There goes my super realistic VR simulator where you manage the inventory for a game show with an extensive fantasy setting and complex monetization model.

>You just pitched a phone game to a console publisher. This aged well.

People are complaining that this is too obvious, but he’s clearly seen people do this shit a lot. I feel a little bad for him.

I can feel the brutality of having my pitch denied from the comfort of my bedroom, technology. Just to be clear I love this

It sounds like a lot of modern AAA games would fail their pitch if they weren't already well established

Even if you're indie, most of this is actually good advice on how to sell a game.

Brian offers a lot of great advice, but one crucial piece of information is left out, theft. When you're pitching an idea or vision, have a witness present or documentation that proves you covered specifics with individuals from the company in that room. Legally, you can steal an idea, but you can't steal the execution. It happens often. If you have an original mechanic not seen in the industry and you illustrate that in the pitch room, don't be surprised if it shows up a year later on Steam without your involvement. Document it and count on theft happening.

30 reasons starcitizen was crowdfunded instead of pitched.

It is funny that the typical talk always tries to be positive and optimistic, but this guy is not afraid of being very negative. It is his job and he is just honest and realistic. I like it.

I'm a game development teacher, and I can tell you that it's really important for new developers and students to hear stuff very frankly like this without sugar coating. Thanks for this.

"Nobody buys a game for you monetization plan" THANK YOU!

Here's my game pitch: Batman: Arkham Asylum, but an MMO. Everyone is batmans in Arkham and they're all punching each other all the time. Goals? No goals. The emphasis is on creative gameplay. It's exactly like minecraft but better because you can be a batman. Give me money.

I want a survival parody game. Like you punch a tree and break your hand.

12:30 "This is from a game I worked on where we did like final art for all the ships before we had our combat modelled down and all the stuff got thrown out." hysterical laugh (dies inside once again)

I love how this talk just came out of what must have been countless hours of complaining to friends and co-workers about bad pitches ha

What's great about this is it isn't *really* about pitches for the most part, it's really about how the pitch foretells major design issues before they occur. We can all name titles that succumbed to issues in design, scope or misapplied focus like he describes seeing in pitches.

This is a fantastic list of don'ts that simultaneously are DO THESE (opposites). Each and every "don't do this" comes with a "but here's how you can do it right". This is the kind of advice that should be shown to every budding game designer. The comment on writing... pay your writers properly. A good writer is worth 60k (no experience) -100k+ (quality experience) a year.

Star Citizen fell from the tree of "30 things he hates about our game pitch" and hit almost all the branches XD

Side note on parody: Good satire is always a shining example of the item being poked at. Airplane is a tense and exciting disaster movie that is also a satire of the genre.

"i know you're going to be able to execute on character's opening door" ..unless you're bethesda

If a video game was a chocolate bar, then pitch the caramel filling first, not the shiny wrapper.

I actually asked for exactly this in a "Ask The Publishers" pitch Q&A at GDCE in 2011 and got some really nasty looks and a somewhat spiteful reply from the panel. Nice to see someone from the money end of the industry finally answer that question, even if it's a totally different guy from a totally different company on a different continent...

I probably wont ever pitch a game to a publisher, but this is a great talk on pitfalls of any pitch really.

Brain: watch it Me: but im gonna go in the medical industry Brain: do it anyways

basically dont be so in love with an "idea" that you forget you actually have too make it happen.

I don't even make games but was extremely interested the whole way thru!

Rule #31: Don't make me ask "Is this an out-of-season April Fool joke?"

As a game developer, this is really useful information. Most of the things in life are "basic" and "common knowledge" but it's great to have it documented for us to come back and remember. The most simplest things are the building blocks of any foundation.

Amused at all the people who seem to hate this or him or make fun of him, or think he does not understand game design. Remember, he's talking about how a developer should sell their game to a publisher. He is talking about how a developer goes to a publisher, and begs them to pay money to make the game. People who are funding a game need to be given a reason to fund the game..to pay money to have this game be made. And honestly if the stuff he says sounds too harsh..too strict, or anything like that. I really hope you don't take that attitude with you when you are looking for a job. Because A LOT of the stuff he talks about here also applies to applying for jobs (don't talk bad about previous employers, don't down talk other people or act overly negative, be ready for questions, etc). Again you're trying to sell your abilities..and in game making, your vision of the game, not what other people are like. As for the whole bit of people pissed about him saying you shouldn't focus on the fluff. Again you're trying to pitch the game as something marketable. if you're pitching Mario you don't pitch "fighting mushroom people, eating mushrooms and flowers, princess is in the next castle, boss falls in lava to die, how much sega sucks". No you pitch "platformer, varied level designs, powerup system that also acts as your health, linear game flow, a life system that allows around 3 failures before giving a true game over and you can increase the number of chances during gameplay". Honestly I like the fact he's rather frank...and I find it sad that some (not all, just some) of these things need to be said...as a lot of this is good for also finding a non-gaming job.

