Game Outsourcing Vendor Scorecard
Compare game outsourcing vendors by scoring the evidence you have checked, not the claims on their sites. Weight the 10 checks for your project, score up to 4 vendors side by side and print the result. A blank counts as not checked, never as zero, so you can see which vendor you know least about.
Score each vendor
Set a weight from 0 to 5 for how much each check matters on this project. A weight of 0 leaves the check out. Leave a score on "Not checked" until you have looked: it lowers coverage and does not count as a zero.
Build access or the project files behind a portfolio piece, in your engine and genre. A showreel alone scores 1.
Two to four weeks on production tasks. How fast questions came back, whether the second revision beat the first, whether files arrived in your naming convention.
Written assignment on payment, working files handed over at each milestone, third-party licences listed.
Two calls with clients who worked with the leads you have been offered, and one from a project that was cancelled or cut.
Names in the proposal, free on your dates, and a written answer to what happens if a lead leaves.
Who can reach your build, an NDA covering everyone on the project, and any certificate with its scope and site.
Each role marked employee, contractor or third-party studio, with your written consent needed before anyone is added.
Registered name and number, looked up in the company register. Check it is the entity that will sign, and that it has a trading history.
Line items, revision rounds stated, change requests priced, and the same scope as the other vendors you are comparing.
Time to a useful answer during the sale and the pilot, and how many working hours you share.
Result
Not enough checked to compare yet. Vendor A and Vendor B have under 60% of the weight checked. Run the heavier checks first.
0 of 10 checks, covering 0% of the weight
- Shipped work you can open
- Paid pilot on real work
- IP and source files
0 of 10 checks, covering 0% of the weight
- Shipped work you can open
- Paid pilot on real work
- IP and source files
How the score works
Each check gets a weight from 0 to 5 and a score from 0 to 5 for each vendor. The percentage is the weighted score divided by the most that vendor could have earned on the checks you have scored. The scale rewards evidence: a claim on a website earns 1, something you saw earns 3, and something you checked yourself earns 4.
Three rules keep it honest, and they are the part worth reading:
- The tool won't name a leader until every vendor has at least 60% of the weight checked. Otherwise the vendor you looked at least could win on the few things it told you.
- Vendors less than 5 points apart are a tie. A score built from your own judgement isn't precise enough to split them, so decide on the pilot.
- A score of 0 or 1 on any check weighted 4 or more is flagged whatever the total says. A vendor that scores well overall and refuses to assign IP still has a problem.
Where the checks come from
Most of them come from how to verify a game outsourcing vendor, which explains how to run them, including how to check who does the work and how to judge IP, security and confidentiality. Communication and time zone is this directory's own addition. If you are still deciding what to outsource, start with how to choose a game development outsourcing partner.
The default weights are this directory's editorial judgement, not a measurement, and the scores are yours. This tool doesn't rate any vendor, and it doesn't use anything from a vendor's listing here.
Start from sourced facts on a named vendor
These vendors have a fact sheet on their profile: what they offer, what is public about who owns them, how big they say they are and the questions to ask them, each fact linked to the page it came from.
Questions about the scorecard
Two or three is usually enough once your shortlist is down to studios that have shipped your discipline. Reference calls and a paid pilot take real time, so running them on more than 4 vendors rarely pays back.
No. Everything stays in this browser tab and is gone when you close it, so print or save a PDF if you want to keep it. There is no account and no AI call.
You can change how much each one counts, and a weight of 0 removes it. The list itself stays fixed so that two people scoring the same vendors are comparing the same things.
Find studios for your project
Choose your services, engine and budget to see matching studios. Review the matches before sharing any contact details.