Don't Make My Job Easy: Effectively Pitching to Publishers

[@brodendangio4810]

Hammering the keyboard after each slide ensures my Feely Brain is jazzed about each slide 🎉

[@_zurr]

That little snippet of his convo with the Director of Games at his company where she was just enthusiastically complimenting the game was very cute, reminded me a lot of some discord servers I'm a part of.

[@Dartillus]

Great presentation, funny to see a completely different view. There's several other videos in the GDC vault about pitching games, but those usually revolve around accommodating for the "thinky brain". "As a publisher I need to see A, B, C and D" sort of thing. Focusing on getting a champion for your game is an interesting strategy.

[@Nebulaoblivion]

“Pitching, like everything else in this capitalist hellscape we’re in is some form of marketing” I like this guy, he gets it.

[@GameTesterBootCamp]

The last question wasn't a question. It was a hurt developer, lashing out. Disappointing, but the other 99% of the talk was great! Thanks!

[@TestAccount-tz6hn]

Yeah, I don't know what was up with that guy. Not the place or time.

[@Viscte]

I actually liked that guys question. I watch tons of political debates and I was ready for it.

[@GameTesterBootCamp]

@@Viscte Right, but this wasn't a political debate. It wasn't a debate of any kind.

[@emanuelesangregorio8943]

what was missing there is that the attention budget of a publisher is limited. if 10K games are competing for that attention, indie game developers need to be good at communication, too.

[@Umbra_Witcher]

this was excellent, thank you.

[@suitNtie22]

this is very nice talk in terms of being straight and open with the topic. The hard truth seems to be "get lucky the person opening the email likes this". When I saw the Islets stuff I will tell you now I don't really care for that painterly artstyle. I probably wouldn't care much for it. I understand he's saying that you need a champion for it but still... just seems kinda like it comes down to luck a bit. Thank you for the talk though :) I love hearing the hard truth even if it can feel like tough love

[@eiden_]

yes luck is a huge part as with anything else in life but presentations like these are all about *increasing* your chances of getting signed. There are other things you can do to increase your chances such as researching publishers that release titles in the same scope and genre / platform, sending out to many publishers instead of focusing on just one, having very attention grabbing gifs and screenshots, etc.

[@mamoon_3738]

The first thing he talked about is the funnels, the pet store example, a selection of people will see the dog cute and get in the store most people won't care, the more people you pitch to the higher you chances are.

[@BenEdwardsGames]

This came at just the right time for me, great talk!

[@LuzVerr]

That last question was so disingenuous and lame. That person is definitely not ready to do business. If you can't understand the core logic behind the system, how do you expect to be successful at it? The industry is not a charity, and it is not the publisher's "job" to be hyped or work on a project that does not even know how to present itself to investors. I hope this guy actually learns a thing or two and stops being so childish to people that are trying to help.

[@liamlobo8666]

Should I wait until I have a prototype/demo of my game or can I create a pitch deck just explaining the game concept?

[@antonim8714]

I'd guess that depends on who you are and what already you've achieved ;)

[@robinHobin]

If it is you first game you should probably do a prototype If you have a catalog of games an pitch might be fine

[@brandonle7225]

When sending your pitch electronic out to publishers and such. is it necessary for them to sign an NDA?

[@ivanmastrandrea5482]

Is expected and better to sign an NDA upfront. yes! In general it speaks of the seriousness of the company.

[@RaoulWB]

NDAs come into play only once both parties show interest. First few emails and potentially calls are usually under no NDA.

[@cecisharp]

I wonder what the numerical odds of a successful pitch is for a team creating their debut project. Would they reject you outright on the basis that you lack previous success?

[@eiden_]

no, but it is a bigger risk. Even developers with AAA experience forming their own studio need to consider that it's riskier than running a game from a known dev team. As a result devs will pitch smaller budget games to get started or get funding from more standard investors that may just focus on the devs total experience in the industry instead of experience as a team.

[@aaronbeedle941]

I'm confusing as to what they're actually taking pitches for? Is it a developer / programmer saying 'can you fund me developing this game and publish it for me?' or can you pitch JUST designs to them. I can't program but I have a lot of design experience and I've never know it be an option to just pitch a design.

[@eiden_]

typically you can't just pitch a design unless your experience as a video game designer shows massive success. In the industry almost every game designer is expected to be able to prototype their design, the few that aren't are the big names from the earlier days. Also, it's a lot harder to communicate what makes your game unique without being able to play it. The devs here have provided a demo for their game and are asking for funding and marketing to finish development and reach an audience

[@saulnores3477]

@@eiden_ Hi. I read all the comments in this video. You commented in many of them. Your comments are very good. It looks like you know this industry well.

