Exigent - embracing and changing the future of gaming!

Outsourcing, it's a dirty word to many American's afraid they are losing their jobs to lesser-qualified workers overseas. Most of us as "techies" have had some kind of experience with outsourcing. Remember the last time you called the customer service department for any major computer hardware or software company? You probably dialed a toll free 800 number from Anywhere, USA and ended up discussing your problem with Farookh Singh in New Dehli, India. In theory, there is nothing wrong with this and many of the people you will deal with in such an instance are very competent and well-trained. However, whether or not you end up having a positive experience during your call is really irrelevant to the company that outsourced their CSR positions to India; their primary objective is to save money.

Which brings us around to gaming. With the costs of game development skyrocketing into the $20-$40 MIL range on some Next Gen titles, many game developers are outsourcing parts of their development process to offshore companies like Exigent in India to offset these costs. It is a rapidly growing segment of the development community and many of the games you will play in the future will be a product of this trend.

Ishaan from Flame War Advance recently sat down and spoke to several of the higher ups from Exigent and they shared a spirited discussion on several topics including:

- The relationship between video games and technology.

- Evolution of art design in games.

- The ugly truth behind screenshots.

- The decline of console gaming.

- Developing on the PS3 vs Xbox 360 vs Wii vs PC

-Microsoft's Game's for Windows (Vista) agenda

Ishaan's "interview" is posted in two parts. You can read part one here. It is a discussion with Exigent's Chief Creative Officer, Paul Steed, who’s an industry veteran and has worked at Origin Systems, EA, Id Software, Wild Tangent and Atari. Paul’s credits include some true gaming classics, including Quake and Wing Commander. He also developed Betty Bad and is not only a regular speaker at GDC, he’s also on the advisor board for the event.

Part two is is a conversation with Jesse Rapczak, the VP of Production at Exigent. Jesse was the co-founder of Artificial Studios, who developed the Reality Engine, which was licensed by Epic in 2005 (Reality Engine/Unreal Engine, get it?). With him, were Albert and Nisha (two of the lead artists on the team).

Both of these "interviews" were conducted in a very relaxed manner and as a result they are very revealing and honest conversations that I found fascinating. They are a tad lengthy but well worth the 15 minute investment of your time.

I hope you enjoy them.

Great work Ishaan!