This gave a ton of insight on how people work in general, great speech!

Swap every time he uses the word "game" with "project", the advice remains mostly the same. A lot of this is really good advice for pitching projects and just meeting etiquette in general.

The two questions: Number 1, "Is the game worth making?" and Number 2, "Can the team make it?" - The List of 30 Things: 1. Minimize Backstory (2:19) = Unless it's relevant to the pitch, don't include it. Ex: Quickly establishing the setting is fine, not a 5-minute explanation of the character's backstory. 2. Inventory System/Standard Features (3:18) = If your game has unique systems, showcase them. Otherwise only briefly mention standard systems. Ex: "This game uses colors to create a puzzle for players to solve." "It would also have checkpoints and an inventory system." 3. I'm not designing your game for you (3:58) = You want to pitch the game you want to make, not ask what they want. Ex: "This is a first-person zombie game centered around hunting humans for food and power-ups." Not "Do you want it to be first person or third person?" 4. Pillars are not Hooks (4:51) = Mention the unique thing that makes the game stand out from other games, not the pillars that enforce it. Ex: Using a grappling mechanic to fly through trees and slay ninja's would be the unique thing that hooks players in. Movement and combat would be the core pillars of the game. 5. What players do? (5:44) = Mention what the player does and the mechanics they can use. Ex: "The player eats humans to grow stronger in both pure strength and in the abilities they can use. The different abilities the player can use come from the human they eat, which...... bla bla bla." 6. Use of Realism (6:37) = Unless realism is a part of the game's design, don't restrict yourself to realism. Don't use realism to justify bad design. Ex: "Well let them refuel the car in 10 seconds, so we can emphasize the amount of fuel in the car while still respecting the player's time." Not "It should take minutes to refuel an empty car's gas tank." 7. Game Show (7:23) = If you don't need a frame story, don't add one. (A frame story is a narrative that frames or surrounds another story or set of stories.) 8. Parody (8:10) = Introducing a game as a parody usually arises if the game can't stand on its own without being taken as a joke. That doesn't mean you shouldn't make parody games though. 9. Glaring Tech Risk (8:50) = It's okay to do something dangerous and hard, but not if you don't explain how you're going to pull it off. You need to acknowledge the big risk(s) and tell people how you're going to handle such risk(s). 10. Prototyping (9:49) = When prototyping, focus on the things that are unique, different, and hard for your game. Showcase the hook of your game and that you're able to mitigate the risk that comes with it. 11. Shitty Art (10:52) = Using lots of shitty art won't sell your game, just one or two high-quality ones can. 12. Placeholders (11:37) = An obvious placeholder is better than bad art that looks final. 13. Early Polish (12:20) = Still images of what you or your team is capable of is better than a broken prototype that looks good. 14. Sample Dialogue (13:25) = If sample dialogue is a part of your pitch, show what you capable of and not crappy placeholder dialogue. 15. Tech Craze (14:20) = Don't use the latest tech unless it makes sense in the context of your game. 16. Platforms/Genre (15:04) = Research who you are pitching to so you know what platforms and genre a certain company or publishers work in as well as what they might be interested in. 17. Gone Home already exists (15:59) = If your going to remake something that already exists and maybe was even successful, distinguish what is different. What does your game do that that one doesn't? 18. Intellectual property (16:52) = Negotiations for intellectual property should happen in advance before you go to a publisher. 19. Monetization over Mechanics (17:42) = Mention a basic idea of the monetization plan, and save the details for development. 20. Know the cost (18:45) = Have an idea of the game's scope; how much it will cost, how many people do you need, how much time, etc... 21. Team? (19:43) = Have an idea of who you would like to hire if you don't already have a large enough team to work with. 22. Business plan outliers (20:27) = When making your business plan, make sure it isn't based on outliers. 23. Don't be an ass (21:17) = If you can't be friendly or agreeable in a pitch meeting, people aren't gonna want to work with you regardless of how good your game is. 24. Who are you? (22:19) = Don't rely on or expect people to know who you are in order to sell a pitch. Introduce yourself and your background on what you've done before if needed. 25. Questions!!??? (22:41) = Don't get annoyed if being asked questions, especially if you scripted answering them later on 26. Test before pitching (23:25) = Bring or use the adequate technology to sell your pitch, don't just show it on your phone. 27. Laptop without headphones (23:55) = If the sound is important to your game, bring headphones. 28. Sober (24:28) = Be sober to show you are taking it seriously and can pull yourself together. 29. Don't trash talk (25:07) = Don't trash other games, companies, and developers. The publishers will wonder how you will talk about them and might have worked on the games or companies you are trashing. 30. Shower (25:40) = "I shouldn't have to tell you this." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you all for the replies.

