Finding a publisher: Live Q&A

all right I think we are live with Jason here let's see um people are starting to roll in I see some numbers in there so come on in say hello welcome this is the uh live webinar for pitching master class let me turn this down a little bit um it's a Friday hopefully in your your neck of the woods I don't know where you are but how about we do this this what we're going to do is um in the comments I would like everybody who's participating to say hello and then link to whatever you want to pitch uh share what it is we're all we're doing some pitching today we're going to be talking about how to pitch how to get Publishers so I want you to pitch your project little blurb what it is unique selling proposition link to your steam page we don't care we're not censoring you can just you can just put well we are censoring don't put bad stuff in there I guess but you can put whatever ever you

want you want to link to your page do it we're there's there's no limits on self-promo here we're all here to promote each other back each other up thank you for showing up I hope everything looks good here I see a bunch of hellos post your stuff now um we're going to be getting started in a little bit so post your links while we're waiting for everybody to kind of roll in I already see about 200 people in the meeting that is amazing so what we're going to be doing is um just kind of be going through um let me give you a little preview of what's going on uh we're going to start with this kind of like intro people posting theel promo we're going to switch it over to Jason actually I think Jason's over here it depends on which Square I'm in so Jason over here is gonna give you in a little bit a little demo of himself little bio and then he's going to kind of tell you what we're seeing with the pitching right now it's crazy time so he's going to kind of give some uh kind of background of what mistakes Indies typically make when they're going for pitching and and trying to get

Publishers or trying to get funding he's going to go through all of that and then we are just going to open it up answer some questions uh so here is how questions will work you can start now with your questions there's a tab up at the top called questions I think Q&A Q&A only the only part is the important part so put your q and your a in the only Tab and I will be moderating them I'll be looking at those questions that I think are good and then I'll be asking Jason Jason will be giving his um his honest thoughts on those so do that you can chat whatever you want in the main tab just the Q&A tab leave that nice and clean only q's and A's um so let's get going here um let's see hopefully we get some more good questions um let's see here you might again this is me from a different angle so what we're doing here is um I think what we're doing is I'm trying to have two

computers moderating so uh if you hear a little Echo that's me from two different angles that was the worm eye view of Chris ukasi if you've ever always wanted to know with the worm eye view big man view all right so um the other reason we're doing this so let's get started here the reason we're doing this is a couple reasons okay one it's rough out there folks stuff's crazy I don't even to tell you that it's just crazy going on right now pitching is hard funds are locking down we need all the help we can get Jason X is an expert at this stuff and we'll we'll get to Jason in a second but what we also did was Jason and I put together this course it's the pitching and funding master class I call Early Access we'll get to that what that is we are starting uh today is the launch day of it this is a separate thing it's a full online class um that'll walk you through all of this but what we thought i'' do is just like a free part just in the beginning just to kind of like introduce what how you pitch the basics

of it that's what we're going to be doing today totally free um so let's take it away Jason who are you what's going on tell us about yourself yeah you keep you keep turning it's yeah it's fun uh well Chris thank thanks so much uh um you know always love to see the the golden mic in action uh always a pleasure to to work with you and stuff so so yeah I'm Jason uh and it's actually nice I I see a bunch of familiar faces in the in the chat so it's great to see uh folks that I I know already for those who don't know know me I've been in the game industry it's over 25 years I think it's 27 years now so I'm an old old dude and the vast majority of the time has really been working with Indies uh to help them succeed uh we ran an incubator called execution lab some some years ago and invested in a bunch of studios in Canada the US and and Europe uh and and really you know deal a lot of stuff to help

them succeed grow his businesses uh and uh and a lot of that involved pitching we also had a big co-working space in Indie support Hub in Montreal called gameplay space uh where we housed over 120 Indie developers uh and uh you know I I kind of fed everyone their business broccoli and and and pitching and learning to pitch and all the skills around pitching in Business and Entrepreneurship was was a big part of what we did at game playay Space really encouraging uh developers you know not only to make great awesome fun beautiful games but also to you know make money and succeed uh and and you know pay their staff and put food on the table um and uh then I do a bunch of advisory work and Consulting work with Studios all over the world with other incubators all over the world uh and really really do work with folks uh to kind of solve this uh pitching challenge but but but broadly it's more about you know creating games that have commercial intent that can succeed find the partners you need etc etc so that's the

the super kind of high level background on who I am and and and uh the other thing and Chris mention this is we wanted to time this with GDC of course because a bunch of folks go to GDC it's kind of uh you know the big pilgrimage down there to San Francisco to try to hustle and Chase Publishers and platforms and investors uh and and you're investing so much time and so much resources and so much energy into going down to GDC that we want to give everyone a bit of a leg up uh and ensure they maximize the potential of being down there for the Big Show uh and this GDC will be my 27th GDC straight GDC been to 27 GDC yeah so uh always always excited to go back uh uh even though it's you know it'll be the 27th time it always feels so fresh so exciting so new uh and always a great time to to go to G there are probably people on this call that aren't even 27 years old Jason uh

you've been you've been dcing before they were born so yeah yeah well guaranteed there's people that are are are younger than than 27 here so so yes as I said I'm old well great intro thank you Jason so here's what's going to happen is I just want to know from Jason like what are the big mistakes that people make what what what should we be thinking of from now let's pretend that we've got somebody who's on this call who is going to GDC they've got a game they're getting ready they need funding they've put some prototype together they have some Pitch materials um there's still a little bit of time to get stuff ready before GDC it's not set in stone yet what are the mistakes you see that you would warn against that somebody could fix now in time for like GDC and doing some of these publisher pitches yeah well I mean uh I think almost every answer I'll give you will be like you know hey we cover that in in the master class but you know just as of a as a

kind of high level preview I mean the first mistake that I see is really that developers don't understand that what they are pitching is the business case of their game not just the game so many developers are you know their heads down they're working on their on their on their Amazing Creation you know wrestling with all the technical art design music all that kind of stuff and then when they come up for air to go pitch what they think they to do is just share how amazing what they're doing is and how beautiful it is and how well-designed it is how Technical and and while that's part of it a publisher an investor a platform yes they want to understand okay what's this cool game you're working on but they also want to understand what's the business case you know H what's the budget what's the likely Revenue what's the timeline who's the audience uh you know what what traction have you already generated in the marketplace do you have wish list do you already have fol folks following you on Twitter and in your

