Week 15 HW

Reading

● GDW Chapter 16: Selling Yourself and Your Ideas to the Game Industry (p481—495) 

The entry level for the game industry  is very competitive, Fullerton recommends strategies to get into a potential job

Educate Yourself, solidating your knowledge of games and the industry as a beginner game designer, being able to articulate concepts in gameplay and mechanics shows how you are able to fit in the industry.

Academic Programs, colleges that teach game design and offer degrees, take electives and additional classes that orbit around your interests to stimulate your creative juices. Companies look for people with technical skills, coding in C# and C++ (industry standards) and game engines like Unity , Unreal or Source while being familiar with other applications that are used in the creation of games like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Maya and Studio Max and non programming tools like Microsoft Project and Excel (recording data and values).

Play Games, teaching yourself about design by playing games and reading about their developments and analyzing their systems, challenge yourself, Be active in online game communities like Gamasutra.com, Indiegames.com, and GameDev.net.

Design Games and Levels, designing prototypes (software or paper), polish your prototype and document processes and the potential for a pitch, during a job interview you may be asked what experience you have, be ready to show organized documented work and be able to discuss your design process. One strategy for getting in the door at a game company is to make levels or mods of that company’s games, then submit these examples of your work along with your resume.

Know the Industry, stay informed on the latest news and trends in the game industry, be ready to grasp opportunities that come up

Networking, getting out and meeting people in the industry, this may mean attending industry-related events, attending conferences and conventions, reaching out to people in the industry via internet or getting introductions from connections you have to introduce yourself in the industry, make a good business card that has clean and good design

Organizations, part of networking may also include joining an industry-related organization (ex: International Game Developers Association: www. igda.org/chapters), they set up events that allow people to get introduced in the industry or networking (students get reduced rates). Other organizations include: Women in Games International, Game Audio Network Guild, Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques, Special Interest Group on Computer–Human Interaction

Conferences, opportunities for networking in conferences: the Game Developers Conference and South by Southwest where developers and publishing executives gather from various levels and areas of the industry (other examples include: E3, DICE, PAX, IndieCade, the Global Game Jam, Games for Change, Casual Play, and more).

Internet and E-mail, you can meet many people and network on the forums of International Game Developers Association website or find internships or positions on the Gamasutra website in the jobs and projects sections. Don’t be afraid to try but at the same time don’t be dismayed when you don’t get  a response back. Before emailing that person, research their background and the games they have helped design

Networking is a cumulative endeavor

As for starting from the bottom, try to get into entry-level positions in tracks of companies (the demand is high). As for plans on becoming a producer, there may be internships for production assistant or coordinator jobs. For jobs as a designer, the entry-level is much more complicated. Most people jump on a different track and then jump over to design once they have gained plenty of experience in the industry 

A good way to get in the industry is interning, most game companies bring interns from college in the summer,  before you take an intern position, make sure the company is serious about letting you become involved in actual projects. Internships often take forms of tasks such as researching, testing or assisting producers or executives - it is also a great way to network and increase your knowledge.

QA tester, low pay and long hours but is a common entry-level job to start your career as this job is closely exposed to the whole development team. Taking notes of bugs that go to the programmers, artists, and producers. Managers take note of excellent QA testers as they were once QA testers themselves.

After gaining experience in the game industry, you should plan on developing your pitch on your own original game ideas, the following process is from recommendations  based on the IGDA Business Committee’s Game Submission Guide

Pitch Process, increase your chances of getting through the sea of submissions by making acceptable pitch materials, identifying your team as professionals that convey the idea in an exciting way.

The first step is to get to someone who reviews third-party submissions, always be courteous, when you eventually get a pitch opportunity be ready to sign a submission agreement or confidentiality agreement that basically means what you are pitching may already be in development and you are unable to sue the company if they end up producing something similar to your pitch.

Publishers will review the material beforehand, but do not let that stop you from presenting yourself and your pitch materials as professionally as possible (ripped-jeans and a t-shirt is not appropriate), Make a checklist or spreadsheet of every publisher you contact so you don’t lose track

Pitch Materials: 

1. Sell sheet: explains idea and target audience,  include game title, genre, number of players, platform, ship date, two-paragraph description, bullet point list of features, and some game art.
2. Game demo: PLAYABLE demo, essential to the pitch materials completeness
3. Gameplay video: if a demo is not possible, a gameplay video is the next best thing, should show the characters and gameplay
4. Game design overview: a game design explanation written without excessive details - Ideal contents include game story, game mechanics, level design outline, controls, interfaces, art style, music style, feature list, preliminary milestone schedule, and a list of team members with short bios.
5. Company prospectus: a short document that talks about the managers in your company and the team members, in short it is a resume for your company,  Ideal contents include company information (including location and project history and proven abilities), company details (including technologies used, number of employees in each department, and other differentiating information), titles in development, titles shipped (including platform information), and full team bios.
6. Gameplay storyboards: still images from your game, can be in sketch form, final form or both (include in a paper package to keep things organized for review) Ideal contents are visual walkthroughs of gameplay with text explanations, play control diagrams, and character profiles. 
7. PowerPoint presentation: This is a compilation of key visuals and points from your other pitch materials. (the publisher may want to look through this while you are not around to pitch for them)
8. Technical design overview: This is a technical design document (not excessive) that describes how your technology works as well as the intended development path - include complete explanations while being accessible for nonengineers. Ideal contents are general overview, engine description, tools description, hardware used (development and target), history of code base, and middleware used, if any.
9. Competitive analysis: identifies titles you are competing against which shows you understand your market and your relative position within it, Ideal contents are summary of your concept’s market position and reason for success and pro and con descriptions of competitive titles with sales figures, if you can get them.

After the pitch meeting, ask when you might expect a preliminary response, email a short “thank-you” immediately after your pitch and provide any supplemental materials or copies of documents that were requested during the meeting. If you do not receive a response after 7 to 10 days, contact the individual who set up the meeting with no more than one email and one phone call per week to check on the status of your pitch

On the publisher’s side, an internal review will be happening.  Most publishers are organized around three groups: Sales and marketing, Production and Business/legal. The group you will mainly be pitching to is the Business and legal group, if they like it they’ll try to gather more consensus from the other groups. The final decision they reach will be based on a combination of many possible risks. These risk factors can include time to market risk, design risk, technology risk, team risk, platform risk, marketing risk, cost risk, etc. If the publisher goes through the internal consensus process and deems the risks, they may send a letter of intent for  the project - however, do not believe you have a deal until you see a signature from the publisher on the final contract. And do not spend any of the money you expect to see from the publisher until it is actually in your company bank account

Research
● Post mortems for games