Prof standards to promote your game and company. What every indie should know as best practices.

[Music] thank you [Music] we're going to open up now with an interesting talk about Professional Standards so Professional Standards to promote your gaming company what every Indie should know about best practices so Seth from pocket pinata interactive and Joel from Rocket Ride Games floor is yours [Applause] pushing a round of applause all right ladies and gentlemen we have prizes here for people we feel are interactive and ask smart questions

and you'll be answering these questions because we'll be pointing out to you and saying you there with the blue hat and then we'll ask you a question that's how interactive this is blue hat always goes first that's right that's true if you can't handle it the door's right there on that part but honestly um this has been a conversation that Joel and I've had for a short matter but Dave Bradley and I've had for years and other people in the industry is this is one of the few Industries where professionalism lacks it was never part of the culture and uh so let's go to the background for that we're going to give you the four subjects here really quick a quick background on Joel and myself and then tie back into these four subjects here personal attire professional presence professional engagement professional follow-up and then we'll talk a little bit about us and then we'll jump back and have a Socratic discussion around it so I'm from Rocket Ride Games hi my name is Joel Rocket Ride Games is a boutique

agency that helps developers and uh Studios find investing and Publishing we do business development for them but in addition to that What Makes Us unique is that we staff really high quality creative directors executive producers who work really hard tirelessly to make sure that our developer Partners games don't suck and those are professionals right exactly okay good yeah and then they're they're you know presenting themselves as professionally as possible for every business opportunity that we service them um here's a list of our services please look us up after the show and feel free to contact me or if you want to grab me in the hall I can talk more about it we have 55 plus deals signed so I think we actually have closer to like 75 Partners now and and we're approaching 100 million dollars in Deal value for our clients some of the projects that we've worked on we have a great relationship with Netflix and with apple arcade but have done some really cool stuff on other

platforms as well doing some Homeworld mobile for for gearbox and I about me I have 20 plus years of experience in games and media so prior to games I've been in games for about 12 years just in a business development capacity prior to that I was uh doing film work which frankly it does have a certain sort of je ne sais quoi when it comes to presentation that is unique from games I actually do like how much more relaxed games are but I think that there's definitely a happy medium there um awesome okay so Paco pinata games they are veteran game developers with the prune track where they work for hire and they're now expanding out on that part but as you see this slide isn't as nice as as Jules on that part that's because this took me a minute to copy and paste into it just in clarification on that part so

effort does you know build confidence so we want to contrast and show you guys what we mean about professionalism go ahead to the next one some of the games that they have made and I have seen a lot of their games that they have made they've got a lot of family friendly game Studio professionals and a very family-friendly very sophisticated Studio layout but it wasn't always that way when they first started it was just friends of friends of friends and we'll talk about that a little bit later in just a moment and the next one this is me I've been 17 years in the game industry space not the same way you guys have been I've been in the Department of Defense I've been in education special needs food and automotive industry and banking not by choice just because the way life went we have all these industries that gaming is now involved in and are is running synergistically as well too so we are can compare and contrast presentations and presents within those Industries versus this one so that's who we are on that part we'll go back to the first one then yep should we tell them I'll give

the definition right now so just in case you guys know what we're talking from here's the definition from the 1967 Rand McNally uh dictionary just so you were all on the same page and some means some words don't mean the same they should mean professional is this and engaged in a activity as a means of livelihood or for gain a professional with a profession common sense so what is a professional well a professionalism aspect is the professional Spirit character or methodology that they use and the profession is an occupation especially one requiring a sense of education and a professional is not the same as an amateur and yet this is an industry where we sell out Indies act as amateurs and yet expect somebody like a publisher to hand them half a million dollars for a game when they look like a slob and people like that's judgmental no I've seen it

at GDC even this year where I brought Lance Priebe down to check out a game and the guy wasn't even there at his booth and the next game will look at the guy had a torn shirt from the night before ripped jeans which is fine as an icon but he had stains on his shirt and this is a person presenting a video game hoping for a publisher to give money that doesn't project confidence at all so professional attire Joe yeah I do think I think the the key point there is like this is a commercial industry and and it's one that's built on relationships and it's one that's built on trust and the the old adage of you're never going to get a second chance to make a first impression definitely holds true when it comes to forging those relationships and if you're at a conference and it's the time that you get to make that first impression first in person face to face you want to be ready you want to be ready to express passion for your game you want to be ready to talk about why

