster than one experienced employee working alone."

Gu Fan nodded, "In the short term, that’s true, but what about the long term?"

"Once they’ve been through one or two projects, the newly hired 140 employees can almost grow into senior programmers, who are also familiar with our internal development process, and then we can continue to expand."

"Then among the previous employees, we can send another group to various outsourcing studios."

"The outsourcing studios are where the main part of our efficiency improvement lies."

"As for building the program framework and various coordination tasks, those will be handled by me, Big Brother Da Hui, and all the core programmers remaining at the company."

Zhou Yang became even more puzzled, "Can this... really work?"

It all seemed very unreliable.

Wei Chengjie, however, contemplated for a moment then slightly nodded, "Theoretically, it’s barely viable, as those top-tier large companies also expand their workforce using a similar method of internal mentoring and support."

"But there are several downsides to this approach."

"First of all, the outsourcing companies."

"Outsourcing companies will inevitably not only interface with our company. Even if we send ten people over, will they be willing to devote all their resources to us and fully cooperate?"

"Even if we could make them unable to refuse by splurging money in the short term, what about the lulls in game development? They will still need to develop other games."

"Unless we can ensure that subsequent game developments continue incessantly, without any pauses, and the money we offer is much more than other companies, then we could gradually assimilate these outsourcing companies."

"Second, whether it’s outsourcing or one-on-one in-house training, in reality, it will bring about immense financial pressure."

"For a long time, the cost we invest might be three to five times what it was before, yet the output remains more or less the same, and we might not even be able to halve the development time."

"That’s the optimistic scenario."

"If things look less optimistic, we might invest five times the cost, and the output of the games might even decrease, with the time only reduced to seventy or eighty percent of the original. Wouldn’t that be too uneconomical?"

"I’m afraid that in the end, we might not even recoup the development costs of the games."

"Of course, the only advantage of doing this is that, perhaps after a few games, once this model gradually matures, we really can reduce the development time of the games. However, when considering the risks involved, it always seems like a case of losing more than we gain..."

However, Lilith didn’t care at all, "It doesn’t matter, not at all!"

Obviously, money was not a big issue for her; a slight decrease in game quality was fine, and it might even increase players’ negative emotions.

All she wanted was speed! The faster, the better!

As long as the games were produced quickly enough, there would always be those treasure games that induced a lot of negative emotions from users—a steady trickle turns into an abundance!

"Very well, then go ahead and push this matter immediately, run with it, fast!"

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