Pitching To A Publisher – The Docs

Three more articles on the same subject
http://www.obscure.co.uk/the_pitch.shtml
http://www.obscure.co.uk/demo.shtml
http://www.obscure.co.uk/acquisition.shtml

<pedantic lawyer alert>

Please make sure that when you are pitching your fantastic ideas to a publisher that you do so under the protection of a non-disclosure agreement, properly drafted to limit the use of the information that you give over to just evaluation and negotiations.

I remember chatting to a well regarded agent who described the nda situation when pitching as 50/50. Many people don’t ask for nda’s when doing a first pitch because it simply gets in the way of smoozing. If you do push for an nda it wouldn’t help much if the publisher really wanted to rip off your ideas; their legal team can usually out-gun yours by miles. More often than not ideas are considered cheap and production capability is what they are after; and your ip will probably be theirs at the end of the deal anyway.

Having said that, if you judge that it won’t hurt the pitching process then definitely throw in that nda as an extra safe guard.

I remember chatting to a well regarded agent who described the nda situation when pitching as 50/50. Many people don’t ask for nda’s when doing a first pitch because it simply gets in the way of smoozing. If you do push for an nda it wouldn’t help much if the publisher really wanted to rip off your ideas; their legal team can usually out-gun yours by miles. More often than not ideas are considered cheap and production capability is what they are after; and your ip will probably be theirs at the end of the deal anyway.

Having said that, if you judge that it won’t hurt the pitching process then definitely throw in that nda as an extra safe guard.[/quote:a7afe2f555]

I would strongly disagree with the view that NDAs dont offer protection, and have seen companies rue the day that they followed this type of loose approach.

As for “out-gunning” one anothers legal teams, we are talking about NDAs here – not the main agreement. Although if you do mean that they will outgun you if you didn’t have one to begin with, and they then treat you shoddily, then you are probably right.

NDAs are not rocket science and generally well-drafted pro forma NDAs cause no one to bat an eyelid.

Some caveats before I continue, the opinions held were formed during the 90’s/early noughties and may no longer hold water (nda’s might be just a matter of course for most people these days), only deal with the first publisher pitch, and those opinions aren’t necessarily mine.

The basic thinking is that there is no protection because for example: when pitching you put an nda agreement on the table, give the worlds best pitch, find some of your ideas cross-polinate into other games by publishers you have pitched to. You’ve now got to do something about it. Do you have the resources, time and reputation to do it? Can you prove that someone else wouldn’t have come up with the same idea? Most games come from broadly the same primordial soup of creation. What are other publishers going to think of you now? Will business still flow as freely between you and other companies? Etc etc.

The alternative (no nda) isn’t exactly a major plus, but it does avoid a slow start to your pitch; if you think that might kill your chances then thats a risk you have to weigh up.

Personally I think most of the time when pitching you probably aren’t giving away the crown jewels to anything, ideas are cheap – production capability isn’t. On the other hand if your pitch could be destroyed by asking for an nda then you might want to think twice about the strength of your pitch, or polish up the demo a bit more.

My quick view on this.

You are making the game.
They are giving you money to make the game and to distribute the game.

The market is quickly changing, all I have to say is that you dont have to rely on a publisher to distribute your game. I have turned down 5 publishers at this point simply because I wasnt happy with what they were offering. Most companies get anxious and accept the offers.

All I can say is a publisher could offer you between $100,000 – $500,000+ for your title depending on how it is ranked. Budget, AAA etc.

You go down the online distribution route and with your own marketing done effectively you can gain anywhere between 2000 – 10,000 sales.

I remember posting about a 12 months ago saying that I would be delighted if we managed to sell 500 titles online @ 60 euro a pop.

Well we have just under 2000 pre-orders as it stands and the gamers havnt seen a single screenshot. Thats 2000 @ 60 euro…

Thats 120,000 euro. Obviously the taxman gets a cut the costs of the game need to be paid. But even still for an indie title with 0 marketing, no publisher and on a shoestring budget…. thats better than most publishers will offer us. Most

Dont feel you need a publisher to make a game. Yes they help, but you can do it your own way and effectively make your own market. Also dont just jump into the first offer.

1944 has around 5000 followers at the moment, 2000 of whom are actively pursueing the game, while the others are on the fence. With a demo and sales we can begin to conver those remaining members while still expanding the user base.

