6.6 KiB
6.6 KiB
| title | description | category | tags | accessLevel | author | publishedAt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pitching to Publishers | Pitching to Publishers | strategy | public | Baby Ghosts | 2025-11-10T10:42:09.228Z |
Pitching to Publishers
Jennie's notes from Jason Della Rocca talk at Digital Alberta. These can be fleshed out and expanded on!
Mindset
You’re pitching an opportunity, not a problem. Pitching is a critical survival skill - there’s no shame in getting out in the world and talking about yourself.
Think beyond publishers. Pitching is also to garner:
- Love/support from platform holders
- Favors from vendors
- Input from peers
Pitching is about getting people behind your vision. Think in terms of long-term relationship building - not every meeting is a win/lose.
Before going
- Build a target list
- Do research on past deals/genre tags supported by publisher
- Chase most important first
- Book meetings before the event
- Chase via email, get intros, cold call
- Sign up for the matchmaking system
- Pro-tip: Schedule most important targets for day 2 - day 1 is for practice
- Avoid early morning - higher flake risk
- Pro-tip: Chase a published studio for an intro
- Prepare materials
- Practice practice practice
Pitch materials
- Prep your meta materials for publishers to look at
- Website
- Social channels
- Prepare materials
- 1-pager
- Visual assets: video, screenshots, concept art
- Pitch deck
- Stable game build - absolutely essential
- Best result is request for pitch deck and build of the game
- Pro-tip: load everything to your laptop and phone for backup - don’t rely on access to the internet
Intro Cycle
Intro based on one-line summary and piece of art.
- Ideal if done via a mutual trusted connection
- Or “cold call” on LinkedIn/Twitter or meeting matchmaking system
Meeting request with one-pager
- Pro-tip: Include one-pager link in matchmaking system request
Likely agreement to meet
- May request extra information
- Don’t send anything unless asked
Keep email exchange simple, focus on logistics
- Save game details for meeting
- Pro-tip: Update contact cell numbers
1-pager design
- 1 letter sized page, PDF
- Visually sharp like a movie poster
- Key data elements
- Genre, platforms, price-point
- Current production status, target release date
- Key features/USP
- Competition/market
- Studio logo, contact info
Pitch formats
- Casual/at-the-bar
- Elevator
- “Performance” (e.g., GDC pitch, pocket gamer big indie pitch)
- Initial meeting
- Follow-up meeting
Typical “1st Meeting Pitch” Elements
LESS IS MORE. Make it fit on 10 slides - target 5 minutes. No walls of text - keep it highly visual as support for your presentation.
- Awesome cover art/logo
- Goal: Catch attention right from the start
- Establish brand vibe
- Gameplay/story overview + art
- Goal: Articulate core essence of the game succinctly
- Don't waste time on discussing combo mechanics for 20 minutes
- Video clip
- Goal: Show off how cool the game is and that it is (mostly) real
- Could be teaser, raw gameplay footage, mock gameplay
- 30-45 seconds
- USPs + art
- Prove your game has unique/innovative elements, compelling
- Already thinking about how it will be marketed
- “Fun to play” or “indie style” are NOT USPs
- Traction
- Goal: Prove that others think you are cool or worthy
- Social media likes and views
- Festival selections/showcases
- Discord size
- Press coverage
- Special deals, relationships, partners, advisors
- Goal: Prove that others think you are cool or worthy
- Business model + Competitive analysis
- Goal: Demonstrate there is a market for your game
- Include: pricing, platforms, genre tags
- Skip sales forecasts and focus on finding good comparables
- Ideally games released in the last 12 months
- Production timeline
- Goal: Help publisher understand the state of the game and how much work is left until launch
- Use “sausage” timeline visual
- Include key production milestones past/future, reveal, release, DLC dates, events or big marketing beat dates
- Assumes you have budget and production schedule!!
- Team, pedigree, awards
- Goal: Convince them you are the team to make this amazing game
- Can include production partners
- Past notable studios/projects
- Ask
- Goal: Clearly ask what you need and expect from the publisher
- Can cover stuff like:
- Funding requirements and broad use of funds
- Role/functional needs (ie, PR, trailer, localization, porting, etc)
- Product/genre expertise
- Specific geographical or platform needs
- Contact/socials info, more awesome art
Practice, practice, practice
During an event
- Use 1hr meeting blocks to allow for buffer
- Be 2 people in each meeting (one talker, one note-taker)
- Pro-tip: Mark actual local time in the calendar title
- Meeting zones
- Biz lounge
- Expo/booths
- Other chill areas like hotel lobby - scout in advance
- Daily debriefing and tweaking
- After each pitch, assess how it went and update your deck
- Meeting flow
- Typically 30 minutes
- 3 min. - small talk and biz cards
- 7 min. - Get publisher talking about themselves
- Pro-tip: Get them talking first so you can modulate
- Ask open ended questions
- 5min. - Run through deck
- 5 min. - offer to play build (they’ll prob decline)
- 10 min. - Q&A/discussion and next steps
- On-site chasing
- COVID impacts to keep in mind
- Parties and networking events
- Ask for on-the-spot intros via other devs
- Goal of the meeting
- Get past the “shit-filter”
- Assess compatibility
- Timing, funding size, roles
- Setup next meeting, post event
- Have clear follow-up/action items
- Collect market intelligence
- Use notes! What are publishers focused on?
- Post-show follow-up
- Debrief and update targets spreadsheet
- Pitch postmortem (what went right/wrong, to improve)
- Follow-ups
- Follow-up emails per action items
- Add everyone on LinkedIn
- Nags
- Max 2 nags after call, 1-2 weeks apart
- Afterwards, only ping based on meaningful progress
- Debrief and update targets spreadsheet
