Week 15: Readings

GDW Chapter 16: Selling Yourself and Your Ideas to the Game Industry (p481—495)

This chapter focuses on the 3 different paths to work in the game industry which are: 

1. Getting a job at a publisher or developer 

In my opinion, this seemed to the most obvious and logical way, at least for Game Design students. Assuming that one is already interested in games, some of the things mentioned in the chapter, like playing games and following news about games, would be something that's they are doing most of the time. What's interesting to me in this part of the readings is the part about networking and conferences to create connections. It seems to me that, more than the ability to creat games, one should also know how to communicate and present themselves well, as well as make preparations outside of just a portfolio in order to help create those connections. Moreover, as the chapter mentioned, not every interactions will result to something, but the more interactions that happened, the higher the possibilities of hearing something back would be. I think that, during the wait for the responses, one can also try out the latter methods that are mentioned in the chapter as well.

2. Pitching and selling an original idea to a publisher 

It seems that the most important things to consider for this method is to prepare adequate materials, as well as make them as professional as possible. For this method, I think that one should have an extremely clear and detailed vision of their games in order for the pitch to also be clear. Rather than just creating content for a pitch, one should create the game (or the prototype), as well as the various designs within the game first, before refining them and focus the main elements into the pitch. Although the chance is low, I think that having more than enough materials will greatly benefit if the publishers happen to contact back. One other thing the I think would be useful to know for this method is that one should know how that certain publisher operate and what kind of works they do etc... This is so that the pitch can be made specifically to how that certain company would like/expect it to be.

3. Producing your ideas independently

Although the apparent downside of this method is the limited resources, whether it is money or people, it is the option where the game designer's ideas can grow the most. Since the designer is the owner of the project, they can explore into their own area of interests and create anything kind of games they want. In addition, I think that this option gives the designer to explore other fields beside games, while still make games as well. For example, while experimental games may not be picked up by big publishers to create a game commercially, they can be shown in museums or interactive spaces instead. In my opinion, passion, as well as the ability to plan and stay on task will be very important for this method, because there's no one giving out orders, deadlines, or any payments (at least not until something is released). 

I think that, depending on what each person's goal is, one method would be more suitable than others, and the is no one set way to go about it.