Educational Feature: ‘What a Pitch!’

GameCareerGuide.com has just posted a new feature article for aspiring game developers about pitching ideas: what it means to pitch a game concept, and why it’s important in the game industry, even if you’re not a designer. What makes a winning pitch? It may be the difference between getting you game made or not. Here’s an excerpt from the article: “Many people outside the game development industry (and even some experienced professionals) don’t understand why it’s important to know how to pitch. This is simply because they don’t realize how often they are called upon to pitch. You pitch every time you try to convince your friends what to do on a Saturday night or where to go out to eat. Throughout the course of a development cycle even the most junior employees will get the opportunity to pitch features and development ideas; a lot of the time they just don’t realize they’re doing it. Very few games today are made by a lone developer working in isolation. Rather, they’re made by teams, and no matter who the development team is, the project will start with a pitch. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pitch to your friends to convince them to help you build a game, or a pitch to your college professor to let you pursue a game project, or a pitch to your corporation for financial support. It’s still a pitch. Pitching doesn’t stop there. You’ll find you’ll have to convince people that you’re doing the right thing throughout the development process, not just when the game idea is first put on the table. The complete article, with three concrete tips on how to pitch better, is now available at Gamasutra sister educational site GameCareerGuide.com.