Game Developer Research has revealed select results of its newly released 2009 Game Development Outsourcing report, helping to illuminate the practice of worldwide outsourcing in video game production.

To construct a comprehensive look at the segment, almost 200 professional game developers were polled anonymously about their studios' use of outsourcing, their outsourcing budgets and plans, regional factors, and much more.

Furthermore, the results of the survey build on a previous survey conducted privately in 2007, allowing Game Developer Research to discern emerging trends in game outsourcing -- which, despite its already-wide usage, is still undergoing considerable growth.

Significantly, between 2007 and 2008, the proportion of respondents whose studios use outsourced game development rose 10 percent to 86 percent -- from an already considerable majority of 76 percent.

That trend is certain to become more pronounced. Among participating developers, fully half of those who still do not use outsourcing plan to begin outsourcing going forward, and an overwhelming 95 percent of those who already engage in the practice expect to continue doing so.

Results suggest that one major contributor to the explosive growth of outsourcing is the increasing cost and bandwidth required to create a high volume of assets for modern console systems. Respondents reported that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are the two platforms for which elements of game creation are most frequently outsourced.

Outsourcing is clearly on the rise in terms of overall budgetary allocation as well. The high end of outsourcing budgets increased nearly twofold, with the proportion of companies planning to spend $2 million or more on outsourcing rising to almost 20% in 2008.

The new Game Developer Research report also discusses overall budgets, reasons for outsourcing, the selection process for choosing firms to outsource to, and the regions of the world that our respondents worked with.

It also includes a named list of established outsourcing studios from all regions of the world, specifically and solely using firms cited in the survey results -- with particular attention paid to those mentioned multiple times.

For more information on the report, which should be of use to companies wanting to further understand the outsourcing market, please visit the official Game Developer Research website.

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Realtime Worlds, Krome Studios, A2M, and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

Korean game publisher HanbitSoft has said that it "is interested" in recommencing Hellgate: London's service in the U.S. and Europe, but "unable to do so" due to Namco Bandai's Western publishing deal for the troubled title.

The T3 Entertainment-owned Korean firm acquired the IP of Hellgate has set up a San Francisco-based development studio, Redbana U.S. Corporation, in order to continue development on the PC MMO after the demise of original developer, Flagship Studios.

After previous English-language announcements that it would continue to operate Hellgate: London in Korea, Hanbit's 'Game Espresso' weblog has published another English-language statement about the game.

Kee Young Kim, the CEO of HanbitSoft, was cited as explaining: "There have been many inquiries from US and European Hellgate players surrounding the availability of the game in those respective territories."

He continued: "HanbitSoft does own the intellectual property of Hellgate: London and is interested in providing the game in the US and Europe, but is unable to do so at this time because Namco Bandai has the publishing rights for those regions."

The HanbitSoft executive concluded: "We cannot open up the server in Korea to allow access by US and European players as this will constitute infringing upon Namco Bandai’s publishing rights in the US and Europe. HanbitSoft is currently doing its best to improve the game."

Following HanbitSoft's acquisition of the Hellgate IP, Namco Bandai made it clear multiple times that it was shutting the Western Hellgate: London servers on January 31st, 2009 and was not intending to re-open them.