Discord is there some evidence that the market wants this game uh and so I think I think this this challenge of I'm pitching not just my cool game but the business case of my cool game for many developers is like a gear shift that they haven't yet made and related to that is have I done any Market validation have have I you is my steam page already up in collecting wish lists and demonstrating there's demand for the game and and I would say that this is a shift that has been occurring in the past couple of years uh and even more so given the kind of the crappy 2023 we had where the Publishers are putting more burden on the developer to demonstrate that the audience is there so so for example five years ago there was no expectation that your steam page would be up I mean may maybe you would maybe not what but there

was no expectation that it would be up and that you'd have wish whereas now so many of of the Publishers will say hey Chris you know how many wish lists you got and yeah they're already asking you and yeah well exact yeah so so so there's I I call this a shift of Burden there's a shift of Burden onto the developer to already demonstrate there's an audience one way to do that is to have wish lists another way is to have you know lots of Discord members or followers on your Twitter or news you know newsletter subscribers all these other sort of forms of of evidence or social proof um but any so that that's kind of one one major mistake uh is just sort of going into the pitch thinking I just have to tell them how cool my game is and and and and that'll speak for itself and sadly that that's not really really the case so that's kind of maybe big mistake number one another big big big mistake is uh that the build of your game the the the

status of your game is is not good enough that that you know you're doing some very early rough prototyping maybe you have a full gdd and some nice concept art and you're okay let's go and pitch and see if we can get some money for this and and oftentimes the best outcome of that first pitch is okay Chris great job you know I like it send me the build and and and and if you're like oh well crap the build's too janky it's just you know squares and circles and a on a gray box grid and you know the networking code's not there like then then they're like Well why'd you get me all excited you know come back in six months when you've got the build ready so so I often consider often I I always consider a solid build as part of the pitch materials it's not just my you know shiny pitch deck is I I have to have the build of the game ready ready to go and

and as part of that uh you want to make sure that the things that are unique about your game that are kind of your hooks or your unique selling points are are demonstrated and functional in the build that you send and I I'll give you an example that came up literally yesterday I was advising a developer either going to I mean exactly true they're going to GDC they were showing me their stuff and and I'm like what's the status of the build and it was a it was like a online multiplayer game you know imagine it was rocket League just you know just to visualize something but the but the networking wasn't working it was just you know a car kicking a ball into a net you know rough cool but I'm like what do you mean the networking codee's not working it's it's like the whole thing is that it's multiplayer online like how can it like oh well it's going to take time it's not ready you know we've never done that before and so we didn't want to tackle it and and

listen if you tell when you tell that to the publisher they're going to say well listen what like we got to see the net code working like you're not ready to be pitching until you can give them a version of the game where online multiplayer is functioning since that's such a core element of the game when it shifts so so there there there's a there's a this kind of balance of of how robust is the build of the game or the vertical slice or the Prototype whatever you want to call it and does it does it demonstrate those key things otherwise you're just going to get pushed back say okay Chris come back later when you got that working because otherwise I don't believe that it's going to work so so stuff around the build I think is another another big mistake another one is presenting options to the publisher and and and I see this all the time where developers like why I don't know what the publisher is going to want

do they want the version of the game with Co-op or is single player good enough or do they want the long version or the short version do they want the you know the 3D version or the 2D ver oh we don't know we don't know and then you like pitch the publisher a set of options and the publisher is like it's your game you know you you you should know what this game is don't ask me you know the choices and I think in part it comes down to uh you know lack of Confidence from the developer saying like gez I I don't know I don't know you know what's going to do better or whatever um and and you know you just you just have to figure out what game are you making and pitch that game with full confidence uh and the publisher is is is sort of waiting to see that passion and that confidence from you not you know hey do you want this version or that version like like don't don't present the options so even if internally back at the shop the team is

debating and not quite sure are we going to make it cell shaded versus real like when you go pitch pitch as if you 100% know what you're pitching again even though you're still debating back at the shop don't don't pitch the debate just pitch you know the game with full full confidence so I said that's kind of like a big number three uh and then and then the next oh we lost Chris oh I'm I'm still here I just made the star I just made you the star of the show I was enjoying your like your body reactions but um okay so the next two are kind of uh uh you know budget related one of them is that developers will often trim their budget they'll be like oh you know maybe if I I ask for a million dollars that's too much you know okay I'll trim that down and ask for 600 and maybe now I'll look like a good deal or or or I need 500 to do the game but

that seems too too high okay I'll trim it to 300 and maybe like you know now they'll see me as a good deal or whatever and and don't do that right you you should you should ask for the money that you actually need to produce the game so don't kind of uh you know steal money from yourself in that sense um but also the publisher is not usually trying to get a bargain right they're optimizing for Success they're they're picking the games and the developers that they believe can deliver the greatest level of sales you the best game that will sell the most get best reviews stream you all that kind of good stuff so if they believe that your game has a strong business case and will be one of those winners then they're not going to mind paying the budget you need to make that winning game they're not going to say well what if we shave a bit here and shave a bit there that's actually a red flag and and sort of something you

