Contextual Studies

Lifes a Pitch  

For this session we were given tips and information on how to give a successful pitch/presentation. For me, giving a presentation isn't easy. When I was younger I used to be fantastic as public speaking, I was always the one who stood in ill kids in the school plays but as I have grown up, the ability to get up and speak in public confidently has unfortunately disappeared. This was a helpful pitch to me because it contained lots of tips and helpful reminders. Here are the notes that I took to remind me of how to give a confident pitch.

Who Might You Pitch To 
- Internal Clients: Concept artists, game designers, 3d modeller, lead artist, CEO.
- External Clients: Usually a developer, publisher (to secure funding).
- "Inverse Pitch/Brief": outlining your ideas to a company as a whole.

Key Aims of Pitching 

•  Present concept clearly and precisley
• Outline specific and unique selling points 
• Outline key points, both creative and business  
• Sell your team and it's professional talent
• Convince them that you are the person for the job! 

Dual Audience
- Audience "A": The development department. They already know how to create games so you don’t want to go on about the mechanics of building the game because you will bore them/lose their interest. They just want to get the idea of the game, how it will play and why it's a good idea. 
- Audience "B": Everyone else. This includes people who have no knowledge of building games  but are interested in the idea and want to know a little bit of everything. It is difficult because going to technical to explain the mechanics of the game for audience B will inevitably bore audience A, but if you keep it simple to impress audience A then audience B might miss the point completely and not understand what the game does, how it works or plays. It's tough to get the right balance. 

What You Need For a Game Pitch

- Sell Sheet: A fairly small document with key information about your game which will hold the viewers attention and make them interested in the game. It also has to get the ideas behind the game across to the viewer with examples of style, art and gameplay. It also needs to identify a target audience, age range, title, genre, number of players, platforms, brief descriptor paragraph and bullet point features.
-Examples of Concept Work & Relevant Assets: Game demo or AVI, storyboard and narration.
- Game Design Overview: Music examples, gameplay style and look.
- An interesting looking presentation
- Not loads of text, keep it simple and precise. Images are a good idea.
- Bullet point your information ready for you to talk about.
- Time information, reveal point by point so people don’t read and try to listen to you at the same time.
- Tech overview, engine description and hardware.
- Competitive analysis, showing an understanding of the market and your position within it.

 Tips

• Understand your audience
• What do they want?
• Market research
• Let the heart rule the head
• It's all about "them"
• Avoid jargon
• Talk like a human
• Zig when others zag
• Be enthusiastic 
• Be yourself
• Less is more
  

Common Mistakes

• Not listening to your market/target audience 
• Not spotting the destination and going off on a tangent while talking thus forgetting what you were talking about in the first place
• Keep it light hearted with comical elements