Him: “it’s very easy to get a prototype of someone walking around” Me: just spent 5 hours working on an FPS player controller in unity and my jump ability is still not working.

1# is funny to be me because I've seen so many new devs introduce new games at E3 and other events by talking about their game's backstory. Why do they think that's so important for selling their game? Excellent talk by the way.

I'm not a developer and have no aspirations to be one, but this talk is really compelling to listen to. Brian Upton is an interesting speaker and his to-the-point, no BS delivery is refreshing. Everything he says is value-adding, no filler. I love when people don't sugar coat and just tell people what they need to hear.

This is framed superficially in terms of negativity and what he hates, but honestly I didn't find it negative at all, just a really careful, concrete rundown of a whole bunch of common problems, with concise explanations of why they are problems and how to fix them.

I love coming back to these comments just to see the new waves of people who completely miss his point or get upset he isnt acting like publishers are benevolent beings.

"Don't tell me your character can open doors because I know they will be able to" Untrue. If modern fps are anything to go by, having your character open doors is an incredibly difficult task.

That was a badass presentation. You can tell this guy has lots of experience with presenting content to people. This was short, snappy, and informative. Great presentation with worthwile common sense advice.

A lot of this actually translates well to pitching screenplays to producers also.

I get flashbacks from my professor's reaction after the whole class showed a presentation

So basically: be presentable, be prepared, be positive, be practical, be purposeful.

Jesus, after hearing this I can't help but think of the sea of trash that flooded the Steam store after their Greenlight project. I imagine this guy has seen a lot of the people behind that mess in person.

I can double jump.

16:00 Tell this to every MMO publisher please. I'm so sick of WoW clones at this point, and I understand that they're "safe" because they're a tried-and-true method, but really, you could be publishing something that's worth SO much more, and instead you blow the time and money on "WoW, but you can dodge more often" and "WoW, but it has neat JRPG art"...

lmao i just imagine all the star citizen devs just sweating bullets after 12:21 almost felt like a straight jab at them haha

i'm not a developer but i really enjoyed this. a mature,intelligent person explaining how people should go about doing something. was a nice experience. great video!

As someone who has received and fielded tons of business plans as well as interviews; this is gold. Ideas are commonplace; nobody gets paid on an idea. Every success is 95% (or more) execution and your idea is your secret sauce; your vision as your compass... how you monetize that execution. Regardless of industry.

As someone who's always had game design as a career in the back of his mind, it was fun to hear all this and think about one of my ideas as if I were presenting it even if I'll never actually do it

At 10:25 I imagined a studio that struggled to get their character to open doors, finally made a break through and succesfully prototyped it, then showed it this guy

This video basically breaks down an entire college course of game design in 30 minutes, absolutely fantastic talk

I'm not a game designer, but I'm a painter. Needless to say, this advice applies to all industries. Thank you for posting this

@17:55 - "nobody buys a game for a monetization plan" Dunno about that, could always pitch it to EA or Activision ...

Talks like these are very valuable. I would ask that a university includes listening to this as a homework assignment in one of their game dev classes.

I've been making a fair share of these mistakes myself. I'm not alone, but I'm still a bit embarrassed, considering how obvious they sound listed like this.

Years on, this remains my favorite GDC talk.

Wow #6 is something I've been thinking about a lot since getting a Switch, but this guy says it perfectly. Make games fun, not realistic.

It's actually refreshing to hear this talk, if too much niceties are going around then important things start to get too concealed or covered, from time to time it's good to hear just the blunt truths.