should walk away from uh but just as the reason is again the Publishers is optimizing for winning they're optimizing for success and so you have to present a game that can bring that success and if that and if that budget is 600 then it's 600 it's not you know nickel and dimed and trimmed and shaved to to to get uh you know down to a lower number now that being said some Publishers do have like a Max you you have some of the more Boutique small scale Indie Publishers and the most they can sign is 200,000 for example then you have you know the next tier up they'll do 500 the next tier up maybe is a million and then I don't know if you go to EA Originals or whatever that's you know 50 million or some crazy high number um so fine there's a reality there that if you need absolutely 3 million to do your game well the number of Publishers writing $3 million checks is just a much smaller list so kind of

be be mindful of that and then the other one and maybe we'll kind of end on this a common mistake and then and then go go to the questions Chris but um be careful that you are not pitching a break even uh uh offer and I'll see this all the time where the developer does not connect the dots between the slide that is the budget and the slide that is like the Market potential and it sounds crazy but on one slide they'll talk about okay I need a million dollars and this is where the money is going to be used and here's the timeline and you know all the stuff where the budget's going million dollars and then a couple of slides later it'll be like well here's our our our guess at the market we see these other you know our competition and you know these are the average units sold for this genre and the developer kind of you know makes an attempt to demonstrate the market potential and like they'll have you know estimated outcome $1

million and then it's like well hold a second on the previous slide you told me you needed a million to make this game and now on this later slide you're telling me your best guess is that the game will make about a million bucks and I said we're losing money because the game's going to make a million steam's going to keep 30% and then we've got a split so so like we're all losing money in this proposition so um it's one of those those tricky things that it's hard to make estimates and and and do the compe analysis of course this is something that is covered in the course but but but it's but it's something I see so often and even to this day where literally the pitch is proposing a loss and and since we said at the beginning of course that Publishers investors are in it to make money and it's the business case you've just you've just presented a losing business case no matter how beautiful fun in inovative your your game is you're kind of showing

them that the most likely outcome is going to be in the red so so those are you know I I can go on and on and on Chris uh maybe those are just some some of the kind of uh high level common mistakes that I I see well thank you so much Jason yeah yeah I I really appreciate you uh kind of going through that as you can see Jason is an expert at stuff he really could go on and on and on I know because I helped edit the videos and uh the guy the guy is great um okay so here's what we're going to do now thanks for the the quick common mistakes Jason we're going to go to your questions so take this time right now to type in your questions in there now one of the questions I was previewing while Jason was talking um I was previewing some of the questions and people were asking is this going to be recorded and I didn't wear my shirt I almost did I just kind of keep this on the side yes this will be recorded I'm going to put this on YouTube it will be recorded everything I do in my life is recorded um but with that in mind if your

question is a proprietary like God I got this publisher they're on my ass about this stuff and I hate this publisher we're gonna read that on air so don't ask questions that have uh information that you wouldn't want uh shown to somebody so just a no government secrets this is all being recorded um now let me let me just go in real quick here um let me show you exactly what this course is so um while we're doing this so this course is is live like I just turned it on just before this meeting this is the first time you're seeing it um we call it the the pitching and funding master class and you'll notice I did Early Access Jason and I raced as hard as we could to get this out in time for GDC because you need it now because you need to start reaching out to Publishers to start booking meetings like my calendar is already full for GDC so we want to get this out so this course tells you how to reach out to Publishers what they want to hear how you connect to them how you set up the meetings what do you do in the me meetings and uh so it's on sale right now just turned it on if you

go to I think there's an offers tab somewhere off to the side if you click it you can see this I'm I'm doing a special deal because this is the launch and it's early access I'm knocking a hundred bucks off because we're doing Early Access now this course we're building it with you now the whole thing let me let me let me flip over to um the curriculum so this is the actual curriculum and it's each one of these is a lecture that Jason has done um again this guy knows everything about pitching so it is very long we cover every aspect that you're going to need to know um we we cover like how to reach out to Publishers what the pitch deck should look like what the minute by minute of what the meeting is going to be like when you sit down the doors Clos and it's you and a publisher face to face and you've got to convince them we go through what that looks like what happens there um a couple other special things that we're doing for this class that I really like is this time next week in one week's time Jason is going

to do another live session just like what we're doing now but it's only for people who've signed up for this for the course um what he's going to do is you submit your pitch deck materials and he will do a live critique kind of like he said uh where he looked at the slides like a million dollars here and a million dollars there he'll catch those things that are like a little bit crazy that are red flags same thing with the uh the the team pitching a multiplayer and the multi player wasn't quite working he's seen it all so um when you set up this is totally free once you buy the class this uh free pitch covering and then the other special thing that we're doing because we're trying to build it with all of you because this is Early Access we both Jason and I are going to be at GDC hopefully we don't get Co like last time I did I missed GDC but we are going to do a live Meetup as well for everybody who took this course and we're going to do it like right in the middle of GDC like Wednesday and like hey how's it how's the pitching going out there how's the pitching kind of like a live Pit Stop like coach tall

timeout it's halftime it's halftime at GDC um again it's a totally free Meetup that we'll be doing if you're going to GDC and you buy the course it's only for people who buy the course um we're gonna just check in like is it going okay did did the class help you the coach coach and I'll rub your shoulders because I don't know this stuff Jason does I'll rub your shoulders if you if you consent I'll rub your shoulders while Jason kind of like you know cut Cuts your eyes like if you're in a boxing match or uh squirt water in your we're doing that mid GDC coaching we'll schedule it we we're still figuring out the times but it'll be on a Wednesday like right in the middle of GDC um if I mean still by the course if you're not going to GDC we're not going to tape it uh the shirt where's my shirt um yeah this one I don't have a shirt says this will not be recorded because the GDC live one is going to be proprietary there might be some um some secret information that get shared um so that one we will not be recording so I'll get another shirt that says this is not recorded by the way that shirt I can only wear it when I'm on camera if I were just to walk down the street with a

shirt says yes this will be recorded I'd probably get punched so I try and use that shirt as much as I can when I'm on camera okay second part that I really love let me show you some other cool things about the course again you have to buy the course this week because after that we raise the price because we're we're it's early access we're trying to get this out um let me show you some other things about the course um when you buy it on this call this call ends in about a half an hour when you buy this course in a half an hour I throw in a free class um I did this because last year at GDC I got covid so I did this funny thing where I I went to some of the best speakers I saw uh you know around doing some great stuff I said hey do you want to do a atome conference with me and so we did an atome conference I normally sell it for $40 but if you buy this course on the call now you get Get It Free I'll just attack it onto your order I have to

go in after after the call I'm going to go everybody who buys it on this this hour buys this course I'm going to go in and give you free access to this um it's like I think it's like eight different lectures I called a lawyer I talked to a lawyer who does uh publishing and like how to look for a good publisher contract so it's very relevant to what we're doing right now um other people like how to pitch to VR so it's a really great conference really great speakers $40 normally but if you buy this course today just throw it in for free now you might be saying uh this is all the stuff that's in the course you can actually uh watch some of these lectures I just put them up for free so if you're still on the fence you can just watch the lectures you can watch Jason's lectures and stuff some of them it's got to have the button that's that's bright red um but again at the end of this hour you don't get that free course now here's the one last thing um I do 100% satisfaction guaranteed if you take this course 30 days from now and you're like this course was crap Chris I don't think it is but you might everybody's got their own opinions I will give you full refund I won't question it I don't do anything

you just email me and you say Chris course isn't for me I'd like refund we will do it 100% so if you think about it you get the and I'll let you keep that free course the Free Conference my covid conference um I'll let you keep it for free even if I kill this even if you do it so but you only get this now so like there's no there's no risk right now because even if you take the course and you're like ah I don't like this course you can refund it and I'll glit you keep the thing you can even go to GDC if you if you do the math 30 days is like past GDC so you can even go to GDC return the course please don't do that because then I would cry I won't cry on the email I'll just say oh I won't even say uh I'll just say here's your refund but internally I will be crying but I don't care because um I I want you to be happy okay the other thing is it's lifetime guarantee so tactics change you know Jason said now they want the steam Page live that's the new tactic um same thing with my master class I did a master class too I update that every year just

about because strategy changes if you buy this we never charge you again for version two or version three we update this every year every two years depending on how the tactics change you'll get this for life there's no oh now you gotta buy version two DLC nope it's free couple other cool things that are included in this class this is one of my favorite things um we interviewed well I interviewed a bunch of developers who have been through the pitching process they got signed by the publisher they got lots of money I interviewed them because what I want to hear is firsthand accounts of what it's like when you sit in the when you sit in the room the doors closed and the picture and the the publisher say tell me about your game I wanted to know what that feels like so I interviewed a bunch of devs and had them tell me this stuff you know like what's it feel like what's the tips what do you what do you do firsthand experience so um you'll see these interviews these are coming in again these are Early Access you know how I call it early access right here these are coming in they're editing right now again we're trying to get this out in time for GDC so we're

we're building with the community so you're going to see a lot of changes every day it's going to be like Christmas a new door opens it'll be a new piece of chocolate so um again check out the pitching and funding Master Class click it in the offers tab you have to buy this hour and then you get that free um the Free covid Conference the conference that I created when I got covid you don't get covid when you take this conference it's it's all at home so with that I hope you take take a look at that course page again ends in an you could still buy the course throughout the whole week but if you buy this hour I throw in the free course the Free covid Conference okay let's go to questions that are not related to whether this will or will not be recorded I'm just gonna start throwing them at Jason here I'm looking at the list here Chris can you can you hear me yo yes I can hear you anything good you you were on fire there I tried to interrupt you once or twice but uh you're you're in Pitch mode um I'm in

Pitch mode regarding the updates I think it's important to mention that you know there are some modules specifically about GDC and like how to navigate the convention center and where to do meetings and this kind of stuff and then the idea is that we'll add other ones for other major international events like so for example Gamescom which is another one that a lot of developers go to and are kind of in full pitch mode so we you know we'll update the course you know with with a few modules specifically on that and then and then as you were as you were pitching there Chris uh Jonathan in the chat was saying like hey he's very early in the process you know making his game like is it is it good to take the course now and I I would say yes because it'll force you to start thinking about the things like traction evidence budget competitive analys like all those other busy things and marketing things that

have to go into the deck that ideally you're doing those things as you're developing the Prototype and not just like the day before you have to put a deck together you're like oh crap I should have been doing that for five months um so so there's a bunch of stuff in there more so around the business traction Etc side that if you're starting those aspects now as you're in the early phases of making your game what it'll mean is six months from now when you it's time to make your pitch deck uh you'll have everything just to sort of drop in as opposed to like oh crap I didn't do a b and c and now you know I haven't I'm not prepared and I have to take another three months to do all those other things so yeah even if you're early I I I would I would recommend it yeah if anybody's taken my previous classes I do a tiny Chris session there is a tiny Chris tiny Chris uh lives in a spreadsheet and he teaches you how to uh analyze the market so

again like if you're in those early days because there are times when like Jason said if you're pitching a puzzle platformer and you're budgeting out a million dollars I I know if you do the if you take this class where I teach you how to like analyze the market you are not going to find a game that earned a million dollars or like two puzzle Platformers that earned a million dollars so it's good to know that early on because Jason's advice is basically I'm sorry you can't do it like the pitch is going to be very hard unless you're pitching you know for like maybe 10 grand or 20 grand but you know that's that's a rough one so uh yeah we cover all that stuff at all all stages uh for that stuff so okay great great uh additions there let me get to those questions Jason let's go for it okay um my $20,000 200,000 sorry I was in 20,000 mode $200,000 uh budget already covers development and marketing which funding options is best to get more money for

marketing yeah I mean I mean it's an interesting question because uh Publishers tend to offer the like it's all batched together right it's like they'll give you production money and then they'll spend money on the marketing uh if your funding for the Productions already covered uh you know you don't have marketing specific funds um I mean some Publishers will be happy to do a deal with you if you tell them listen you only got to do the marketing you don't you don't have to pay any production dollars so so some Publishers are still a viable option there if you're looking to just kind of boost uh the marketing span and marketing help um you have other uh project funds like callon Knights or game Seer uh or Wings if you're a woman Le studio uh that they just do project financing so that they could top up your marketing dollars and but they don't do do the marketing they're they're just a finance source and then depending where in the world

you are you may have governmental programs that offer commercialization or go to market funding so for example I'm based in Montreal and there's something called the Canada media fund uh that does offer Studios different chunks of funding and one chunk of that is you know a go to market or commercialization fund I was in Switzerland last week uh and the Swiss Arts Council there have a small like 20 grand little pop up if you're if you're you know self-publishing a game you can go to them and get that extra little bit of cash so mileage may vary depending what part of the world you're in uh but sometimes you do have these governmental or economic support programs to top up your your marketing dollars great question okay next question is what is the difference between what Publishers are looking for and what customers are looking for and Jason I I also have some comments on this one too why don't you go first and I'll uh I'll kind of I'll it to you oh my goodness like like

this is this is like the crystal ball question um yeah I mean I mean obviously the the high level statement is the publisher is looking for a game that will sell and then that's like the highlevel tip of the iceberg statement well what does that mean and and how do they know and all these kind of questions that's the kind of the you know the magic G ball the crystal crystal ball that that no one has and so a lot of Publishers tend to base it on you know market trends you know so or or platform specific Trend so you know we know on Steam you know sandbox Survival Games sell well city builders sell well you know dark gritty uh RPGs sell well Etc uh and so they're looking for things like that because because those are healthy robust genres where a lot of successes are are emerging whereas you know earlier Chris was sort of teasing about the 2D platformer it's like those

just don't sell despite the fact that those are fun games and we all grew up on them like a publisher is not looking for a puzzle platform so so there's there's a bit of this kind of um you know I don't want to say they're chasing Trends but they're trying to validate their decisions based on what's happening in the market today and I think I think there's a reality to that and there's a certain justification for for that effort what that means though is there's definitely Gap in in in what the market may want or what the market doesn't even realize they want so if you're working on some very Innovative you know neverbe seen type of game or or twist or whatever the challenge there is the publish will say I don't know what this is I I can't check the numbers on Steam there's no reference there's no you know compet competitive set for me to evaluate against and so never mind and then and then it's like it turns out to be the next Minecraft you know what whatever so like there there was no Minecraft before Minecraft and so everyone's like I don't

know what this is this will never sell and then of course it goes off and makes billions of dollars so so there's always those kind of you what you might refer to as the kind of Black Swan type event that I I I can't see it until it you know it actually happens um so there there's there's a bit there's a bit of a disconnect there in terms of you know really what does the market want versus what do Publishers think the market will want so that that's kind of maybe of my abstract answer to that Chris I'm curious to hear what you I mean I've worked for Publishers I get consulted in like look at our portfolio what do you think or you know do some market analysis based on this and my thought is real quick um the market the the environment we're in now where money's tight where Publishers aren't just giving it away before I think they were a little bit more spend you know they they were just like dump money on things that they kind of thought but I think now with the their tighter budgets you know with interest rates and everything Publishers have less money to spend so they're more aligned with the market

they're trying to analyze the market better than they used to be sometimes they liked it because they're like oh that character is cute let's publish this game nowadays I think that they're wising up and they're saying we got to look at what's selling and what's not and a lot of times I get called in to do that and I'm getting a lot more calls from Publishers and funds now saying Chris is this viable can you help us Identify some of these things that are viable and so I think they're getting smarter about what the Market actually wants versus you know I don't know what other criteria they use to buy it um so I think it's getting more critical that you align with what the market wants because that's what the publish now there are certain funds that um you know they dedicate some of their budget just to say hey we don't care if this game doesn't sell uh it's an art project we we want to show that we are an our tour supporting publisher and so they might you know some of their portfolio 10% might be crazy projects they know aren't going to make money but they do it that's that's one thing but I I'd say if you're if you're looking for money you

got to look at what the market wants and I think the Publishers and the market are aligning more and more every day especially in this environment okay next question is should we send all the pitch material straight away when asking in Meet to match meetings or what to pitch it live should we wait to pitch that live yeah yeah so so in fact there's a there's a module in the master class exactly on this top topic uh normally what I recommend is to save all of the pitch materials particularly the pitch deck uh for when you do the face to-face meeting at GDC and if you're using the meet to match uh the meet to match is a very powerful system I I recommend it to everyone if you don't have publisher connections and you're going to GDC your easiest path to start reaching other Publishers will be meet to match so Splurge for the extra I don't know couple hundred bucks that it is it it's well worth it um but the the the UI is a

bit cumbersome right it's like you have your personal profile the company profile project profiles there the schedule the request the chat like like it like it's you know it's a it's a it's a it needs a UI cleanup let's say and so when you send the request for a meeting in the meet to match what I recommend is that in the like you know text box that you're filling in your message like hello publisher my name Jason I have a cool Indie Studio from Montreal we're working on you know a great ninja game whatever in that message include what I call the one pager the one pager is like a summation of the pitch on a sort of like movie poster style of of of a PDF like one page very visual again this is 100% covered in in the the master class and and you put that PDF in like a G drive or or just you know jason.com PDF you know on your website so that when they get the

