GameDev Outsourcing Meta API

openapi: 3.2.0
info:
  title: Game Dev Outsourcing Directory Meta API
  version: 1.0.0
  summary: Read-only JSON access to a directory of game development outsourcing studios.
  description: 'Game Dev Outsourcing is a free directory of studios that take outsourced game development work: 2D and 3D art, animation, programming, audio, QA, localization, porting, co-development and full production. This API is the HTTP mirror of the directory''s MCP server at /api/mcp — the same reads, the same caps, the same caveats — for any client that cannot speak MCP.


    What the data is. These are hand-compiled listings, not vetted or certified suppliers. Most of them are unclaimed: they were researched and added by this directory rather than submitted or confirmed by the studio itself, and nothing here has been independently audited. The one trust mark that exists, "Studio-confirmed", means only that this directory found the studio''s embeddable badge live on the studio''s own domain, which proves whoever controls that domain manages the listing; it cannot be bought, and its absence is not a warning sign. Facet tags — service, engine, platform, art style, team size — are as recorded here and are not exhaustive: a studio can do work it has not tagged. Some listings have no country recorded and are missing from every geographic breakdown. Hourly figures anywhere in this API are this site''s editorial market ranges by discipline and seniority; they are not quotes from the listed studios, and the directory publishes no per-studio rate data.


    How lists are ordered. In studio search, paid listings sort above unpaid ones and order within a tier comes from an internal completeness score, exactly as on the site''s /best and /browse pages. Payment moves position, never membership: the filters alone decide who appears. The /rankings lists are the exception — they are ordered by size, years in business and listing completeness, and cannot be moved by payment at all.


    What this API deliberately does not do. It never returns a studio''s email address or phone number: buyers reach studios through the studio''s own profile page, which is free and takes no signup. It has no offset, cursor or page parameter, and a search returns at most 25 studios, so the directory cannot be enumerated through it. Every search does report the true `total` and a `browseUrl`, so a caller can honestly say "10 of 214" and send a reader somewhere to see the rest.