[@DUSKOsound]

🙏👾

[@FoxHoundUnit89]

Soo self publish on Steam? Got it.

[@humanetiger]

He describes a rather shallow process, driven by many requests and little time. The games this process prefers are not the ones needing the expertise of a publisher. Its a strange situation, somehow understandable, but strange.

[@noFate_games2]

I'm not sure I follow. Outside of funding, marketing, and porting, what else are you really expecting in todays climate from a publisher as an indie? This "process" is really the only one that makes sense today. It's not 1994 where publisher was only receiving a dozen pitches a week, these guys get 100's a day. If your game isn't grabbing their attention in the first few GIF's or in your 1 minute gameplay video, then it's time to move on. And honestly, if 2 GIF's aren't enough to get someone interested in your game and want to talk further and see more, then let's face it the game isn't up to par.

[@happytofu5]

@@noFate_games2 agree - its not only the people at the publisher that have little time and many games offered, there are thousands of games published every day and the game needs to stick out to the consumers as well. if you can't even catch the publisher's eye, how big are the chances that the audience will?

[@MrSmith01]

Armor Games are still alive lol

[@Nebulaoblivion]

oh shit, its Ben Askren!

[@im-audiodesign]

That last question really put him in an uncomfortable spot but it was a logical, valid one.

[@rodrigocapitelli]

It's not really. At the end of the day, it's one developer doing the same pitch to a hundred publishers, versus a publisher receiving a thousand pitches. There just isn't enough time for a publisher to actually deep dive into every email. The way they can be better at their job is by teaching devs to be better at pitching, which is what he's doing here. At the end, devs are either pitching to publishers, or worse, publishing and marketing it themselves. Game devs aren't just programmers artists and designers, they are PR and marketing too, or else you will never really be a successful dev. Trying to spend more time on each email in the hopes of finding the next big thing is just going to make you miss the email for the next big thing altogether.

[@NeroVingian40]

And his answer is a great one too, how are they going to market the game if you can’t market it well enough yourself? You can’t force people to get hyped for your game, you can only do the best of your abilities to pitch it and see if that works, and if it doesn’t work, learn to pitch better or just find another publisher.

[@alcedob.5850]

'inde devs shouldn’t be good at marketing' is absolutely false. Indie devs should be good at everything, that's why they are indie. So this person sounds pretty hilarious

[@happytofu5]

@@alcedob.5850 agree, with that amount of competition, unfortunately, an indie has to be good at marketing

[@Bess2k2]

The last question was the best. Sad most publishers dont get it.

[@thornelderfin]

Last question just prooves he did not get anything from this talk. Situation is that indie publishers get thousands of indie game pitches every year. They can invest in only a handful. So they have to throw away thousands and thousands and still end up with amazing games. So if you don't send a screeshot or screw up in the smallest possible way, they will throw you out and they will NOT be missing on amazing game, because they will still find 100 another amazing games and can invest only in perhaps 5. Indie developers have to understad they (we) are not center of the universe and only ones with great game ideas or ability to execute them. If the situation was reverse and there were thousands of publishers / investors and only very few indie game studios the publishers would be chasing us and responding to emails even with no screenshots in hopes it might be something good.

[@thornelderfin]

Also, if a developer doesn't even understand the very fundamentals of what sells games and marketing (by not including a screenshot - when people buy based on screenshots and videos, not text), then publisher would have really hard time forcing that developer to adjust his game to even be marketable at all. Marketing doesn't exist in a vacuum, the game has to be modified to be "sellable". Publishers will rather avoid the headache and work with developers who get it.

[@thatsnotamuffin]

Taking hostile but constructive feedback is a skill in and of itself. I think he took it well despite feeling attacked out of the gate.

[@NeroVingian40]

I mean, if your game doesn’t even have a screenshot, then what you have is probably just a wall of texts. If even gameplay videos are only watched in 10-30secs, imagine how much of a text-only pitch will actually be read. And you know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

[@LEOvsMAO]

Imagine work as Thinky-Brain and loose millions of profit, just because you don't see game, but only see numbers and quantity. Brr..., wouldn't want to have business with those "not a gamer" type of people. If you think I am wrong, check profit of Devolver Digitals and your company, and think again.

[@NeroVingian40]

You need thinky-brain because money doesn’t grow on trees. No one has money to just throw around and see what sticks. Feely-brain is all good and fine, but someone still has to rein them back down to earth and talk about whether the game will at least generate revenue instead of just being a endless money-sink.

[@MikeGlaxo]

It looks like you live in a shack.😨