message and they're reading it right there in the message they can click that link to the one pager and kind of see in a very compelling very visual uh uh summary of what the game is and and then they'll be like oh that looks great and they accept the meeting as opposed to if you're just like hey I'd like to meet and then they have to like close the the the the message they have to go to your company click you click to get they have like dig through the whole meet to match system and so they may you know they may just sort of give up or or bail so I really like the idea of in that initial kind of message within the meet to match you're including a link to the one pager which is the summary of of the pitch overall so that's a and and and then you sort of save all the materials the pitch decking the build etc for when you're face to face the one exception is if the publisher says hey hey love the one pager can you send me a pitch deck or or

this or that if they request it specifically okay fine no problem you send it through but if they don't request it oftentimes the one pager is enough for them to say oh yeah this looks interesting and they accept the meeting so so focus on the one page or the rest of the stuff save it for the meeting okay excellent uh just doing a time check here we've got about 10 minutes left um don't forget if you buy the course during the call you get that Free Conference that I did in this bedroom um and you'll get it free even if you decide you know I don't want it and you you return the the the master class for pitching um again this this will include a if you buy it we'll be back next week this time next week we'll be submitting pitch materials Jason will be looking at it giving specific advice now it depends on how many people register for that event and stuff I mean he's going to pick the best kind of materials that he saw that elucidate the best stuff no guarantee that you're going to get it uh but it'll be helpful to see the mistakes that maybe some

other Indies are making in their pitching and then of course you will also if you're going to GDC we're GNA do the uh halftime timeout talk to coach uh Jason De laoka we're gonna he's going to help you uh get get back in the thing I'll cut your eyes like a boxer or squirt water in your mouth give you the backr if you consent to it um and then uh we'll put you back in there so again uh some really good stuff but you got to get it now this this uh during this call because I mean this will be available afterwards we're going to we're going to keep this sale price for for at least a week this discount price because we we lopped off 100 bucks off the price for this week because we're in Early Access after that not as much but if you buy this hour you get that uh the the special stay-at home conference so let's go to the next question here what is the best way to deliver a prototype as part of a pitch for a multiplayer game I think this keys off your um theoretical socer you know rocket League yeah yeah

well well so I mean you can deployed on Steam of course uh I mean it's probably easier than when you uh you you have a a developmental Branch a prototype or beta branch on Steam that you can manage separately and then you give keys out uh you know so that folks I mean everyone's got a steam account so they'll just sort of grab the key and they'll download it uh the challenge is more about synchronizing enough people to play the game I mean if it's if it's one V one okay fine then you know the folks at the publisher can just coordinate you know to play each other but if it's like a 50 person Battle Royale or something you know H how do you ensure you get 50 players in there for when the publisher wants to test so so from a build deployment point of view I'd say just put it as a de as a development Branch within Steam share keys that that part's easy the question is is it 1 V one is it one is it 10 ver 10 is it 50 like it's

about synchronizing enough players and in some cases you know you just have to have like the whole development team and and you just coordinate with the Publishers say okay you know Friday at two o'clock we're all going to log into the server and we'll make sure all of our team members are there and you bring your friend so so you got a synchronize so that they have a proper play experience great great um okay um let's do this um what's uh let me see sorry I just missed it um how early oh oh this is a question and there was um it's not a specific question I was trying to find it there's a question about Kickstarter and I just wanna I just want to um bracket so that people again we want 100% satisfaction when you purchase this there's a couple areas where we cut off this course we don't talk about Kickstarter we don't talk about um lawyers we don't talk NE neither one of us is a lawyer we don't know the legal side get a lawyer so what we do is we

cut off at those sides so we don't talk about Kickstarter in this course and we also don't talk about the legal issues like go watch out for this or that that you need a specialist who's can go through a contract with you and so good I just want to make sure do you want to add anything to that Jason I just want to make sure that somebody doesn't buy something and and they're hoping that we cover that yeah yeah I mean if the question was will I talk about Kickstarter as you said the answer is no uh I mean I think there's the other question which is if I've done a Kickstarter does that somehow then you know make me more likely to also get a publisher to kind of stack on top uh and the answer is it depends uh you know having a really good Kickstarter obviously is part of Market evidence uh and so that's generally a good thing that that helps you demonstrate the demand for uh you know for for your game uh obviously if you had a failed Kickstarter then that's kind of like

almost like a nail in the coffin then no one's no publisher will want to want to touch it so you got to be really careful um so yeah I mean a Kickstarter and a publisher are not incompatible uh uh and can be stacked and in fact I I've heard you know some Publishers will specifically go after developers that have had a very successful Kickstarter and say hey great job you know do you want to to also kind of stack on top and help you you know bring bring the game to Market so um yeah great question great question and this actually dovetails to the next question was what where should my prototype be how done should it be before I seek funding and we actually I'll let Jason answer this but we also have a here's a lecture we talk about when to get funding he has this great tube chart I love the tube chart we we we put it in twice we put it down here and there and it includes when to do Kickstart funding even though we don't talk about Kickstarter but we do talk about when to do like a you know some of this crowdsourced funding and that sort of thing so Jason what level does the

