Hey there, I have had a game idea pretty fleshed out for a while now and I’m looking for input or guides on creating a presentation for either future reference or as a means to present to potential investors.
I have right now what I feel to be a pretty solid foundation for the game laid out, and what I’ve done so far is run over a simple and complex version of a final todo list for the product, creating projections of hours of labor and required resources. If anyone has any links to articles or guides or just general advice it would be greatly appreciated. I’ve kept running over this and rewriting it and rewriting it so far. I’m looking to create something that would be pretty official that I could carry forward into it’s production. My current presentation is about 50 or so pages (I lnow, probably too many) and includes rough colored illustrations, a general layout of my engine, a sample of the screenplay (my game is a narrative) and projections. I’m thinking, though, that like hollywood the business has kind of like an official template of some sort that they go by. I’m also terrible with terminology when it comes to the industry.
One page. It needs to be one page, accompanied by some kickass key art, and ideally a playable prototype.
You are at the pitch stage. No investor cares about a complete gdd or will read 50 pages of technical details and implementation details until they are sold on the concept and viability/potential of the game itself. They don’t care at this point about plans or if you can execute it. You will have to prove that as well, but not until you have convinced them it is marketable game first.
The first step is the one-pager. First, describe the game very clearly and completely in a paragraph (2-3) sentences. Second, describe your market and monitization plan. Indicate your competitors, and you plan to differentiate your game in the market. Next, include a list of bullet points outlining key features. Finally, a summary paragraph explaining why they should consider and invest in the project. This should all be about the games ability to succeed, not about how it will be built. (With rare exceptions).
You are not trying to convince them on “how” you are selling them on “why”. If you get interest, then they will want to see more, and will let you know what they want to see. Even then it will most likely be more on market research. While they may at some point want to see an execution plan, that will be later. Ultimately development plans are for you as the developer, the investor is interested in whether or not funding the project will make them money. Forget the implementation details for now, work that out once you find out if anyone is interested first.
Some publishers do have ‘pitch packages’ that outline their preferred organization for pitches.
I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but if you’re not already well funded, well known, have existing media buzz, or have deep contacts in industry, your chances of getting investment is pretty close to zero.
You can find backing, but it is not a “put a pitch together and get talent scouted” - it’s more of a “put a game together and go to every convention imaginable, build up your social network over years, get 100s of youtubers to play it, win awards, develop relationships” process. In other words, you need to build up a mountain of material evidence that the game will be successful.
Also, try to think about it from the other side. If your product requires 50 pages of document and has a “screenplay” - trusting a project of that scale to a person with no background in game development would be crazy.
Don’t think of it as sales, think of it as providing solid evidence that the project will succeed. If you can provided evidence, then you have a shot. If you can’t, no document will convince anyone (unless the document is printed on a million dollars worth of bank notes).
@frosted About the mountains of evidence bit, that’s kind of what I was thinking, is that it has to have solid evidence and be playtested, I’m thinking like a good solid demo of the first 10 minutes (at least) of the game or so and positive feedback from players (and if not positive, examine why).
@zombiegorilla I think you hit one of the nails on the head with one of the key problems I’ve been having. I need to hire a really good artist maybe to create a front cover then just have a single page that lays out the points.
There is another option. You can hire space at a big convention. Then you can show a ‘gameplay’ trailer that’s entirely scripted and not reflective of your actual game. Then spend the next five years making vauge promises about features that will be in the game at release, but you don’t intend to actually build.
Eventually you’ll have to release your game and disappoint people. But that’s fine, you’ll already have the investors money by that point. And there will be plenty of people too lazy to refund the game that you can rely on for sales.
I’ve seen very small efforts with unknown devs succeed with this stuff, so it is possible, but this is not a quick and easy process. If you have not made a sizable game before - you likely dramatically underestimate the workload. Like by an order of magnitude.
Ugh… that is a truly horrific idea. Those conventions are full of people. Worse, many of them are gamers. IMHO, one of the biggest advantages of game development is not having to deal with the “public”. Could just be me though.
From my point of view finding a way to minimize interaction with “the public”, would be the most compelling argument for going with a publisher.
I feel like there should be more streamlined and affordable ways for indies to outsource that whole aspect to other third parties.
realistically there are too many indies and too many games atm.
what publishers want to see is an existing proven audience or the ability for you to build the audience. A publisher will not help a no name developer create an audience from nothing.
Games are entertainment, entertainment is about the audience. So my number one question here is… if you don’t want to interact with your audience, why are you making games?
I absolutely understand and agree with getting experienced people to take the lead on stuff as important as marketing and sales. I’ve spent many years developing largely technical/creative skills and expertise, and other people have spent similar time developing marketing/sales/PR expertise. It makes sense to have both of those people in board and focusing on their strengths. But that’s not, and probably shouldn’t be, the same as putting a wall up between the entertainer and the entertained.
Locally we have several consultancies that do exactly that. I have no idea how their prices compare, but they must be reasonable if they continue to stay in business.
Though I was just being snarky… as with most art forms the work itself is an interaction. History is replete with well known reclusive artists/creatives. Some to a degree that most would consider unhealthy, with the expression though thier work substituting for typical social interaction.
I think like @zombiegorilla says I’m just the reclusive type of artist. I’m making games, because I feel like my life is wasted if I don’t, but I mainly make them for myself. I care a great deal about games and I like challenging myself with things just outside of my reach, so that I can grow. Nothing satisfies me like achieving things for which I have no qualification (considering my professional education is all centered around visual art related topics), like writing my first ever multithreaded code or composing music.
I’ve kind of lost the drive to show my private work publicly. The results of what little time I still spend on painting outside of contract-work, I usually only show to two friends and my girlfriend, and no one else. Sometimes not even to all of those 3. I’ve passed up chances to give interviews and it wouldn’t cross my mind to do signing sessions, give talks at universities, or do reddit AMAs, even though I see some of my peers do exactly that and apparently they enjoy that.
If I had no need for money I probably wouldn’t ever release games, but I find myself wanting to spend a bigger portion of my time on gamedev than I currently have the energy for, after working as a regular fulltime freelance artist to pay the bills. Releasing games would basically be my only shot at getting there, if I don’t find unexpected ways to monetize my existing artwork better.
One lesson I’ve learned is that unless you have a very low cost of living and can afford to live on very niche sales - social contacts are a major element in the success equation. Most of the successful efforts I’ve seen really revolve as much around building out the social network as building out the game.
Not every situation is the same, but it is something to consider if you are really considering making an attempt to focus more on game dev. Social network counts for quite a lot.
I was reading recently an article about How To Kill a Mockingbird’s author Harper Lee, who lived a very reclusive existence, but then because her book was commissioned as required reading in schools she received millions of dollars of royalties every year and was going to for more than 50 more years. It was the only book she ever published:
