Interesting article about pitching games

[FrieChamp]

The rights and wrongs of how developers' ideas get turned into games, as dissected by David Jaffe, Ron Gilbert, Lorne Lanning, Will Wright, and more.

http://au.gamespot.com/news/6183997.html

Good read!

[zaphod]

thanks for the link frie, good article for devbump.

[FrieChamp]

Hah! I was first going to send it to you via PM, but then I thought it might be interesting for others as well!

You're welcome

[Thrik]

Cool article.

It's really weird and sad that Ron Gilbert has never had a successful pitch, which in itself speaks pretty badly of the way things are currently done seeing as he was responsible for some incredibly successful and masterful games. Tim Schafer came from the same background as Gilbert and is going pretty well, and has demonstrated that the things he did well in 1990 apply really well to today's games too. I hope Gilbert gets the chance to do the same.

[Sentura]

[...}I don't care about innovation, I care about entertainment. The feedback I was getting is that this game isn't innovative. I was like so what? I wasn't a jerk about it, but wouldn't you rather have a game that entertains the crap out of people rather than one that checks off the tick box saying it's innovative?"

best quote ever.

awesome article btw, i'd pay for a compendium of articles like this one in book form.

[FrieChamp]

"Find out who the whole marketing team is at the publisher," Lanning said. "Take them out for martinis and a killer night, or even pay to fly them out to Hawaii or something. Then sit around and ask them what is it that they would like to sell. What is it you would feel comfortable selling? What kind of game would you back in a second? And then once you have all that information, go home and design a game and go pitch it to that publisher. That's the best way to get a game pitched and approved today."

My favorite quote - sad, funny and true at the same time

[Zacker]

That was a good read indeed:)

[zaphod]

important to keep in mind: (and reminds me of this thread viewtopic.php?f=23&t=10153 )

"When you're internal, you definitely have to pick your battles," Jaffe said, "and ask, 'Is this something I want to give over to [my publisher]?' Because if they do shoot it down and you don't get to make it, the contracts that you sign when you become an employee of a publisher say that even though they don't make it, they own it. There are probably four or five ideas I pitched to Sony over my 13-year career that I'd love to have back and make on my own now that we're independent, but it doesn't work that way. Those are Sony properties now."

and the last part:

"It's important not to paint this story like there are these gatekeepers to your idea and if these eight guys or women say no, you're f*****," Jaffe said. "The great thing about video games is that there are all of these great success stories of independent games and developers going off and doing it on their own as a mod, or doing a demo and getting funding. While this is certainly the easiest way to get your game made, it's not the only game in town. And with a lot of independent financing that's beginning to crop up in games, I don't see that as being as important as it once was. It's not easy, but options to get your game made are getting easier."