Pitching Ideas At Gen Con Indy

teknoviking writes "Gen Con Indy is coming up on August 13-16th, and if you are planning on attending, especially if you have an idea you want to pitch to one (or many) of the vendors, artists, or developers at the Con, you should check out this great series of articles by writer and game designer Jess Hartley. She covers the basics of proper planning and making a good impression, and she has some practical tips about how to promote your idea, and what you should do to follow up afterward."

i've been wanting...

[pinkj]

to play a game where you're an insect in a realistic physical 3d environment. like being a fly in a bus. or an ant on a kitchen counter. i don't really care for goals other than having to eat, breed, compete for both and whatever else insects need to do. i'm sure someone has thought of this already.

Re:i've been wanting...

[jeblucas]

Yep. Been done. Mr. Mosquito [wikipedia.org] is actually very good.

Re:

[fooslacker]

Kinda like being a member of slashdot? ;)

Re:

[Yuioup]

Here's a game for your PC:

http://www.insectsinfestation.com/ [insectsinfestation.com]

Y

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[pinkj]

thank you! those two suggestions seem worthwhile.

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[ThinkTwicePostOnce]

Here's my free idea for GenCom:

Next time you bother to put together a web page for your convention, bother to include the location.

(It's Indiana, tho the art makes it look like Russia.)

Ideas are Cheap but Development Costs Money

[CodeBuster]

Almost anyone can have a "great idea" in gaming, but unless you have a proven track record with profitable games to your credit or have your own suitcases full of cash (or backers with same), why should they pay you simply for having an idea that probably isn't all that original? Its a bit cheaper when working with homebrew self-published pen and paper games; but competitive computer or console games cost tens of millions of dollars to produce and with credit being tougher to get now than at just about any other time since the modern game industry was founded, nobody wants to pay simply to hear your "great idea" for a game.

Re:Ideas are Cheap but Development Costs Money

[Trepidity]

Do you really need tens of millions of dollars? Sure, there are games that cost that, but plenty that don't. And we're talking indie games here, so presumably more of the latter. World of Goo is one recent example of a very successful game made for peanuts (supposedly $10k, plus free labor from the two founders). This year's Indie Game Festival winner, Blueberry Garden [wordpress.com], presumably didn't cost tens of millions either.

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[ZosoZ]

For a taster of the sort of games small teams (from one person up) are producing, including the aforementioned World of Goo and Blueberry Garden, Steam are offering a 10-pack of indie games on sale this weekend [steampowered.com]. World of Goo is absolute genius, more than worth the price of the whole pack itself in my opinion.

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[AP31R0N]

i played the demo of Blueberry Garden. Trippy... but awesome.

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[CastrTroy]

It doesn't have to cost a lot. World of Goo [ign.com] cost only $100,000 to make. Which sounds like a lot of money to some people, but is way less than the tens of millions of dollars that other games cost.

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[Anonymous Coward]

This is the exact reason why I started making my own game. Ive spent so much of my life playing games and wishing that they had such and such features, and so much of my life wishing that a such and such type game existed, I figured I might as well try and make it happen. Considering the near-impenetrability of the big games market and the scope of my own vision (Which probably wouldnt mesh well when having to deal with deadlines and marketers and such anyway) combined with my close to zero start up capital

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[Jeff DeMaagd]

I agree. Getting "big time" in any business takes a lot more than an idea. It takes a lot of determination and putting your own work into it. And frankly, a lot of ideas seem good to the person that came up with it. Sometimes there are problems with it not apparent to that person.

It's one thing to offer suggestions on how to improve their product, but they're probably not interested in hearing project ideas. For one, it opens up liability issues, they don't want to fend off claims that they took some s

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[Vahokif]

If ideas are a dime a dozen, why are games still full of utterly uninspired gameplay elements? (fetch quests for instance)

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[grumbel]

The issues isn't that ideas are worthless, but that its really hard to pick the good ideas out of all the crap that is out there. So people prefer to stick with ideas that somebody else has already proven in his product instead of trying something original themselves. A bad idea that is broken in known ways is just easier to work with then something completly original where you have no idea how it will impact the game.

Way too late

[Culture20]

Planning for Gencon started many months ago. Anyone changing plans now will screw themselves.

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[FlutterVertigo(gmail]

> So if I change my mind and decide to drive there - it's 20 miles from home - I'm screwing myself? ;)

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[dissy]

So if I change my mind and decide to drive there - it's 20 miles from home - I'm screwing myself? ;)

Yup! You just jinxed yourself into getting delayed in traffic a number of hours, and that guy you always hated at high school who makes sub-par games is going to land the contract you should have gotten if only you hadn't changed plans :(

Summary is worthless

[bigstrat2003]

TFS is very badly written, and misleading, FYI. TFA is actually about making some contacts at GenCon, in the hopes of finding a future job in the industry. It's not about "I have a cool idea for a game, who do I talk to?".