Our goal is to hit 10,000 users by September 2007. If we hit that, then we have completely by-passed the publisher process and kept all the profits for ourselves. If we dont hit the target, we will have enough of a community, and enough of a stable product for the publishers to respect us and not see us merely as a cheap investment that will yield high returns.

Also NDA’s mean sweet f all. I have had artists, studios and others break both NDA’s and Contracts. If people want out of them, even out of the best of of them, they can and is it worth running your company into the ground with a lawsuit? your call really.

christ ronan, 120k. are you going to bother delivering the game :) should just make away with the dosh!

My own pocket, I dig deep, I am very very competitive about my contractors that I use, and I ensure that I get the best possible price.

I can tell you now that Its more than plausible to make a game of HL2’s artistic quality for $50,000 on art. Programming is another matter but its definately possible to get all the art content and then some, developed ontime, under budget and working right off from your own spec at final revision. Then all you need to worry about is getting an engine. programmers and an artist to ensure that the content is co-ordinated.

That would put your entire development cost at just under 200,000k for a year. Art is the driving factor for the expense of games, and its mainly due to the yokels that are making the art. Revision, after Revision after Revision. There is alot of talent out there, but some reason working in the industry doesnt push artists as much as it pushes contractors. THere is no room for excuses, bad contracts, bad clients. When a contractor fucks me over, I contact their employer with regards to their non compete agreement and name and shame them on cgtalk. Thankfully I only had to do this once, but when your lively hood is how well you sell yourself… you better make damn sure you are the best at what you do.

I guess 1944 is lucky in the sense that when we go to a contractor they get around 15gigs of reference material. Every single item is pinpointed for them so they have no artistic room to move. It becomes an exact match. Its a bitch for creativity of the artist, but screw it, there being paid to do a job not put their signature mark on it….

Art is the driving factor for the expense of games, and its mainly due to the yokels that are making the art. Revision, after Revision after Revision. [/quote:9a625a27f6]

Its not the artists that cause the multiple revisions. It usually the directors or producers or whoever constantly changing their minds! :wink:

When it comes to a WWII game, of course there will be more or less zero creativity involved as it is based in real world, historical fact. All the artists are doing is recreating an era. But at the end of the day, it pays the bills so you just gotta do what you are contracted to do!
It is not like a fantasy game where they are allowed run with various wacky ideas and concepts!

Yeah Producers and Project Leads can be an issue. I guess it helps if they are putting their hands in their own pocket. It forces them to make sure they get it right first time round….

Good solid concept work should leave zero room for interpretation of the artist. But this is where revisions come in, it may not work as well in 3D as it does in 2D.

Art is the driving factor for the expense of games, and its mainly due to the yokels that are making the art. Revision, after Revision after Revision. [/quote:a0ac4b9913]

Its not the artists that cause the multiple revisions. It usually the directors or producers or whoever constantly changing their minds! :wink: [/quote:a0ac4b9913]

Yeah Producers and Project Leads can be an issue[/quote:a0ac4b9913]as can publishers forcing the timelines, failing to read & understand the brief or design doc, a changing business environment, or perfectionist artists or inexperienced art/production leads/management… there can be lots of reasons.

Art is the driving factor for the expense of games, and its mainly due to the yokels that are making the art. Revision, after Revision after Revision[/quote:4d74877ca4]

SOunds like you need a little art direction there, son. Maybe relying on external contractors isn’t working out for you, I’m sure if you hired some professional artists you wouldn’t be having revision after revision after revision.

. There is alot of talent out there, but some reason working in the industry doesnt push artists as much as it pushes contractors. [/quote:4d74877ca4]
Unfortunately, neither does it push employers as much as it pushes employees

. When a contractor fucks me over,I contact their employer with regards to their non compete agreement and name and shame them on cgtalk. [/quote:4d74877ca4]
Important business rule – don’t get Fucked.Be professional and deal with professionals. Maybe those good artistsare worth the money,maybe they don’t fuck people over?

.I guess 1944 is lucky in the sense that when we go to a contractor they get around 15gigs of reference material. Every single item is pinpointed for them so they have no artistic room to move. It becomes an exact match. Its a bitch for creativity of the artist, but screw it, there being paid to do a job not put their signature mark on it….[/quote:4d74877ca4]
You’re definitely using the wrong people if you can lock your asets down that tight before production and still have many multiple revisions, it sounds like there should be no room for error. Maybe its time to diga little deeper or maybe Idona is right and bad management is a bigger factor than you’ll admit.