Prototype need to be in before you start the pitch yeah yeah I mean again we we have a module specifically on on on this topic and and it's one of those subjective things that's you know kind of hard to answer um I mean obviously it has to demonstrate the core fun of the game now what that means will largely depend on what genre your game is and and how much how much you have to build and the Prototype SL vertical slice what you know the build that you're going to share with a publisher also has to drisk the the thing that's the hook the thing that's you know Innovative I I I kind of tease the you know the developer that I was advising yesterday that was a multiplayer game but the multiplayer wasn't working right if the whole game is about multiplayer and you don't have the net Cod up and running like like you're not ready the build is not ready now now does it have to have a kind capacity for half a million concurrent users and you know seamless 100% up time

like okay no but the multiplayer has to be working I the other example I'll often give is the idea of like let's say I'm building a Metroid Vania and and I'm the first one to ever use a grappling hook like let's say there's never been a Metroid with a grappling hook and so I go into the pitch and I tell the publisher you know the unique selling point of my game is we're a Metro Vania with a grappling hook it's never been done before then the publisher is going to say okay great show me I want I want to feel the grappling I want to touch I want to I want to use and if you say oh no we haven't CED that part yet then then then the build's not ready right so you you have to make sure that the things that you're selling or pitching as being the unique hooks Innovative things that are in your game you have to show that they're in the game and working and contribute to the fun you can't say oh well crap the grappling hooks really hard we haven't touched it yet that they're just going to kick you back and say listen I'm not signing anything until I see the grappling hook working um yeah so that's

my sort of quick quick answer there great great question um next question and this is this is kind of all about the art and everything um and and how Publishers work um the question is um um uh are Publishers a viable option if you only really need to share Pro if if you are only ready to share profits with them but you still want to have 100% control over the game's vision and content or what is the best funding option for them I think this is kind of like an Arts versus question and am I signing up to somebody who's going to be over my shoulder and telling me what kind of my vision is going to be what what what are your thoughts on that yeah well I mean I mean if you really have this unique artistic Vision then then maybe working with a publisher is not the best option uh you know depending where you are in the world you may have different sources of Arts grants and cultural funding if you're in the US you know it's probably not an option uh but even there the amounts of funding available for artists with a capital A It's relatively low

amounts of money uh you know 10 20 you know maybe 50 grand um in most cases you know if you work with a publisher they they're betting on you they're they're they're backing you because they believe in your vision they they were blown away by your pitch and the awesome game that you're making uh and so usually they are not going to get over your shoulder and say hey hey M make that sword instead of red and I thought the dragon should be bigger and uh you know make the Flames more puffy like generally speaking they're busy doing their thing they're not going to get in there and nitpick uh Etc now that being said they are your partner and they want to maximize the the the economic potential of the game and part of what they're going to do is you know test like do quality assurance to make sure there's not crash bugs and all that kind of stuff um and they're going to be monitoring you know feedback from the testers and so on now if they come back

to you and say you know there's problems this the UI no one understands where they have to go well they're not going to tell you how to do your UI they're just going to tell you you know half the players couldn't complete the game because they didn't know where they were on the map like like you should probably fix the UI of the map so that that's the kind of feedback that most Publishers would give as opposed to say oh we'll make it blue instead of red and I like the color green better than turquoise like it's more stuff like that to kind of improve the quality of the product um so that that's kind of in most cases they don't want to get in there and design it for you but they will give you feedback if uh if it's clear there's sort of problems uh W with balancing with with the UI you know this kind of stuff great great okay next question is what is the difference between pitching to a publisher and pitching to an investor yeah well so we cover that actually in the in the in the sort of handful of free modules uh at the

beginning of the course uh we talk about the difference between uh investors versus Publishers uh and the sort of short answer to that is uh if you are doing premium price games so you know 20 bucks on steam console whatever then you really want to go after project sources of funding like Publishers being the main excuse the main source if you are doing free toplay game as a service online multiplayer games then you can go down the investor path which is mostly the venture capitalist the the VC funds uh the VC funds all want to back things that have exponential scaling opportunity which is you know usually implies game as a service online a free-to-play business model so the good news is if you are working on a premium you know PC console game don't waste any of your time chasing VCS that that they

you know they just they just don't breathe the same oxygen that that you do so so just you can ignore them save all that heartache and time chasing them just forget about them uh whereas if you are doing something really ambitious game as a service online multiplayer persistent all that kind of stuff free to play okay now you go knock down the doors of the VCS and in fact most Publishers won't want to work with you that most Publishers are not equipped to do proper multiplayer online game as a service all that kind of stuff and so you kind of don't need to waste your time chasing the devolves and team 17s and raw Furies that they're they're mainly doing premium steam or PC console so it's kind of like a fork and and in the free materials of the webinar of of the master class we actually go into that fork uh in more detail and just to clarify this is all for this whole Master Class takes the fork of Premium

publisher maybe a Project based funding we do not we do not touch VC in this course we don't touch if you're making a free-to-play games as a service like Roblox or something like that we don't touch that we are specifically talking about premium games that you typically put on steam or consoles you typically get a publisher or you get Project based funding from like a cowon night or a Wings something like that that is what we cover here we do not touch VC so sorry free to play folks get out of here well and Chris Ju Just to I mean there are a couple of modules where we talk about it at a high level so that people understand what it is and what the difference is and and and why the fork exists but yeah then we say we're going to ignore the VC fork and as you said Chris we're going to go down the path of the premium side publisher picture so there there's some you know Preamble high level stuff just to understand what it is great great question here uh we got

about five minutes I think this is going to be our last question here um so question from Sebastian GDC and traveling to events is off budget to a lot of us and live far away what are the chances of Landing a publishing deal via email and zoom calls happens all the time uh I mean this is sort of one of the Silver Linings I guess of of covid and the and the impact of of co uh that that it's still possible or sorry rather it's now possible to do it remotely uh I mean I think I think there's there's still a benefit and an advantage to be face to face to shake a hand to be in the same room kind of feel the energy but I would not say it's mandatory um and so you still have some events uh that do a meet to match online or or do pitch events and virtual conferences uh and you can also just reach out to Publishers via LinkedIn via VIA the scouts on Twitter

