The council highlighted the discrepancy between the military model of payment (cost plus allowable profit) and the much higher profit margins of the game industry where the most popular titles can earn profits of more than 100 percent. While the Department of Defense model may be a bit different from other governmental and non-governmental organizations, there is no question that work outside the game industry will be contract-style work, with little or no upside other than the potential for further contract or maintenance work. The result is that successful developers and larger studios and publishers (i.e. public companies like Sega, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, and Activision) will have little or no interest in direct development work of this nature.

However, most game development studios and especially smaller development teams do not attain the levels of profit highlighted in this paper. The paper also fails to consider that with continued consolidation in the games industry, there will be more developers and skilled designers interested in work beyond that of the increasingly competitive commercial game market. Despite the lack of a lucrative upside, substantial contract work can be a welcome revenue base for many competent, independent development teams.

Agencies and organizations should better evangelize the substantial work that does exist outside of the commercial development scene and the potential revenues available. Developers also need to be educated about the type of work that exists and how to properly pursue it. Work should be more aggressively solicited from development shops and organizations should resist trying to hire only top-tier developers that have little economic incentive to do contract work. However, beyond the top 20-30 developers and publishers exists a very capable stable of development teams that should be eager to take reasonable contract work, especially if these opportunities can be used by the developers as research and development for future commercial projects.

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