I'm not a game dev, (I just play games, but I am an amateur model maker and animator) but this is really good advice. The bottom line is: You may only have 30 minutes to pitch your game. If you cannot sell the pitch of your game with succinctness and clarity, you came in unprepared, or at least, not as prepared as you thought you were. If you cannot take time out to answer questions, I think it means that you really haven't thought your product through as much as you think you did. If you are inclined to answer questions, it bodes well for you, because think on this: If they are asking you questions, you are getting a time extension of sorts. You may have been able to tack on a few extra minutes to your 30 minute pitch session...make the most of it...without violating the 30 things a publisher may hate about your pitch.

I have the perfect stand-out idea for a game: A post apocalyptic open world sandbox FPS, with a craft survival system environment with plenty of grind, battle royale multiplayer only!

As an indie who has learned from multiple ads and other people who pitched to me, I can confirm that you should focus on your game's core concepts, aka the foundation. Talk directly about the purpose of the project idea; this will help you and your teammates understand what's being worked on EDIT: #20 is a big big no-no; I've seen far too many of that.

It's actually alarming how many AAA publishers ignore these red flags and throw money at bad video game ideas.

9:12 As someone who works on PlanetSide 2 I love this part.

This is a great guide for pitching pretty much anything. Also his demeanor of "I assume you're about to waste my time because that is what everyone else is doing. So I already don't like you and I really wish I could just tell you to fuck off before you even open your mouth" is really important to be familiar and comfortable with, since this is gonna be an obstacle in your profession no matter what.

I really liked hearing that the base of R6 was to create a shooter where twitch reactions didn't matter. This is precisely why I loved those games, my mind is what won games. I'd be really interested to hear if they had the IP before or after that concept.

I can just imagine a nerd pitching his manga 2,000 hour triple AAA rpg game to this guy and him going. "I don't give a shit"

Before Fall Guys and Among Us became huge, I had an idea for a social/party game about Greek ships racing for the Golden Fleece (think Fall Guys meets Sea of Thieves). Each ship would be a bunch of crew chosen at random with the gameplay being similar to a simple action game like Bastion or Zelda. To advance through the game, the ship would have to complete a competitive minigame against another crew on each island stop (some of the minigames would be sea battles too!) and whoever won would get a ship upgrade that would help them overcome the dangerous sea and traps around the Fleece. An example would be a special sail which would let you sail into the wind faster when it was directly against you. Now the catch: Each shipmate would have a hidden goal. These goals would usually help the other team or at least slow your team down. For instance in a minigame where you had to run treasure back to the boat, you could may have to personally pocket 5 coins to win. Your personal objective would allow you to win (without it done, you could not grasp the Fleece). You would get extra points towards cosmetics, of course, for being the person to personally bag the Fleece for your team. If someone calls you on committing a foul to complete your personal goal and they're correct, you'll get banished to another team's ship. However, if they are wrong, they'll be banished. Banishment wouldn't be a huge punishment, but it would put you on a team that may not have the advantages your team does, so you'd want to weigh a greedy big win against a smaller team win that still gets you some points.

This is so GREAT!!! I'm a filmmaker that is transitioning into interactive film or FMV's. This information is so fantastic because it not only applies to a game pitch but makes a lot of sense for a film pitch as well. Differences of course but very parallel application. THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS!!!!

Excellent. As somebody that wants to launch media, but not necessarily begin with a game, this helps with the idea of the 'down the line' situation.

That was really interesting to hear about how the relationships of developers and publishers start.

“I know you’re going to be able to execute on the character opening doors” Yeah... many games would beg to differ on that 😜

7:01 To quote from Game Design (1999) page 55 (10th German Edition from 2003, I think) If you like reality, why did you turn on your PC then?

2018 December : "16. You just pitched a phone game to a console publisher." Damn that sounds so familiar hahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!

Ohhhh. I thought it was going to be about sound pitch. I was like how are you gonna have 30 complaints about sound pitch?!

"How to prove to people you really know what you are talking about." This guy...his experience in the field showed hard, from the get go.

"You don't understand.. sir, it has crafting **AND** zombies!"

Great presentation, because when a friend and me worked in game companies, we were always annoyed by collegues e.g. only pitching the story and no content/ features/ business model. Yet, noone wanted to hear our pitches. Screw the industry, srsly.

You can tell this man has been through some crazy stuff in this industry. Props to him though, he's spot on.

