Once you’ve made a great game, one option you have is to pitch the game to publishers with the hopes that they will sign the game and make it. The alternative to that is to self publish your game, but that can require a lot of skills, time, and money that you might not have.
There’s quite a lot that goes into pitching your game, and it can be a very stressful experience, even if you’ve done it a number of times. If you put in the effort, though, you can make a great pitch and get your game signed!
Getting Started
These are some questions you’ll want to have answers to before you start figuring out what your pitch is.
- Who are you pitching to? You want to cater your pitch depth and content to appeal to the audience. You’ll only want to talk about component types and numbers if the person taking the pitch would be interested in that information.
- How long is the pitch expected to be? You will do a very different pitch if you only have 5 minutes compared to a 30-minute pitch.
- Are you talking to someone that wants to hear more theme or in depth mechanics? This can be hard to figure out sometimes, but talking a bit of theme up front and then going to mechanics later is generally a good strategy.
What to Include in Your Pitch
First 30-60 seconds:
- Who are you? This should be a quick one-sentence introduction.
- What’s the age range, time, and player count of the game?
- What’s the type and weight of game? Say whether the game is cooperative or competitive, if it’s heavy, medium, or light, and mention 1-3 mechanisms. (Mechanisms are things like press your luck, deck building, set collection, etc.)
- What makes the game fun / what’s the hook of the game?
Later in the Pitch:
- Who are you in the game and what is your overall goal?
- How does a turn work? For this, you don’t want to go into a lot of detail, just go over what a basic turn looks like. You want to get a feel for how the game plays, but you don’t want to go into every possible option a player has or any edge cases.
What Not to Include
- Don’t go into the specifics, such as what every power does in an asymmetric game.
- Don’t talk about art, unless you’ve done the art and it’s great. The publisher is most likely going to buy art for it, so anything you have could be thrown out.
- Don’t apologize for something, then do it anyway.
- Don’t list out every mechanic in your game.
- Don’t talk about how much playtesting you’ve done. Playtesting can vary a lot in quality, so saying a large amount of hours doesn’t mean anything as they could be very low-quality hours.
- Don’t show a video. You can send the video before the pitch, if you have it. You want your time to be taken up with you talking and interacting.
The publisher may ask for specific details on some of these “don’ts”, so be prepared to answer them. You just don’t need to have them in your initial pitch.
Make it Personal
You want to cater your pitch to the specific audience and let them know why you’re pitching your game to them. You can by answering these questions:
- How does your game fit into their line?
- How do you feel about their company / processes?
- Why is your game going to be successful for them?
For instance, if you’ve heard about a good experience from a designer that has worked with that company before, let them know that’s part of why you’re pitching to them as a publisher.
You want to cater your message to be as specific as possible, instead of just saying that your game is generically good. You want to think about what the audiences for their other games would like, and this can be based on theme, mechanics, or weight.
In the past, I’ve pitched a game by saying that it had a similar theme to game X, but the weight and complexity of game Y, so it should be a great hit for that company as it’s similar enough to their other games, but also different. You want your game to come off as being a game that would appeal to someone that owns several games from that company.
Show Off Your Game
Since conventions aren’t happening right now, it’s not as easy to show off your game, but here’s a few ways you can show your game over video:
Tabletop Simulator
You can save a variety of game states, so you can easily show off how a game starts, how a game ends, and interesting mid-game states. If you have your different save files, you can easily load them up to show during the pitch, and you don’t have to worry about talking and moving bits around at the same time.
Physical Copy
The key to showing off a physical copy of your game online is making sure that the components can be seen. If the camera is not positioned correctly and the cards can’t be read, you’re not making a good pitch.
I like to use a two-camera system with OBS, so they can see me and see what is happening on the camera OR to switch between me and the components.
Digital Images
This is the worst-case scenario, but it’s better than not having anything for the pitch. You can have a folder of images for individual components and also something for the full game setup, so people can see both the details and what the table presence is.
Identify the Hook
- The hook of the game is what makes it unique or stand out.
- If you don’t know the hook to your game, one way to figure it out is to ask playtesters what they liked about the game or what their favorite game moments were.
- Your game doesn’t need to be groundbreaking from a design perspective if it’s highly appealing to a specific audience.
- Saying your game is like game x, game y, and game z together might seem like a good idea, but it can make your game a disappointment if it’s not as great as all those games put together. Instead, you can say the set collection of game x with the deck building of game y to give an idea of your game without the disappointment.
How To Act During the Pitch
Overall, you want to act like you’re a human worth working with and also to treat the publisher like they’re a human you want to work with. You don’t want to treat them like they’re a huge corporation or act like you don’t have a personality.
- Be open to taking questions mid-pitch, if they come up.
- Be able to pivot to different parts of the pitch.
- Be open to suggestions. You can show that you are by taking notes.
- Be friendly and excited. If you’re not really into your game, why should they be?
- Don’t be overly emotional. You should be happy, but don’t get extremely sad or angry during the pitch.
The pitch can be a test to see how you’d handle suggestions during development, so make sure you don’t just shut down suggestions you hear. I’ve asked people during a pitch about how they felt about a theme change just to see if they are open to changes to the game. You should always be honest and open about deal-breakers, though.
If you are playing the game with the publisher, you shouldn’t get too into your game. I’ve had a number of people get overly aggressive if I take the lead while playing their game and that can be a good sign that they can’t handle losing. That isn’t a great trait for working in a collaborative environment.
Practicing
- Practice the pitch until it sounds natural and you can sound excited about your game.
- Time the pitch so it fits in the time allotted and allows for questions. If you can’t answer questions, you’ll have a much lower chance of getting your game signed as the publisher will have to remember their questions and either talk to you later or email you and there’s a good chance that they will forget what they would have asked.
- Practice the technical aspects of the pitch both way earlier than the pitch and right before the pitch to prevent any technical difficulties from occurring.
- Be able to handle interruptions in the pitch; if a publisher asks you a question in the middle of a pitch, it shouldn’t derail the rest of it.
After the Pitch
- Don’t assume that you’ll get an immediate yes or no answer on whether they’re interested in your game.
- When you’re still talking with the publisher, make sure to ask any questions you have.
- You should always ask when you should follow up on the pitch if they do not give you an immediate answer.
- Send an email thanking the publisher for their time and include any documents if they were asked for.
- Having an email can help remind them that they should respond.
It’s Not A Fit
Sometimes your game is not going to be a fit for the publisher you’re pitching to and that’s ok! Your game might not be a fit for their line of games even if it’s a great game.
The most important thing to do if your game isn’t a fit is to not get emotional about it with the publisher. It’s not saying anything about you if your game isn’t signed immediately or by a specific publisher.
It can be really helpful to ask a publisher why your game isn’t a fit. This can be super helpful in the future, as it can give you more information on what the publisher is looking for and can make it more likely that they’ll sign a game of yours in the future, if you know exactly what they’re looking for.
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