What You Don't Consider About Game Pitches

Ideas are easy.

Constructive ideas, are not.

It's easy to say "wouldn't it be awesome if Battlefield had full destructibility" but it's much harder to conceive of the technology, budget, time, resources, and purpose behind such an endeavor.

I'm not a game designer, my Youtube videos are at best, an observers superficial understanding of the mentality behind game development, but as I like to brainstorm ideas that'll never happen (let alone end up in my hands) for the fun of it, I like to write game pitches too.

Now, you won't be seeing them, at least not for a really long time, but what's really occurred to me when writing them is how much detail you need to have in what is effectively, just an idea.

You can't just turn up and say "oh, it'll be a third person shooter."

What kind of third person shooter? What base mechanics will it future? What enemies do you fight against? What health system does your character operate on? Do they have AI companions? What commands do these companions receive? How big are the levels? What special mechanics do levels present?

And these are just a few questions which pertain to your basic game-design, let alone before you get to story, budget, technology, or why the hell whoever you're pitching to should hire you instead of someone else.

There's so many bases you need to cover, without dragging a listeners feet through mud.

What's more, your idea needs to be founded upon such a thorough blueprint, that by all accounts, isn't going to end up as the game you conceived, not statistically at least. Reading through the Bioshock & Deus Ex pitches are hilarious in how much they simultaneously carry the spirit, while few of their specifics came to fruition.

Could you imagine if the Xbox 360 cover of Irrational's mega-hit looked like this?

It's fascinating to write your game as both the passion behind it, and through the lens of someone totally disinterested. You need to illustrate the target demographics, one sentence descriptions, synopsis' that don't bog someone down in lore, locations, and characters no ones ever heard of.

You've gotta talk broad, and small. You've gotta pitch to the executive, and former developer. You've gotta stories, that you're completely willing to sacrifice.

It's a challenge, but that's part of the appeal.