The Human Body Presentation and Rambling

Hey,

Today my group got to presented our game to a panel. The first day of presentations our class had a developer from EA with a few years experience and a video game analyst who has studied the industry for many years and has years of experience. The second day of presentations we were supposed to get a past editor of Computer Gaming World and been a part of the video game industry for a lot of his professional life. He was unfortunately unable to make it and instead two graduate students sat in for him.

The project is very similar to one I have done before so I had some experience before we started it. The assignment is to write up a concept document for an original video game idea then to pitch the idea to a group of panelists. My past experience was a good one. I enjoyed working on an original video game idea with a group of people but not everyone was excited and enthusiastic as I was. Also during the pitch I realized how hard it was to explain a full AAA title to a group of people who had not participated in the design process. It was even harder because the game was not even fully fleshed out in our minds, the actual designers! For this time around I decided to design a flash game with a significantly smaller scope and planned it as a student developed project.

I feel like the concept document came out better this time then it did the last. The handicap of having students who are not as excited and enthusiastic as me was significantly lessened because I made the game design one that anyone could understand. It was very easily translated into a language that a non-video game player. I did this with the thought in mind that for the presentation I would easily be able to explain our idea making it hard for the panel to find faults in our core concept.

On the first day of presentations the core concept is exactly what the panelists focused on. They might have commented on the details but they focused on the core concepts. One of the panelists went so far as to award the game that he thought was the worst simply because they did the best job of communicating their core concept across. He brought up a very stark fact, of the video game industry, that a lot of the executives in charge, of deciding which games are made, are not gamers.

On the second day of presentations the graduate students did not focus on the core concepts. They focused on the details and the flimsy details of what the games would be. I've heard all of the pitches twice and still had only vague ideas of what the core game play was for some of the games. The graduate students have the same optimism as many of the students and did not focus on the fact that the game play was never really explained. It was really frustrating to watch and to deal with. At the end the other two games were chosen as better presentations and better games.

I've been trying to take an outside approach as to why my game was not liked. The only conclusion that I have made is the one I made before. The difference between an experienced game developer and an unexperienced one is that an experienced developer knows the reality of the video game industry. They realize that good game play is the core of making good games. They also realize that explaining what game they are making is the most important skill to have. I am still extremely optimistic for the video game industry but I accept and am excited to work to overcome the harsh realities. The other students that understand this are the ones I like talking to and enjoy working with.

Cyaz