Top 10 Game Art Outsourcing Companies in 2023

Where does a video game begin? It obviously begins in the mind of its creators. What is the vehicle that translates the creators’ idea into action on the screen? Visual art and computer graphics do this. Who creates game design? Designers and artists do. Where to find them? Unlike previous questions, this one has no straightforward answer. Digital designers and artists comprise neither a monolithic community nor a specific trade union. Broadly speaking, they are spread across three large domains: in-house specialists, outsourcers, and freelancers.

Any game art studio keeps its in-house staff as a precious labor resource. And as with other valuable assets, in-house artists and designers are usually hidden away from the prying eyes of headhunters and other outsiders. Freelancers, in contrast, do their best to be exposed to the public with various self-promotion activities. But they are too numerous and diverse to be grouped and described with clarity. Outsourcers, in turn, stay somewhere between in-house specialists and freelancers to take the best from both worlds.

Game art outsourcing companies move the entire gaming industry forward with their valuable services. They help game creators meet deadlines, avoid production risks, and hold competitive price/quality ratios. Any digital art outsourcing company has a team of in-house professionals who never hide their artistic capabilities from anybody. 

Unlike many other software development outsourcers, the ones that offer gaming art are pretty rare birds due to their professional orientation. And yet the free market provides the choice between outsourcing game art studios. Get some insights from within on how to assess digital art outsourcers to find the best partner for your project. Our present ranking of the Top 10 game art outsourcing companies delivers a comprehensive picture of who is who in the sector. 

Why recognizing the right game art outsourcer is critical

If your project requires a reliable digital art outsourcing partner, you should use a particular selection methodology to make no mistakes. Relying on just eye-catching landing pages with impressive graphics and brave mottos can hardly result in a fruitful partnership. Theoretically, it can, if you are lucky eventually hit upon an outsourcing company that happens to be meeting all your requirements. But such an approach is no different from coin tossing. The wrong choice is equally possible. Just assume the losses and dire consequences it can entail. 

Recognizing the right outsourcing company among seemingly similar competitors is critical not to regret the time and money wasted. “Recognizing” is the keyword here. It means finding a correspondence between your priorities and the qualities of the partner you are looking for. If you stumble upon an art studio with mind-blowing Manga-like 2D artistic style when searching for a 3D animation outsourcer, skip it and keep searching no matter how aesthetically tempted the discovered art appears. To realize whether an attractive candidate can bring real value to your project, you should use some assessing criteria specifically inherent in game art outsourcing companies.

Selection criteria: how to assess gaming art studios

Such studios differ in many aspects. But when they represent themselves as gaming art creators, their qualities and capabilities can be compared regarding one or another outsourcing activities they offer. They are meticulous in the self-promotion info available on their websites. They demonstrate their strong sides in a way they consider sufficient for potential partners. Besides official websites, social network profiles can reveal many interesting facts about outsourcers. In addition, some independent opinions about one or another studio can be found at various ranking agencies and data-driven platforms such as Clutch, for example.

The following topics should be covered by the website of any client-centric gaming art outsourcer, as we believe. 

• Portfolio. The more diverse and rich the portfolio of the already completed projects, the better the chance to successfully compete with other gaming art providers in the segment. At the same time, a portfolio should emphasize what the art studio considers its strongest expertise;
• Customer feedback. It is not just a good tone to publicly provide reviews and opinions of existing and former customers about the company. It is a powerful tool of persuasion to introduce the outsourcer as a reliable business partner;
• Values and guarantees. Responsibility, in a broad sense, is what potential customers expect from any outsourcing company. Professional skills also relate to a sort of responsibility, by the way. If a studio promotes itself as a 3D animation expert, some corresponding guarantees to customers should be clearly indicated on its website;
• Team composition. The outsourcing capabilities of a game art studio become evident when its team structure is revealed. Customers should know who does what in the team. The more particular the staff’s skills are described, the better. No equivocal “universality” is appreciated;
• Workflow. Any self-respected gaming art outsourcer has a well-established working process. All team members know their duties and responsibilities. This is about working efficiency and wise time management. True professionals never face a mess in their workflows.  

Best game art outsourcing companies

The following list of Top 10 gaming art outsourcers is not just a matter of taste. The publicly available facts about the companies allow everyone interested to check the info as objective factors of evaluation. We apply the selection criteria mentioned above to create the present ranking. 

Walla Walla Studio (Ukraine/USA)

Allowing customers to get more than expected is about the claim for being an excellent outsourcing provider. True professionals always have something to improve in any project, even if a customer is unaware that this is possible or necessary. Walla Walla deserves to be a neat freak (in a good sense!) when it comes to digital art outsourcing services. Its creative team believes that computer design is imagination in action. Imagination has no boundaries and cannot be limited by a budget. This kind of attitude makes Walla Walla Studio one of the most customer-centric digital art outsourcing companies.

Walla Walla is the rare case when no particular service can be highlighted among all the rest in terms of quality and artistic proficiency. Their hand-drawn 2D animations impress no less than life-like 3D characters and objects created for various visual projects. VFX services from Walla Walla cover everything any customer may need in terms of special effects: cleaning, rotoscoping, set extensions, compositing, titling, sound engineering, etc. 

The company’s portfolio is so abundant with genres and styles that it sometimes seems doubtful a single studio can create all that stuff. But still, this is so. 2D/3D animation, character modeling, concept art, level art, props, VFX, explanatory videos, mobile game development, and NFT creation comprise the domains in which Walla Walla feels confident against any rival. 

What does the studio emphasize about the working process? Tight face-to-face communication between team members is crucial to educate each other and reaching a shared vision. This is organically combined with getting customers collaborated to create a flow of inspiration. Few other things than such transparency contribute more to the cooperation with a digital art outsourcer.

Walla Walla Studio spent enough years in the segment to establish a well-balanced team of experts. They all are veterans of game art outsourcing services. Nonetheless, they are never tired of challenging themselves with new tasks and projects. And judging from the customers’ feedback, they keep coping well. This is about the company’s professional reputation and social responsibility: random actors don’t stay long in the major leagues of game art outsourcing. And nothing hints that Walla Walla Studio is going to leave the Top of game art outsourcing companies anytime soon. 

Kevuru Games (Ukraine)

This is another long-liver in the digital art outsourcing segment. The studio represents itself as a fully-fledged game outsourcing company whose expertise includes game development from scratch. The staff consists of more than 400 experts in various domains related to digital design. Kevuru is an experienced outsourcer with an impressive list of world-famous customers: Epic Games, Electronic Arts, Lucasfilm, etc.

In addition to typical outsourcing services, the company offers some other forms of cooperation, such as outstaffing of 2D/3D design teams, game testing,  platform-to-platform game migration, gamification of business apps, and NFT marketplace development. Besides, a decade-long experience in the digital design sector allows Kevuru’s specialists to propose ready-to-use game ideas and development approaches to their customers.

Room 8 Studio (Ukraine)

The company is in no way inferior to its fellows from the present Top 10 gaming art outsourcers. With more than a sufficient staff of 600+ employees, the studio possesses all the necessary resources and skills to produce whatever its customers may ever need in computer graphics. However, unlike previous digital art studios from our ranking, Room 8 has a clear specialization: photorealistic 3D level art is the most impressive and ample domain in its portfolio.

It seems the studio benefits from the division of labor when focusing on realistic videos for complicated console games. Creating background scenes and props with various AAA-class characters and in-game assets helps Room 8 establish a partnership with famous publishers such as Gameloft, Ubisoft, Remedy, and the like. However, every coin has two sides: if you are looking for a game art outsource company for a simple indie game, Room 8 is hardly your choice.

N-iX Game & VR Studio (Ukraine)

Established in 2002, the studio is one of the oldest Ukrainian digital art outsourcers. Experience matters and the studio has chosen several computer graphic areas in which its expertise is strongly competitive. They are VR solutions and 2D/3D animations. At the same time, N-iX Game & VR Studio is a decent outsourcing partner for simple mobile games.

The staff consists of 200+ digital artists and designers. They all are skilled professionals who have been hired through a severe screening process since the studio is rightfully considered one of the most prestigious employers in the Ukrainian digital sector. 

The company owns expensive highly-specialized hardware such as the OptiTrack motion capture system to create top-quality animations. The pool of the studio’s customers includes Trese Brothers, Paradox Interactive, Wargaming, and other famous players in the gaming industry.

Melior Games (Ukraine) 

The size matters not in every case. Melior Games digital art outsourcing studio proves it as few others do. Having only about 30 designers on its staff, the company holds the bar of its services’ quality truly high. It confidently occupies a niche of 2D graphics with its own recognizable artistic style. Melior Games has delivered more than 120 gaming art projects in both 2D and 3D.

