Where should I continue to advance in getting published?
by Neill Silva · in General Discussion · 06/29/2008 (6:42 pm) · 5 replies
Hey all,
Me and my indie team have been working on the development of an AAA MMO. We are currently working on obtaining financing from a publisher to fund the game, and have roughly worked out how much we need. We have been contacting concept artists for hire through their portfolios, and I am currently writing the GDD 1st/2nd draft, which has currently 20 pages. The last thing we have been working on is our presentation to publishers. I was wondering, what else do you think we should be working on? Or should we just continue with what we are doing and go to as many publishers as possible? How do YOU personally contact them? I have contacted many people in the game development field, (Including publishers and artists) with no reply at all... Not even a simple response, which I find very unprofessional.
Thanks, Neill.
Me and my indie team have been working on the development of an AAA MMO. We are currently working on obtaining financing from a publisher to fund the game, and have roughly worked out how much we need. We have been contacting concept artists for hire through their portfolios, and I am currently writing the GDD 1st/2nd draft, which has currently 20 pages. The last thing we have been working on is our presentation to publishers. I was wondering, what else do you think we should be working on? Or should we just continue with what we are doing and go to as many publishers as possible? How do YOU personally contact them? I have contacted many people in the game development field, (Including publishers and artists) with no reply at all... Not even a simple response, which I find very unprofessional.
Thanks, Neill.
#2
06/29/2008 (7:36 pm)
Its a new team. We don't have to have a history to create something new. This isn't a matter of the company, its a matter of me asking how you (The GG community) see to getting publishing. 
#3
Along these lines, I had obtained an email addy and contacted a VP of a certain large publisher regarding my game. Threw the design doc at him, and made sure it had concept art and screenshots. Got back a no thanks as well as a "do not hesitate to contact us against in the future". That last translates roughly to: Nice idea, but it's way too early to even consider talking to you.
That's actually a good answer to get. But if you want to get your MMO off the ground, here's a few things I think would be considered good advice:
1) Just do it. Get a design together, then concepts, then get the rules tested, and then start getting content in place. You don't have to make the whole world, just a small portion that demonstrates what you'll have going on.
2) Forget AAA. Honestly, what makes AAA is not that they tried for AAA as much as they tried to make a great game. Have a great idea? Polish it like Blizzard polishes their games, and you'll have AAA. Throw a great idea together without polish, and people will want to mug you to get their money back. It's all about implementation.
3) Build a little bit of hype about it before you contact a publisher. Create a little buzz. Do an interview for one of these MMO sites to preview what you're doing (with a screenshot that shows it working).
4) Line up ducks. Aim. Fire...
5) If #4 doesn't work, you can always self-fund, and there's a few ways to do that as well...
Hope that helps.
06/29/2008 (8:03 pm)
@Neill: Do you have screenshots to show? If not, don't expect a reply. Sorry to say, but even if your idea is really great, people want to know that you can finish it. And nothing says you have the willpower than showing that you're doing the work with or without them. It's hard, but that's something that works in your favor.Along these lines, I had obtained an email addy and contacted a VP of a certain large publisher regarding my game. Threw the design doc at him, and made sure it had concept art and screenshots. Got back a no thanks as well as a "do not hesitate to contact us against in the future". That last translates roughly to: Nice idea, but it's way too early to even consider talking to you.
That's actually a good answer to get. But if you want to get your MMO off the ground, here's a few things I think would be considered good advice:
1) Just do it. Get a design together, then concepts, then get the rules tested, and then start getting content in place. You don't have to make the whole world, just a small portion that demonstrates what you'll have going on.
2) Forget AAA. Honestly, what makes AAA is not that they tried for AAA as much as they tried to make a great game. Have a great idea? Polish it like Blizzard polishes their games, and you'll have AAA. Throw a great idea together without polish, and people will want to mug you to get their money back. It's all about implementation.
3) Build a little bit of hype about it before you contact a publisher. Create a little buzz. Do an interview for one of these MMO sites to preview what you're doing (with a screenshot that shows it working).
4) Line up ducks. Aim. Fire...
5) If #4 doesn't work, you can always self-fund, and there's a few ways to do that as well...
Hope that helps.
#4
If you are looking for investors who 1) know that there's big money in games and 2) haven't broached that market yet, then one of the first big things that it is important to have is an excellent artistic piece to showoff your team's talent. Showing something technically very, very cool can get investors to actually listen to what you're saying and allow you a pitch.
If you're dealing with industry vets, then you're target will probably be bit different. They like pretty pictures and movies (we all like pretty pictures and movies), but being in the industry also like to see things like working prototypes that show that your team is technically competent to create something so large. As you know, MMO's are huge and content-heavy, not just in terms of artwork but in terms of code and knowledge. In gamedev, you often have to be an expert at a large number of things, and in MMO tech, you have to be an expert in even more things because you get to add advanced database management, extremely strong netcode experience, etc to the list. And experienced publishers know that and will want to see an extremely workable plan of action for things like redundancy and patch management, datacenter design layouts, etc. Because downtime costs them money in a MMO world, and all of those areas can lead to potential downtimes.
Just a couple of things I've heard mentioned in the past about people who actually got a meeting and pitched a MMO.
06/30/2008 (7:23 am)
There's a ton of advice to give, and most of it will be slivers that you can't get off from under your skin as you work on this. I'd strongly recommend going through Jeff Tunnell's Make it Big in Games blog and reading through some of the business-oriented sections for some extremely good advice. There is some good stuff in the business section of Gamasutra as well that will help you. I've included a couple of thoughts that I've collected from teams that have pitched MMO's before, but it's mostly outside of my realm of experience, so take what you can and discard the rest.If you are looking for investors who 1) know that there's big money in games and 2) haven't broached that market yet, then one of the first big things that it is important to have is an excellent artistic piece to showoff your team's talent. Showing something technically very, very cool can get investors to actually listen to what you're saying and allow you a pitch.
If you're dealing with industry vets, then you're target will probably be bit different. They like pretty pictures and movies (we all like pretty pictures and movies), but being in the industry also like to see things like working prototypes that show that your team is technically competent to create something so large. As you know, MMO's are huge and content-heavy, not just in terms of artwork but in terms of code and knowledge. In gamedev, you often have to be an expert at a large number of things, and in MMO tech, you have to be an expert in even more things because you get to add advanced database management, extremely strong netcode experience, etc to the list. And experienced publishers know that and will want to see an extremely workable plan of action for things like redundancy and patch management, datacenter design layouts, etc. Because downtime costs them money in a MMO world, and all of those areas can lead to potential downtimes.
Just a couple of things I've heard mentioned in the past about people who actually got a meeting and pitched a MMO.
#5
07/19/2008 (8:35 pm)
Neill, my advice is to attend game conferences specifically for the MMO industry. This will give you the opportunity to meet key players, learn from your peers, and create a plan of action. 
Torque Owner Drew Robson
What projects has your team previously completed successfully? ie a track record.