Making games faster, more cost-effectively, with end-to-end development

14.03.2024 - 17:59 / gamesindustry.biz / Sponsored

Game development is no longer just a one-man show – or even a one-studio spectacle. The seismic size of games these days means that the crafting of fantastical, virtual realms is easily a multi-team endeavour.

Fortunately, developers can turn to partners, such as external developers, to realise their most ambitious projects. One rapidly growing model is external development, which sees a studio turn to one or more companies to assist with game creation. In particular, a specific flavour of external development is end-to-end development, which sees an external company oversee an entire segment of a project.

“End-to-end is, in a nutshell, when an external developer takes on a large portion, or the whole pipeline, of the game development process,” says Mike Sherak, Virtuos’ assistant director of co-development success. “This can include concept, model, rigging, animation, VFX, lighting, character animation delivered in-engine, and more.”

A key advantage of end-to-end development is the ease of working with just one partner, rather than managing multiple vendors. Not only can this ease cross-team collaboration, but it also allows teams to share their learnings at every stage of the project. In this way, development can take place faster, and games can be made better.

Sherak believes end-to-end development also encourages developers to be more creative. "It’s more fun for the artists because they get a greater sense of ownership over the project, which drives them to be more proactive when generating new, exciting ideas — something that’s always good to have,” he says. “With an experienced external developer like Virtuos, studios can freely offer their feedback, and be assured that these would be communicated and implemented during development, rather than sharing this across, say ten vendors on their own, or hire more people to manage this process.”

Another advantage is the efficiencies end-to-end development can unlock. When done right, this can minimize developers’ already scarce resources, resulting in a greater return on investment and improved results from reduced lead time and costs. For instance, developers need not go through the hassle of approving work at every stage. Rather than pause development for an asset or concept art that’s pending approval, liaising with a single external developer can greatly streamline the approval process.

“Studios that work with a trusted external developer can rely on them for quality management, such that there’s a consistent level of development quality across the teams working on the project. This minimizes any time wasted on waiting for approvals for any tasks,” Sherak says.

"End-to-end development can save up to 35% to 80% of external production costs, reducing