Tuesday 20 August 2013

7 elements of an effective pitching document that sells your game project


write a pitching document that hits.
If you are a game developer, you surely realize the importance of having a good pitching document in game project.

A good pitching document helps your team keep focus on key goals of the project. More importantly, a good pitching document helps you present your gam to others (including investors) as a professional and respectable product, even in the beginning phase of your project.

This article walks you step by step, showing the 7 key elements of an effective pitching document.


1, executive summary.
Executive summary should be no longer than 50 words. The essential information in this part includes: the title of the game, its genre, and the targeted audience. In addition, an introductory sentence on the conception of the game is also appropriate in this part.


2, audience analysis.
Even if you think your game will be fun for all ages and gender, you still need to define specifically a core audience: namely gender and age. Preferably, your game should target at 1 gender and the age range should be no more than 8 years.


3, story.
Every game, however simple, has a story behind it. The story set the tone and the general emotional appeal for your game. So, have a story for your game regardless which kind of game you are making.

For example: the story behind Starcrossed (BAFTA Winner of 2013: You guide a crash-landed astronaut back to his home planet.


4, competition analysis.
This part should be done visually by a table. You compare your game to other similar games in the market by defining 5-7 essential features of the game genre and deciding which features you provide and which ones you do not provide. This is important because it separate you from your competition, defining what make you different.

an example of a competition analysis table:

             Feature
Game
Feature 1
Feature 2
Feature 3
Feature 4
Feature 5
Your game

x

x

Competitor A
x
x

x

Competitor B


x
x
x



5, market analysis.
In market analysis, you explain why the game will succeed if developed and released now, in other words, making a case for your game. You should give examples of similar games which are already successful, and/or point out a specific plausible player desire that has not yet been fulfilled in the market.


6, game play.
Game play section tells what players will do in the game. This part should describe all features and activities in the game, very concisely, each feature and activity no more than one sentence/or even better bullet point.


7, budget and schedule.
The budget mentioned in this part is not necessarily the exact, real, final budget – that would be open to in-person negotiation. What should be specific in this part are:
[+] The number of team members.
[+] The time (in term of hours) devoted to the project.
These 2 factors will help later calculation of the budget.


Reference:                                                                                     

Credit must be given to several sources of professional game writing advice, including IGDA’s book ‘Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing’which I thoroughly recommend.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

About Goldie

Goldie/Golden is a business strategist at Critical Force Entertainment (a game company far north in the middle of wilderness of Finland). His job is to bring the addictive shooting game Critical Missions to players, to keep the players happy, and show the world realize how great the game are.

This blog exists to fulfill his long-time hobby: to be a writer. To Golden, a writer writes what he enjoys writing, he writes what could inspire the readers, helping them live a better life. And that's what you will find here: ideas to live a good life, (in form of articles, or some drawing), ideas you shouldn't miss, ideas you should be reminded to live by more often..

Enjoy your visit here and have a good day!


Emerson on Quotation 'I hate quotations..'


Thursday 1 August 2013

HOW TO THINK MORE EFFECTIVELY ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS: using a free and simple, yet powerful and practical tool




This tool is completely free, all it requires is one page of paper and a pen. Yet, despite its simplicity, the tool is extremely useful. Harvard Business School advocates the tool, considering it a better way to think about business. Millions of entrepreneurs embrace this tool because of its effectiveness. They even create a entrepreneurship competition with this tool as the main platform to present ideas.

This tool helps you:

  • See how different aspects of your business related to each others. 
  •            Understand what the most important things in your business are. This helps you focus your attention at the right place.
  •       Grasp the big picture of your business in just one page. This helps you assess the chance for success of your plan.
and if you have ideas for start-up, there is no better way to plan your start-up by using this tool..

…and the tool is BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS, take a look  at the video below, in just 3 minutes, you will understand why this tool is extremely useful:



Below is a summary of 9 building blocks of the Business Model Canvas, regarding specifically the case for a small game start-up:

THE 9 BUILDING BLOCK OF A BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS.

1.      Know your customer (Customer segments): simply answer this question, Who is your customer? Who are you making games for?

2.      The game itself (Value proposition):  How will your game entertain the players? What will the players enjoy about your game?

3.      Be in touch with you fan (Customer relationship management). How will you ensure your customer is happy? By keep in touch with them. Communicate with your fan and make them feel appreciated.  Listening to their thoughts about your game. For example: what they like, what they don’t like, what they would like to have in your game.

4.      Channel. Channels you use to deliver to 2 things to your customer: 1) the game itself (in case of mobile game, the channel might be AppStore, Googleplay, etc.); 2) information/enticing press about your game to make people want your game. (the channel here includes your webpage, social media network, the press, word of mouths etc.).

5.      Know  where’s the money (Revenue stream): How will your game make money? Will it come from selling paid version of games; or free to play with in-app purchase, special premiums or any other ways?

6.      Key assets: what do you need to make your game and market it? You may need 3 things : 1) people (with their know-how),  2) technology (software, computers, devices), and 3) money.

7.      Key activities: In game business, this mostly involves 1) making excellent game based on what you know about your customer , 2) and bring it out there.

8.      Key partnerships: In certain situation, you may consider creating alliance with other business to gain access to particular resources or reduce risk.


9.      Cost (Cost structure). creating and delivering product, nourishing customer relationship, earning revenue, all of these costs money. They define your cost structure, together with the forecast revenue, you’d know if you make money with your game or not.

WHAT YOU MAY DO NOW TO TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF THIS TOOL:


1, Go to the business model generation website. download the Business Model Canvas. Use it to describe an existing business, your business, or your start-up plan. You will have fun once you are familiar with it.

2, You might also want to find and read the book from which this Business Model Canvas comes from. There are plenty more insights of how to use the tool in the book ”Business Model Generation”




References:
  1. Harvard Business Review webpage. http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/a_better_way_to_think_about_yo.html
  2.  Business Model Competition webpage. http://www.businessmodelcompetition.com/
  3. Ostervalder,A. & Pigneur, Y. Business Model Generation. 2010. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New Jersay.


Friday 28 June 2013

mind and umbrella




My first post, hope you enjoy it with an open mind.

'In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.' _Shunryu Suzuki.

To keep an open and receptive mind is not only a nice thing to do, it's also crucial to success and happiness in life. It helps you see reality as it is. That's the beginning of everything else, seeing life as it is, you'd stop running blindly in wrong directions and enter the right path - your right path.
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