(c) copyright 1998 Noah Falstein

Working as the main reviewer of external proposals for companies like LucasArts Entertainment, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive, one starts to see certain patterns in submissions. The first logical assumption is that people send in proposals in order to get their games published, but after many years in the business I finally realized that the opposite must be true. Why else would so few proposals have any merit? Why else would so many people show so many hopeless concepts? Now that I’ve seen the light, I thought it was fitting to share what I’ve learned by reviewing hundreds of proposals. Even though many of these examples are drawn from real life, few pitches manage to incorporate more than a handful of them. Perhaps you can be the first to include every one!

If you like, just forget the design document. It’s just a lot of work, and why should you bother? If your idea alone isn’t worth a $500K advance and half the profits, you’re obviously dealing with the wrong publisher.

If you’ve started a design document, make sure it’s incomplete. Don’t include any detail, just gloss over how you’ll do most things. You can always figure it out later when you have the advance dollars.

If you're concerned about a very short document, pad it out by going into extreme detail over meaningless backstory features. In fact, writing a detailed world-background with story and characters for the manual of your Tetris-clone is sure to make your proposal stand out.

If you’re doing a story-based game like an Adventure game or RPG, stick with the classics. Everyone loves Dungeons and Dragons, and recycling their recycled Tolkien character types and situations will ensure you a large audience. Make sure your game offers nothing that can't already be found on the market - there's no arguing with success!

Don’t look at any other games of this genre. After all, you don’t want your creativity to be contaminated.

Be sure to mention that your game's features are unique, particularly if they’re not. Maybe the publisher hasn't played many games either.

The previous two points can be combined for extra credit. "This game includes new, unique features not ever before seen in computer games. In fact, I have had the original idea to design this game specifically to be fun, and I would love to play it even though I have never liked any other computer games or played any since Pac-Man."

Mention how your game will have the best features of every successful game of every genre on the market. Extra points if the features are mutually contradictory, like "the simplest interface yet" and "47 different display modes with keyboard overlays and joystick and mouse required".

You can also impress the publisher with your market research. "I know this game will sell well because I've talked to all of my friends and they both said they'd probably buy it!"

Don't worry about exact counts of anything. For example, feel free to title a section "50 critical features" and then only put in 32 actual features. No one bothers to count these things.

If you have no programming background, describe the most impressive functionality you can imagine and just presume the technical details can be handled later. If the publisher calls you on it later, you can always accuse them of lying in order to help their negotiation stance.

If you do have programming background, don’t try to make a game that takes advantage of it. Where’s the challenge? If you’ve only done 2D graphics displays previously, design for 3D. If you’ve never done AI coding, make sure you include "fully realistic humans with fuzzy logic modeling" in your spec.

The same is true of artists - if you hire someone for your 3D monster animation who has only done acrylic landscape painting before, just think of the new creative potential you may be tapping into!

Make sure you aim at a target machine that is either low-end, like a 25 Mhz 486 (to tap into the increasingly overlooked Windows 2.0 market), or high-end, like a 450 Mhz PII with dual graphics accelerators, to really show off what you can do. Who wants to cater to the boring middle of the road?

Assume your technical experts know much more than anyone the publisher has in-house. Whether or not it’s true, how can a publisher respect you if you ever defer to their judgement?

Insist that the publisher sign your own very stringent one-way NDA (non-disclosure agreement). They'll tell you that you have to sign theirs, but it's only a ploy to steal your ideas.

Make a point of seeing whatever you can of the publisher’s private plans. Peer into offices uninvited, look at whiteboards and write down anything you see. You never know when it might come in handy.

Tell the publisher how they screwed up on all their previous games, and how yours is the only one that can save their terrible reputation. Extra points for making faces whenever the publisher mentions one of their own games.

Be sure to take an insulting and arrogant tone when talking about any successful games in the same genre, e.g. "Our game will be much more user-friendly and hence sell more units than that botched abortion ‘Myst’."

Don’t bother asking how long the publisher has to listen to your pitch. Just jump right into the details - how could anyone resist once you’ve begun?

Show up fashionably late for your meeting. The following week is good. It shows you're not impressed.

If you have a playable demo, don’t bring your own computer or ask the publisher about their system beforehand. After all, if they can’t find a system and set it up instantly, you probably don’t want to work with them anyway.

Build a sense of urgency so the publisher doesn't sit on your proposal. For example, "I need to sign the deal and get funding by the end of this week, but it's not because our programmer will accept a real job by then, it's only because we're eager to get started right away!"

Figure out how much it will cost you to make the game (back of an envelope is the tried and true method) and either quote 4x the figure (you have to make a profit somehow!) or ¼ the figure (get the publisher hooked first, you can always ask for more money later, like next week).

If you're fresh out of envelopes, don't worry. Just make up a number, and if the publisher asks you how you arrived at it, frown and say, "Trade secret!".

At the end of the meeting, be sure to ask for the development money in full up front, particularly if it's over a million dollars. You don't want to be inconvenienced if the publisher goes out of business.

Don’t come to the publisher with a team that has worked together before. Surely the boredom of familiar co-workers will offset any advantages the experience brings you.

When putting together your team, grab whoever is available even if they don’t have the right skills. Having the warm bodies must count for something.

Don’t include anyone with prior game development experience. They’ll probably just tell you you’re making a mistake in that hidebound, narrow-focused way of theirs.

Don’t let the publisher assign a producer to work with you. They’ll just meddle in your fun. This is particularly true if you don't have your own experienced producer.

If there’s a lot of dialog in your game, don’t bother trying to get an experienced writer. Your lead tester who’s always wanted to write comic books is probably good enough. He’ll certainly be cheaper, and the publisher will appreciate that.

Don't bother getting a "game designer". Everyone on your team is sure to have ideas, and having one person coordinate them all will just quash their creativity.

If you follow these simple steps, I guarantee you’ll manage to keep from getting your game published. These methods have worked for thousands before you, and (sigh) will undoubtedly work for thousands more! But if you rashly ignore this advice and manage to avoid all of these tried and true techniques, don't blame me if you find a publisher!

Send mail to webmaster@theinspiracy.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: March 18, 2006