Besides focusing on 2D graphics, the studio has chosen a specific video game domain as the primary field to work: slot and card games. That is what it means to have the right strategy in the battle for your piece of the pie. Yet another factor that makes the studio a decent game art outsourcing company is its expertise in blockchain solutions. Crypto games are on the rise, and Melior’s hands-on experience in the technology cannot go unnoticed. 

Pingle Studio (Ukraine)

Pingle is another example of how specialization contributes to being a successful gaming art outsourcer. In contrast to Melior Games, the studio is quite large with more than 400 employees. At the same time, Pingle is not dispersed into all and every digital art outsourcing service. It’s not as if Pingle is incapable of delivering 2D/3D animations, concept art, and character design: all of this is available in the company’s portfolio along with full-cycle game development. However, the activity in which Pingle Studio is truly an expert is Unity and Unreal Engine for game porting. 

If you want to release a game for several platforms simultaneously, Pingle can help you port your PC version to PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Game porting, testing, and co-development performed by Pingle have been appreciated by many respected customers, such as Qualcomm, 505 Games, SquareEnix, etc.

Whimsy Games (Ukraine)

The studio represents a younger generation in digital art outsourcing. Established in 2018, Whimsy has more than 200 projects in its portfolio. The company offers various game art outsourcing services, including 2D/3D animation, concept art, character design, mobile game development, and the like. The main focus of Whimsy is eye-catching 2D animation and mobile game art. 

In addition to the typical digital design activities, the company offers some services related to game development, such as monetization, marketing-&-analytics, NFT creation, and metaverse development. The progressively-thinking team obviously keeps their fingers in the wind to meet the topical requirements of modern customers. Such a strategy seems beneficial in terms of the number of projects Whimsy has completed as a game art outsourcing company.

Pixune (Poland)

All gaming art outsourcers mentioned above are Ukrainian ones. But Pixune is from Poland. The studio belongs to a new generation of digital art outsourcing companies. It looks like Pixune is trying to combine hardly compatible things to be creative and pragmatic simultaneously. The team is quite small, with about 30 computer graphic professionals who have left other studios for Pixune. They decide to focus on what really works: 2D/3D animation, mobile game development, and character design.    

More than 30 games have been provided with characters, UIs, environments, and in-game assets created by Pixune. One of Pixun’s 3D animations received eight (!) international short film awards in 2017. As a future-oriented game art studio, Pixune cannot ignore the booming NFT sector in which the company feels pretty confident. Moreover, they invest in the NFT market and provide a 24/7 monitor-&-research service for traders.

3D-Ace (Ukraine)

The studio is an experienced (13 years) game art outsourcing company. 3D-Ace is focused on game art design without getting distracted by any other activity. Why so? The answer is in the company’s structure: 3D-Ace is a branch in a sort of conglomerate with the parent company Program-Ace and another branch Game-Ace where the division of labor is clearly recognizable according to each name. 

3D is not the only domain where the studio offers gaming art outsourcing services, however. 2D animation, NFT art, and game tech expertise are also in the scope of the company’s activities. The professional level of 3D-Ace is proved by the list of respected customers, among which many famous game creators and publishers are available: Unity, Wargaming, GSN Games, etc.

Ulysses Graphics (Ukraine)

This middle-size game art outsourcing company has been confidently staying in the niche since 2005. Their website is very laconic but impressive at the same time. The names of the AAA games (20+) in the creation of which Ulysses has participated speak for themselves. Such titles as, for instance, Call of Duty and Hitman hardly need any introduction. The same relates to Ulysses’s customers: Activision, Capcom, and Deep Silver are pretty famous in the gaming industry. The studio demonstrates sufficient skills in 2D/3D animation to attract customers from the top division of video game producers.

Conclusion

The present review of the top 10 game art outsourcing companies helps answer the question we raise in the introduction: where to find artists and designers for game development. The digital art outsourcing segment is hardly overfilled with world-class studios. At the same time, the choice between the available ones is enough to meet any demand. All gaming art outsourcers represented above demonstrate astonishing creativity, inspiration, and proficiency in every possible domain inherent in game development. To know more about digital art outsourcing services, it is always better to contact a corresponding studio directly. Get in touch with Walla Walla Studio to have a great experience of collaboration in whatever you may need to accomplish when creating gaming art.