This thread certainly has gone off topic…. As Mr. Hayes said multiple revision are required as what works in the 2D concept may not so easily map to finished 3D model. I would agree though that not lowering yourself into petty arguments with people on public forums as both parties will always come off worse.

Sorry if that seemes a heavyhanded reply I prolly got carried away, but ive ssen mr. Hayes moan about artists many times on these hallowed boards and often he mentions the merits of cheap labour and out-of-house contractors. Your 2d concept argument is nonsnense though, mr. Hayes has 15gb of reference, which means photographs and memoribilia of real world objects and textures which would translate perfectly into recongisable game assets-we are not talking about the suck-em-and-see wayward scribbles of a fanciful artist chancing his arm on unrequested stuff that ‘might’ work, leading up to an other unfortunite fuck over for mr hayes

Yes but you’re working within the constraints of an engine, I’d hazard a guess that the revisions that do occur are optimisations for however the particular engine deals with the various assists(moving detail on to a normal map etc..) A concept/photo may call for a particular level of detail though in the end it’ll be the engine that dictates it.

While I’m looking forward to 1944 one thing I do have on my mind is that great assists do not make a great game. I’ve also read quite a number of interesting features that are planned but am some what skeptical on how they will translate in-game.

As for multiple revisions being the producers\leads fault. they can in fact come from the artist also. Its not uncommon for an artist to do a mockup of a ui or somehting for a game and you code it up, make it look pretty then they decided they must have been on crack when they did the mockup, because now they want something different, or they had an even better idea.. :) it happens.

Games are a creative process, its inevitable..

:?:

dont think any of this is gona help people when pitching to a publisher

SOunds like you need a little art direction there, son. Maybe relying on external contractors isn’t working out for you, I’m sure if you hired some professional artists you wouldn’t be having revision after revision after revision.
[/quote:0cb5e7d118]

I never said I have revision after revision. I was speaking in terms of how in-house development goes. I also dont go for artists who charge $6 an hour. I go for artists who charge between $20 – $80 per hour. You get what you pay for.

I only have 1 revision, I dont accept anything from any of my contractors unless its correct and approved by researchers. I also hire 3 of the leading contract artists out there. They prefer working with me because we are so exact and precise it allows them to get it right and we are flexible enough to allow them to perfect it. they have even gone as far as giving up larger contracts so they can focus on more work for us.

Important business rule – don’t get Fucked.Be professional and deal with professionals. Maybe those good artistsare worth the money,maybe they don’t fuck people over?
[/quote:0cb5e7d118]

I deal with professionals all the time, people who think that its a quick easy buck, then once they get the content and begin the work quickly realise they under quoted. They pebbled their ego too much and now are in over their heads. So they turn around and tell me that they wont finish, calling my bluff that I wont pursue them in a court. The most I could afford to do is send a solicitors letter to them. I dont have the finances to simply pursue them. Same goes with a publisher, if a publisher screwed me over, I wouldnt have any option but too leave. Financially its not viable to pursue them. So for those who call your bluff you need to be aware there is always that risk. Also for the record the guy who screwed me was the lead artist on one of the main nextgen games in development. He under quoted to get the job, and realised it wasnt worth his time so he called my bluff. He is no longer working on that next gen title.

With regards to publishers, too many people, gamedevs etc, see them as the only option. If you look on gamedev help wanted or other leading forums. Everyone is making a demo just for publishers. Very few are looking beyond that.

Granted a publisher has the money for your game. But if you are throwing away money on art content. I am picking on the art simply because with 1944 art is the most expensive, the slowest development aspect. Granted we dont have multiple revisions. But even looking around at various other studios and talking with others. Its often a case that artists are the cause. That said it can also be programmers who are not clear on their specs. Concept Artists who do not explain their concept and Producers/Publishers who push for content.

I recall Kevin Smith talking about writing the superman script, and the crazy producer that he had to deal with. Who simply wanted to see all this crazy stuff in the movie. This superman script later evolved into Wild Wild West….. Thats where money is wasted.

If you have tight control on your budget, if you can cost your project exactly and track and manage all those elements. Then you can go a long way without a publisher. THe futher you can get without a publisher the better chance you have.

That said my talks with publishers all went down the road of how little money they would pay for development to reap the rewards of massive sales… I declined all of these offers on the simple grounds that the publisher stood to gain more than I did, and for what a measely budget….

No thanks, I’ll take an alternative route and there is always alternative routes. Which could lead to far better publishing deals.