you think it's going to be a commercial success but you also want to look and feel your best while you're doing it right and so I think it makes sense to invest a little time effort and energy and personal hygiene um because again you'll never get a second chance to make that impression and if you make a strong impression and you're able to build that relationship that's where the commercial success is formed eventually is through those those one-on-one-on-one conversations so absolutely so gentleman right there in the gray shirt I used to work for Ford Motor Credit Company which of us too is professionally dressed enough for a Ford Automotive con conference event that type of thing right here what would that be there you go awesome you well well done well done here you go your pants aren't khaki enough but apart from that hold on but yeah I'd say a tucked in a shirt too belt definitely

short okay very well done on that part okay so but for the game industry Joel stressed very nicely very comfortable thank you very much no stains anywhere on that part and he doesn't smell and probably going that's just bad no no we've all been to paxes we've all been to gen cons New York Comic-Con that type of thing and as funny as that is that is something that seeps into people's brains that got a cool concept he smell weird I don't want to deal with him anymore yeah yeah I agree and like so and if you're doing branding like of course a t-shirt's okay if you're representing your company and you know but bring several of them not just for yourself but for a publisher who likes it and wants to wear it themselves they should have it as well but so that you can freshen up and you know take the time to take care of yourself because you're the most important piece of of the sale so to speak I know your location you can dress a certain way in North America dress a certain way in

Gamescom Germany but at g-star Tokyo game show is completely different what they expect so if you're going to be showcasing your game in another Regional area go online and research it out yeah worst case scenario you overdress that's never a Bad Thing plus it's 110 degrees and there limit the number of scarves that you put in a swag probably in a hot environment ABS so how how many people here are game developers show hands wondering cool and then how many people are are publishers ha oh awesome so we can say whatever we want absolutely it's beautiful that's great so the next one presents presence is more than just yourself standing at a booth presence is eye contact hello how are you doing so I'm doing as well wonderful it's a handshake

type of thing it's a fist bump right there's contact eye to eye I can't tell you how many times I walked up to somebody at a game conference or an Indian they're looking down like this so and they won't even look at me eye to eye this is my game and I can't even hear him because they walked away yeah or they schedule a meeting with you and it's at their booth and they're just wrapping up their other meeting and knowing they don't look at you they don't acknowledge you they don't say oh I'm so sorry can you please give me a few minutes here's some reading material on the game all those things are important and like I think the question is it's like of course you know we work in an industry with a lot of neurodivergence and a lot of people aren't just naturally social and that is totally fine so what kind of accommodations do you think are important to make for yourself in that environment Lady in White accommodations yeah self-acommodations

I feel like you're not the most social person but you want your business to succeed and you want you know you want your game you want to present your yourself well and your game well what do you do if you say maybe take along a producer or a co-designer with you she got in one of us my throwing sucks so feel free to come up here and grab any which one you like The Binding of Isaac fan okay please select a figurine from binding advisor how many of you feel it's okay to eat at your booth haha how many of you do eat at your booth yeah there he is yeah yeah okay so if you're one-on-one it's hard to get away there are no bathroom breaks at a conference there's no coffee breaks there there there's no break for you if you're one on one if it's just you you're at that boothy the amount of opportunities you may miss is huge I know I've been there I've done that it's hard to do that it's worse when I'm eating a piece of pizza or whatever and

I'm trying to tell you about my game yeah not very nice no and I like I have really bad misophonia personally so I'm super triggered by the sound of chewing absolutely so go on a video call please don't eat around me thank you very much um but yeah all right again it's about planning scheduling working that time to take care of yourself proper hygiene eating seems really basic but we all miss it because we all get busy and absolutely part of presence is also your delivery when you're going over to Asia when I was at g-star showing the game Wild Wings every meeting I had we had a gift to give them from the artists to hand out to them type of thing it's amazing actually how many of those people actually had gifts for us ahead of time because that's part of the culture over there when I do that at Gamescom not at all but at g-star in Tokyo absolutely just small things like that when we had the picks bricks vending machine toy something that cost me 17 cents

and handed it to them for it they actually I got a video of this the guy painted me a sumi painting right there on the floor wow the artist it was a cool thing I have it framed in my house because he wasn't expecting an American a Gaijin to know that on that part so part of your presence just isn't your physical look and everything it's your actions in the region the area you're at as well too that's huge yeah that's great I love that story now engagement this is not presence this is engagement showing up on time now at GDC there are parties parties that go late into the morning too many parties are you still responsible for showing up on time yes you may have a hungover whatever you need to be there you are unless you are wealthy yeah well and if you absolutely can't be there what do you do you you know make other arrangements you apologize don't ghost people right Publishers have