Learned a lot from this one. Going to take out most of features I was working on my game. They are not hooks and would add 60% more time on my game at least. So will just stick to basic hook as one person team.

Many of these tips are good, general advice for just about any job interview, first impression, etc.

Imagine being one of the people that pitched to this guy and watching this only to realize he's talking about something you did in your pitch 😂

im a fledgling developer and i appreciate every word of this. these are the more important parts that can take a great game to the actual sales floor, and the part many developers aren't great at. we aren't all people people ya know.

Interesting talk! I guess my takeaway is confirmation of what I had already gathered: if you feel you need to "pitch" your game to a 3rd party to pay for developing it, you are very likely attempting to punch so far above your weight class that you are undermining your chance to succeed.

Haha, "don't be an asshole"... We can file that in the same place as the 'take a shower' category, under "things we shouldn't have to tell people but unfortunately we sometimes do".

10:54 WOW a flash from the past... Art from the original pamphlet 1970's D&D...

Man, if these are the kinds of narcs who make games then it makes me feel like even _I_ could make a good game.

Very helpful most of the points are known to me but they way he is taking time to explain why those slected ones are importaint adds special meaning im somewhat of a game designer and this brings bit of a new light into my insight of development

"I got my 5 minute warning, but luckily there's only 2 more points so it'll be fine" goes on for 10 more minutes with Q&A after lol

I have a game pitch: Red dead redemption but you play as the racoon pelt.

Anybody riffing on this guy for saying "Don't pitch your monetization scheme", missed the point. Monetization is usually the job of the publisher, not the game designer. There are numerous anecdotes from game designers about how they begrudgingly added micro-transactions in their games by request of the publisher, especially for single player games. You're job when pitching a game is giving the publisher something that consumers want, not what they want, because the publisher wants the consumer's money.

This is so interesting and has so many great points that can apply to more than just games. I really enjoy that the part where he mentions rainbow 6 @36:05 - wanting an fps that didn't require twitch reflexes but patience. I remember playing one of the early rainbow six games on console - renting it after seeing a trailer - and then me and friend unhappy with how difficult and different it was compared to other shooter currently out there.

Complaint #1: Stop hiring movie writers to write your game's story. Those stories should be written by people who understand risk/reward mechanics. In other words, don't give the player the Sword of Infinite Power on level 1, just because you wanted to show off a cool cutscene and were afraid that noobs would get bored.

Incredible and helpful talk. Thank you!

I really love this talk. It motivates me every time I start a new project.

"Let the hate begin"? If anybody has a game to pitch to a company and find hate towards this list of help then that person has no place pitching anything in the first place. This should be the most useful list video any aspiring game creator could ever watch.

What he said in the beginning, applies to sooooo many things in the world. Like when you turn in a resume, for you its like 20 or so you turn in, but the recruiter sees like 50 a day. You are also not the only one who thinks that just showing up and asking makes a good impression, it doesnt, there are almost daily people coming in. You are not the only one making that (dad)joke. You are not the only one hitting on that girl. You are not the only one having the next great idea. You are not even the only one with THAT idea. People it is incredibly hard to be "different" and when you think you are different, there is a chance that someone else is just as "different" as you are. I started making so many games I thought were totally unique, but because I was by myself, it took a looong time and looked crappy. When I was done it looked like a rip off of a similar game. They didnt copy me, I didnt copy them, they just had the same idea, more manpower and experience. I am programming now software solutions for multiple businesses, as an employee. And honestly, they all think they need that super indiviual software, and actually it all is kinda the same. I mean we also create websites and many of them just look alike. But not because we tell them that they have to look like this, but because they want it like this. Like one pagers, where there is only a landingpage and that is the whole website. I think it is stupid because often you have to scroll like 30 seconds to get to the bottom. But they love it and think it is totally unique. So yeah, dont expect to be the only one with an idea or a pitch. But try to be THE best of all those pitches/applications/jokes/flirts etc.

Respect to this guy for listing 18 things before the true behemoth: the in-game pricing model. Everything else nowadays pales in comparison.

Terrific presentation. Show respect to the guy for offering real, tangible tips that can be used to improve pitches. I'm involved in other, non-game creative endeavours and so many of the "creative" types won't listen to useful advice to make their output better.

This is helpful for making a game in terms of avoiding design mistakes, above and beyond pitch mistakes.

Kudos to you my man.