Hey Ronan, first up, thanks for posting so much info about this, it’s very interesting. I think a few people missed out on the fact you were talking about other developers when you mentioned revisions though – have to say I thought it was clear enough myself.

I have a couple of questions for you though. You say the development could be done for under 200k, but you’re putting sales at 120k minus taxes, so unless the other 3,000 interested parties go ahead and put their hands in their pockets, you’re looking at a loss, right?

Also, and I may be way off here, but if you need an engine (no idea – 50-100k?), programmers (plural – to my mind that’s 100k here in Ireland), and an in-house lead artist to co-ordinate (don’t know many that would work for much less than 40k), plus out-sourced artists (which you put at 50k, right?), how do you get all that in Ireland for under 200k?
I mean, if your outsourced artists are costing you only $20 an hour (instead of $80), a year’s work is still 50k just for one artist. It just seems… I dunno, I’d love to know how you can get it all done.

Ignore sales for the moment

Lets look at some ground rules first, you need to know your subject and you need to know timeframe. Anyone can mis-quote you but you really need to know on average how long it takes for work to be done.

1 weapon = $100
1 vehicle = $100 – $250
1 character = $250 for base, $150 per variation (do head and hands as a separate work item so they can be reused)

2 x 1024×1024 textures = $200 – $300
1 x Normal Map = $100 – 250
1 x High Poly Model = $400 – ????
1 x Animation Sequence = $10 – $20

Props can be anything from $5 – $200 depends on your game. Look out for model sites where you can buy these, you can often get good packs

Texture sites and DVD’s are always good. TextureMonk is a prime example, check out the front of gamedev as these resources are always posted in the news.

Concept art (I cant give you a price on this as I havnt paid for concept art given the historical nature of the game it would be pointless)

Other maps like spec or bump should set you back no more than $50.

Words of caution here, do your homework, investigate your contractor. Look for references, look for posts online, ensure that you factor in revisions of the work especially when working from concept. The more direct and precise you can be the more money you can save.

If you take a weapon for example, I have this quoted @ $100, a contract artist may charge $20 per hour. So that gives them 5 hours to model a weapon. A weapon should take between 3 hours and 4 hours. Then a final hour to optomise. Iusually factor unwrapping into the texture as everyone is different.

5 Hours should give you a 100% model, With clean workflow and fully optomised.

When it comes to vehicles break it down, 1 Wheel, Chasis, Shell, Interior. By getting your artist to do things modularly you can maximize what you re-use. It also allows for easier rigging and physics.

Characters are often a stumbling block for people.

Step 1: Flesh out a base model, get this right completely first time round and it makes your life so much easier.

Step 2: Expand on your base saving you loads of time.

Step 3: Head and Hands should be seperate, you can re-use them completely.

Do a High Poly version, once you have the shape, bring it into ZBrush crack open photoshop and do both at the same time, because if you ZBrush and Photoshop at the same time, and bake the details in. You can get alot more detail that way.

Anyway thats the ground rules on the art. Im a programmer so obviously these things dont come easy to me, but if I spend a little time and research what Im trying to have done, I can really get to the bottom of it, and really figure out what I should be paying for.

Finally price around, get quotes of multiple artists and haggle them into the ground. When you bulk up work you should get a discount typically 25% off if you are paying for more than 3000

You can obviously get cheaper than the above but you get what you pay for an if you pay the wrong guy it does set you back, and loosing money is the least of your troubles.

Ok Fulltime work, not something I know too much about, but from what I do know you can get good programmers from between 25k – 35k a year. You can also get good artists for around the same. Thats how I came up with that figure. I would argue that 2 good leads are worth 5 juniors, but you can really hit a gem just out of college who needs a little polishing.

You can get a good programmer for 25K-35K Euro??
I’ll stay working in the UK then…[/quote:c76a41c9fd]

Maybe a grad/

Yeah, I’d be shocked if you could get a good programmer for that kind of money. Possibly a graduate, but definitely not anyone with any amount of game development experience. As omen says, why stay in Ireland and work for a pittance when they can earn easily twice that in the UK?

To my mind experience is well worth paying for. If you get a couple of graduates with no real world experience you’re just going to hit walls again and again. But, getting back to the sales, how do you cut a profit if those others don’t buy the game? You’ve no real way to market or distribute it. Or is it feasible to do that sort of stuff online? Just wondering…

My expenses thus far is under 30k, my projected sales is up over 100k at the moment….