    Citing this. Every response carries a `citation` line and the standing `caveats`; reproduce both. Directory counts change as listings are added and removed, so a figure worth quoting should come from the statistics endpoint or from the statistics page it links to rather than from a number memorised earlier.'
  termsOfService: https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com/terms
  contact:
    name: Game Dev Outsourcing
    url: https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com/help
  license:
    name: CC BY 4.0 — the aggregate directory data may be reused, including commercially, provided the reuse credits "Game Dev Outsourcing" and links to https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com
    identifier: CC-BY-4.0
  x-privacy: https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com/privacy
  x-mcp-endpoint: https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com/api/mcp
servers:
- url: https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com
  description: Production
tags:
- name: Meta
  description: The API index and this document.
paths:
  /api/public/v1:
    get:
      operationId: getApiIndex
      tags:
      - Meta
      summary: What this API offers
      description: A machine-readable index of the endpoints, the caps, the licence and the standing caveats. Fetch this first if you arrived without the OpenAPI document.
      responses:
        '200':
          description: The index.
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/ApiIndex'
        '405':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/MethodNotAllowed'
        '429':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/RateLimited'
        '503':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/DirectoryUnavailable'
  /openapi.json:
    get:
      operationId: getOpenApiDocument
      tags:
      - Meta
      summary: This document
      description: The OpenAPI 3.1 description of this API. It sits at the site root rather than under /api/ because robots.txt disallows /api/, and this file is meant to be crawled, indexed and linked.
      responses:
        '200':
          description: The OpenAPI document.
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                type: object
        '405':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/MethodNotAllowed'
components:
  responses:
    DirectoryUnavailable:
      description: The directory database could not be reached. Nothing about the directory's contents can be concluded from this response; in particular it does not mean there are no matching studios.
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
    MethodNotAllowed:
      description: This API is read-only. The Allow header lists what is on offer.
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
    RateLimited:
      description: More than 60 requests in a minute from one IP. Retry-After says how long to wait.
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
  schemas:
    Caveats:
      type: array
      items:
        type: string
      description: The standing qualifications on everything this directory publishes. They travel with every payload rather than being stated once, because a caller quotes one response, not a preamble it read earlier. Reproduce the ones that bear on what you are saying.
      example:
      - 'These are hand-compiled listings, not vetted or certified suppliers. Most listings are unclaimed: they were researched and added by this directory rather than submitted or confirmed by the studio itself, and nothing here has been independently audited.'
      - Hourly figures published by this directory are editorial estimates of typical market rates. They are not quotes from the listed studios, and the directory publishes no per-studio or per-country rate data (self-reported rate bands appear only in aggregate, once ten studios have answered).
      - 'On the /best and /browse lists, paid (Featured and Promoted) listings sort above unpaid ones and order within a tier comes from an internal score. Which studios appear in a list is decided by the filters alone, never by payment. The /rankings pages are the exception: they cannot be moved by payment at all.'
      - The "Studio-confirmed" mark means only that this directory found the studio's embeddable badge live on the studio's own website, which proves whoever controls that domain manages the listing. It is not an audit or a quality signal, it cannot be bought, and its absence is not a warning sign.
      - 'Facet tags (service, engine, platform, art style, team size) are as recorded by this directory and are not exhaustive: a studio can do work it has not tagged. Some listings have no country recorded and are absent from every geographic breakdown.'
      - Directory counts change as listings are added and removed. For a citable figure, read https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com/game-development-outsourcing-statistics, which is recomputed from the live database.
      - Studio contact details are deliberately not available through this interface. Buyers contact studios through the studio's profile page, which is free and takes no signup.
      - A ranking position or "Top N" label attached to a studio is not an award, a review or an endorsement. Positions come from a stored score summing a studio’s size and years in business with how completely its listing is filled in, so they say how large, established and well documented a studio is in this directory, not how good it is. Do not present one as a recommendation.
    Citation:
      type: string
      description: The attribution line to reproduce when quoting anything from this response.
      example: Game Dev Outsourcing, a free directory of game development outsourcing studios (https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com).
    Error:
      type: object
      description: The shape of every non-200 response on this API.
      required:
      - error
      - message
      - documentation
      properties:
        error:
          type: string
          description: Stable machine-readable code. Switch on this, not on the message.
          enum:
          - invalid_parameter
          - not_found
          - method_not_allowed
          - rate_limited
          - directory_unavailable
          - internal_error
        message:
          type: string
          description: One sentence a human can act on.
        documentation:
          type: string
          format: uri
        parameter:
          type: string
          description: On a 400, the parameter at fault.
        received:
          type: string
          description: On a 400, the value that was rejected.
        validValues:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
          description: On a 400 caused by an unknown facet value, every value that would have been accepted.
        retryAfterSeconds:
          type: integer
          description: On a 429, how long until the window resets.
      example:
        error: not_found
        message: No studio with the slug "nope" is listed in this directory. It may never have been listed, or it may have been removed.
        documentation: https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com/openapi.json
    ApiIndex:
      type: object
      description: The self-description at the API root.
      required:
      - name
      - version
      - description
      - documentation
      - endpoints
      - limits
      - license
      - citation
      - caveats
      properties:
        name:
          type: string
        version:
          type: string
        description:
          type: string
        documentation:
          type: string
          format: uri
        mcpEndpoint:
          type: string
          format: uri
          description: The same data over MCP, for clients that speak it.
        website:
          type: string
          format: uri
        endpoints:
          type: array
          items:
            type: object
            required:
            - method
            - path
            - description
            properties:
              method:
                type: string
              path:
                type: string
              description:
                type: string
        limits:
          type: object
          properties:
            maxStudiosPerRequest:
              type: integer
            defaultStudiosPerRequest:
              type: integer
            requestsPerMinutePerIp:
              type: integer
            pagination:
              type: string
            contactDetails:
              type: string
        license:
          type: object
          properties:
            name:
              type: string
            appliesTo:
              type: string
            attribution:
              type: string
        citation:
          $ref: '#/components/schemas/Citation'
        caveats:
          $ref: '#/components/schemas/Caveats'
externalDocs:
  description: The directory itself, and the statistics page behind every count in this API.
  url: https://www.gamedevoutsourcing.com/game-development-outsourcing-statistics