Sure, you can pitch your game, but will anyone try to catch it?

Now that's a question for the sages...

This weekend, I drove out from Brooklyn to Philadelphia to check out the VGXPO and East Coast Games Summit. I haven't been to Philly since a trip in junior high (I don't think that day I spent at the Army depot there checking in for USMC inactive reserve in 1998 counts). I admit- I was kind of psyched. There was a pitch-your-game panel where I get to stand up in front of a room full of people and for 10 whole minutes, run off at the mug about how my MMO project is going to raise the bar for MMOs, stop global warming, feed the hungry, cure the sick, raise the dead, and ensure that that carton of rancid milk in your fridge takes itself out to the trash so you never have to deal with smelling it.

Alas.

See, the problem with pitches is that what you prepare for, what you think of saying, and what actually spools from your pie-hole, are all different things. Such as the fact that, for some reason, since it didn't mention an elevator pitch, I prepared for a more formal pitch. Powerpoint, business plan (2) printed out (in color, and bound (cheaply). I wore black khakis (isn't that an oxymoron?) and a nice collared shirt, like I actually had work to show up to for it.

In short, I brought everything I needed... Or thought I needed.

Of course, when it actually went down, it was more like a dry-run for American Idol than a straight pitch. They call it the "elevator pitch", which simulates you cornering some executive in an elevator somewhere and getting a couple of minutes to wow him with your excellent idea before he can call the cops on you for stalking (and possibly false imprisonment for trapping him in that elevator). So... Having misprepared (and despite the thick, smokey layer of sarcasm, this really is my fault), I gave the pitch generally with the same content and order as my Powerpoint slides. I went over the newer features of my MMO, which are aimed at raising the bar for the genre, how some of the features were working, and even mentioned that I was looking at a microtransaction model for the game.

Now, without any sarcasm whatsoever (I'm running out of material), I can say that they gave me some pretty good feedback: I should have made the pitch more or less in reverse order, with the economic structure of the game in the begining, and then mention a little more about the IP being used than I did, and then get into features and whatnot. This is all common-sense, and I guess even dry-run elevator picthes are like that first jump in the Matrix: Noone makes it on their first try.

Of course, it was good to get critiqued by two industry veterans, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to sit here and slobber over everything that they said because they've been doing this for longer. Oh hell no- I'm a New Yorker, and we don't take that "experienced advice" bullcrap from anyone!

Generally, I think they got the pitch, and the advice was sound. However, as an indie, and thinking of my budget in terms of how it can be accomplished as an indie, it sort of chaps my cranberry when it's said that my project will "automatically cost $40 million dollars". I wasn't as insulted, but rather puzzled when the AI in my game kept getting referred to as "reputation AI" (read: reputation system stuck on a bot with NO AI) until I corrected the panelist (politely, because I'm not completely stupid) and explained a little more about how the AI worked. Some other interesting things were questions about why my MMO had features geared towards "individuals" (I guess because I'm not a fan of the Borg?), and why I was aiming for the disaffected pen and paper crowd when that would not dethrone WoW (answer: they have disposable income, they're loyal and smart and are looking for better RPG features, and WoW is some sort of mutant runaway chain reaction of an MMO that cannot be dethroned even by those with $40 million to spend, and so I'm not even looking to try).

But I'm not bitter >:( Just kidding- I thought it was a very interesting experience, and it seems that I handled it pretty well by the reactions of those that came up to me afterwards. The panel passed no final judgements on any project, and just offered advice for the pitch- and for gameplay, in some instances. I liked the Q&A that occured with the room, which is where I got some of the more interesting critiques above, and it helped me network, which was my other primary reason I showed up in Philly, and a goal which was very successful.

And this brings me to my next point, fellow people-who-want-to-make-games: Schmooze. Schmooze like the Mafia will mail you a dead horse's head if you don't. Because really, who the hell wants to clean that out of their mailbox? I mean, you would think that it goes without saying, but as with all things that go without saying, it should be said. And I'm saying it because I did see a few people that I recognized from game meetup groups in New York, come in and do their pitch, and then walk out and check out the expo without talking to anyone. Myself, I knew a great game composer in the area named Mike Worth, who took me around, introduced me to lot's of people, and was generally really good company to hang out with while I was down there. But even without someone you know in an area, the basic rule of thumb I notice is that us game developers want to hang out with other game developers, so even if you don't feel comfortable doing it (and I don't, for the record), just walk up, stick your crusty little paw out, and say "Hi, my name is...". And as long as that sentence doesn't end with "Slim Shady" (and even if it does, oftentimes), you'll be well on your way to having another contact in your rolodex before you even know it.

So, that's my update for this week. The expo was somewhat disorganized, late, and clueless, but it was fun, the cheesesteaks in the city lived up to their name, my company was good, and I got what I went there for on both counts: feedback to sharpen my pitch skills and more networking. As a bonus, I sat in on the most useless keynote I ever saw, by the Mythic CTO, which turned out to be a rambling 5 minutes of words interspersed with the Warhammer trailer and an equally rambling video before he said something to the effect of "alrighty, that's all" and walked off stage unceremoniously, to everyone's puzzlement. My laptop apparently hated the keynote so strongly that it died 20 minutes later, requiring a full re-roll to get it back. Luckily, I rescued my project files, engine, and database files, and have only lost a few months of email- all of the important ones of which I am having resent to me (apparently, most of my email is pretty much pointless blather).

Hope you enjoyed the blog, and next time, I'll be talking about feature progress again!