The project is self funded, I dont have 200k in my pocket.

well i wish you well ronan, but it all sounds like a load of naieve gumpf to me. Time will tell all, after all we haven’t even seen a screenshott yet

No bother.

My expenses thus far is under 30k, my projected sales is up over 100k at the moment….

The project is self funded, I dont have 200k in my pocket.[/quote:104190cdc5]Ronan, thanks for sharing so much info, first off. Good to get a closer look at your biz model, and I’m pretty impressed by what I have seen so far. Having said that, I do share some of the previously expressed concerns over the revenue projections, etc. but time wil tell, eh?

One thing I was curious about though – you have mentioned a few times in this thread you are self-funding the project. Is this including or excluding thr funding you received from the DIT technology seed fund? I seem to recall a previous posting from you on this

Cheers again for the info, and best of luck with the project

No problem well again I myelf amy concerned about projected sales. My approach is rather simple. Rely on customers not the publisher.

Im not saying to ignore publishers at all costs, nor am I saying should publishers be the core reason for you getting past a demo. I am merely saying that its always good to have a business model that covers all aspects of the business.

Its rather foolish for me to go ahead and invest all of this money and hope that I will get it all back when a publisher comes along. I dont know about you but I dont put all my eggs in one basket. So I built a community and developed a relationship with them. The cost of this is just time, no marketting or fancy ads, none of this viral marketting jazz or rumour mills. I was honest and upfront with people and built a community ontop of that. I openly answered questions with the community. So much so that when we approached Ageia with our design document, we also presented them with our forums FAQ…. They were shocked to see how our design doc was just bullet points of all possible things that could be done and how they are done. This then cross references a massive FAQ that covers so many scenarios. Doing mods didnt hurt our community building either.

My business model is sound. You rely on your customers not a publisher, if a publisher comes along great. If they dont well then you are looking mainly at direct sales to customers. Given the relationship I have built up with the community, this task is made even easier. But given certain sceptics its very hard at times to get by that. Although I recently posted a full description of the AI system that seemed to eliminate even the largest of sceptics… :P

Anyway the key to the success of 1944 is to offer an entry point, and be flexible. The demos and mods offer this, if people play them and like them they will consider getting the full game.

We are considering breaking down the game so that you can by the map in 1/4’s its a risky move, but once again we are talking to our community about it, see what they say. If they dont like the idea we wont do it.

DIT Bolton trust only offers around 500euro per month to cover training expenses. They offer free internet, receptionist, fax and internet as well. There is also office space and the likes. The rest is up to you get, enterprise Ireland has once again failed to even recognize this as a viable business, its their 4th time to turn it down, even when Bolton Trust were backing it. That said you local county enterprise is more than helpful and usually a great bunch of people. They can fund you around 7500 per employee and cover 50% of any tradeshow expenses. They can also cover upto around 80,000 in capital expenses (not that I have)

At the end of the day Im basing all of my information on various studies I have done in the community. How accurate depends on the product thats released. Im not trying to lure anyone into a false sense of this is how the industry is changing or that this is the only way that it should be done. This is how I just found what works for me, and I am offering the information I have gathered so that people know the alternatives. I have known of people to spend $2000 on so few art assets. Im just trying to outline to others that its possible to get better rates if you get the right people. These are the type of people that wont come to you, but you need to go to them.

Publishers are great if you can get them, but there are other ways around things.

Art assets do not need to be expensive, I can direct you to alot of great development studios who do great work at reasonable prices. Obviously the larger your budget the better content you get, but its always possible to reduce your costs via out sourcing. But you will always need a good Art Director or lead Artist to ensure your content is done as you need.

within Ireland there are plenty of great programmers working in non games industry jobs who are not requesting more than 35k per year. That said I dont have the experience to comment on this as I havnt recruited any fulltime employees yet, I just know from working in Ericssons that you can definately get great employees for less than 35K. From what I do know UK entry level is around 20 -22 with mid level starting around 25k (not sure what the upper limit for mid level is). Obviously its more than in Ireland but thats mainly due to the fact that England has an established industry with alot of highly experienced developers.

YIkES

Thanks for the info

It seems there are a number of business models available and for the Irish developer exploring the non console seems potentially the way to go.

Folks on this thread might find the following costs breakdown for next gen console interesting (or scarey)..images etc at the end of the article

Why Gears Of War Costs $60
http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/19/ps3-xbox360-costs-tech-cx_rr_game06_1219expensivegames.html

Aphra.