and and I mean one of the modules in the master classes like how to reach out how to find how how to poke Publishers I mean we kind of do it in the context of going to you know an event uh but that but that part's not necessary to like consummate the the the encounter um so you can still sort of chase them online uh and then and then do the the meetings and pitches uh uh virtually uh and and largely follow a very similar path in terms of how the pitch is done and how to manage the time and having the build ready um and so I I would say the master class is 100% applicable even if the event is an online event or or just a zoom call that you schedule uh on your own time excellent and one of the interviews that I did with one of the developers they got funding during covid all their funding came from Co so they were Zoom Masters and so I interview one of these devs the video is not up yet it'll be up we're editing it right now this is this

is why it's early access folks it is going live uh throughout it's like again I like to think of it as like Christmas every day it's like a new chocolate that you open the Advent calendar and there's a new piece of chocolate if you do that so once you sign up you're going to be getting emails from me at a regular Cadence say hey we just uploaded a new interview um another question so thanks for all the questions folks another question that we often get um is is this stuff translated yes um we transcribe everything all of Jason's um talks are transcribed you can turn on subc captions and we translated them to lots of languages I think pretty much everything but Korean and that's just because the translation service that I use doesn't do Korean for some reason but we'll have translations we do Brazilian French Japanese uh German um you know the figs languages I think they call them um we we do all of them so you just turn on the captions and they're there we also upload a transcript so if you prefer to read and don't like to listen or something like that that's all

included in the course but again just like Christmas every day something new will come up so the translations aren't uploaded we've got them made it's just it's a very laborious process of dragging and dropping a thousand little translation files up into these videos so that will be coming again this is your last chance because this meeting ends very soon um what I'm going to do is after this call I'm going through an everybody who bought the course right now because I know because you click the offer Tab and if you click that offer button and you buy the course through that offer button I know you bought it on this class that button not going to work after this class and I'm going to give you the uh free lecture the free um conference with all these interviews and stuff that I did with other awesome developers marketing all kinds of cool talks you get that for free whether even if you return the class you get to keep it so if you're even thinking about doing it do it now there's no risk like again as long as you return it in 30 days I don't care I mean I might cry a little bit internally but I won't give you a hard time about it um so yeah

really last shot um let's see if there's any other cool things let me I wrote a this is my little uh piece of paper of things I want to remember to tell you translations yes um we will be adding there were a couple questions we didn't get to it a budget calculation like how did you budget that's one thing we're working on right now I'm working with some producers to um create a little calculator so it'll be a spreadsheet you type in some details about what your game is how many people and all that stuff and it'll spit out a pretty good number for your page when you're doing your budget for um you know what what what your budget is going to be in the pitch and how to do that so that that will be add it it's another Christmas day another little Advent calendar surprise um more interviews are coming lifetime access again if um if we update it turns out Publishers love it when you wear a blue shirt we'll tell you that we'll update it um and when you go in we'll wear the blue shirt and we'll update that and you get that update free you don't have to buy the DLC update about what to wear no we will update

that for free lifetime access um and it'll never be this low those prices is the lowest it will ever be even if I I do a summer sales sometimes still will not be as low as today because we're discounting it super deep because it's early access we're building this with you and that's part of the reason we're doing all these check-ins so again we're doing a check-in live thing just like this one week from today where you can supply your materials Jason's going to review it and pick some to like do a little demonstration and say hey this is what I'm I don't like the way you this or that he's very nice as you know Jason's very nice uh but it'll be a live critique so you get access to that and then again 30-day guarantee as long as you you email me and say hey Chris I'd like to return it I I just push this one button you get ejected from the class but you get your money back so I have no problem with that and then tears come down my face but I don't share those tears with you it is just in general so really this is your last shot I think the meeting is ending any second now and

then I yes Jason any last thoughts yeah yeah I mean just maybe as a as a kind of like final tip um and it sounds pretty basic but like practice right you know it's it's stressful you're in these meetings it's high pressure you need the funding you kind of sharing your your vision of your game you're going to get a bunch of feedback it's it's it's quite a stressful uh process I me I think I think you know going through the formula the steps and preparing as we outlin in the master class I think will help a tremendous amount with those stresses but you really have to practice the pitch like don't just sort of show up for these meetings and you've got the devolver person sitting in front of you you're just kind of like winging it with some you know images on your screen like you really have to take the time put your deck together and then practice and as cheesy as it sounds practice in front of your mirror practice in front of your your your spouse your your boyfriend girlfriend practice in front of your fellow colleagues you know go to a local

developer Meetup and then practice some of your other developer buddies it'll pay dividends like truly take the time practice even if it means that for the next two weeks you're doing less development uh uh do the practice take the time to put it together it'll have a massive massive impact on the results when you when you get in front of everyone so yeah practice great yeah let's um I mean I'm going to go until this thing shuts down let's see what happens I don't know I don't know if it's actually just G to like disappear maybe we just answer one more question uh I mean again Jason I've got the time if you've got the time yeah well I mean the countdown is at 48 seconds now so I think that's the okay let's see it yeah you got 48 seconds by that class a throw in I again after this call I go in and I justop go into your account and I just add this little course so it's got you got to get it now

because if you don't that's it again price will never be this low 30-day return and you get these special GDC meetups where you know the eyes squirt the water in your mouth it'll be fun we we check in um again next week you get exclusive access to this call where Jason's going to review materials developer interviews are going up budget calculators it's going to be so much fun um I'm so excited about this class this is the first time I've ever done like a hand it off to somebody so but it's the same how to Market a game quality it's just a different face different expertise thank you so much Jason for for doing this yeah it's great so yeah thank you for for everybody else I mean um yeah great done see you later all right see you folks thank you so much