that problem as well too what's interesting about this industry and compared to the Department of Defense the toy industry that I've been in even in the food industry on this part is this industry feels it's okay not to follow up go weeks or weeks or weeks you are not that busy they know they're not that busy you have a smartphone you can send a text WhatsApp whatever just a few seconds it's just even an email takes all of less than a minute to do yeah and I love to hear oh I forgot you have a calendar type it in yeah that shows promptness that shows courtesy that's another confidence Builder especially for an indie 12 publisher that says hey I understand your time is valuable and if I can see that then you can see that I understand that you'll understand that I'll get this game done on time within the Milestones or if I can't I'll communicate with you on how that will be yes yeah and I would say to that end too like don't be afraid to set rules of

engagement up with them as as you're interacting with them can I get an email address what should I expect in terms of getting feedback from you and your team what's your process like what's the best way for me to communicate to you when can I reach back out without being annoying these are all perfectly fine questions to ask the idea is to you know find a way to to create event a word for them to honor and then hold them accountable to that and hold yourself accountable to to reaching out super important so basically how many few people do that use her in the blue shirt I'm holding a very archaic form of communication here do you recognize this um absolutely my question for you on this business card is that should I have a blank white side of my business card yes or no I'm going to say yes so that they can write down a phone number absolutely correct come on yeah I'll grab that as well too as archaic as this wonderful thing is

there are still generations of people with all women all of you if we say young people they are mostly young in this audience if they feel young on that part even though we can do this through Linkedin and everything else with QR codes etc etc there are still a generation or two away these things are very very helpful I have stacks of these babies I still go back to them for notes you will forget things at a conference but if you quickly write it down there's two things that show so maybe your professional engagement one you've listened to the person who's been talking to you and you've took a note down and they see that make them see that yeah you know and I would say too like while it's great to save trees the digital QR code method can be ineffective because people don't always remember your name right so even if they end up storing your contact information into the phone they might forget who it was that they talked to they might really want to reach out to and be like oh darn it I was drunk at that party but they seem so cool and now I completely lost their information

because I can't think of who they are drunk writing is very fun to remember the next day I've never done that but I've seen the business cards where that's written down and it's like reading hieroglyphics but at least it's on there and deciphering it somewhere else later is a lot of fun as well too um Jim and the beard and the black right there who's like there you go thank you sir awesome question for you do you ever run out of business cards yes or no me personally personally at a conference should you the answer is the question is should you ever run out of business cards at a conference yes or no ideally no you're right have brought enough backups but what happens when you get down to one what do you do that's a good question um I guess you to hold on to it and let people like take a snapshot of it or something yes absolutely great answer come on down yeah you have smartphones they take pictures coming up with them exactly tell the person hey we've been so busy I've done on my last card but

you can take a picture of this so they have yours you always want to keep on to a business card you never want to use the last one at all hey Caruso calendars finding advisor characters those are limited edition on eBay they're 99.95 awesome okay anything else in professional engagement uh I'm good parties oh yeah I mean there is there is social media on parties yeah face your presences everywhere well not only that but you know don't do things that you would require I think it's important to have fun and you know everybody everybody wants to hang out and be social and establish those relationships it's really difficult when it's loud but I would say like you know again take care of yourself don't over consume wait until you're away from the industry event with your friends and and go nuts and do whatever you do but I highly discourage it because you've seen people's careers yes uh suffer as a result of the actions at industry events

so we want to avoid that and that's not just a game industry I've seen two generals careers disappear because of some social media engagements where they took pictures of at actual events so it's other Industries as well too do not think you're too big or too small to be noticed by that yeah I agree follow-up follow-up yeah we did touch on this a little bit but I think there's uh there's an area that we didn't touch on uh as much and you know since there are no Publishers in the room as far as I know they suck at follow-up they just do they're really really bad at it uh of course they all have you know limited portfolios that they're able to offer the world right maybe at most 10 games a year for a sizable publisher and then they're all getting hundreds of thousands of pitches right and so what makes your game special well I still feel genuinely like they could commit to providing one

sentence and they're not too busy to just say I won't get to look at this for a few weeks please follow up with me then something like that it's exceedingly important and the caveat is of course there are some good ones and bad ones we will not mention any names up here afterwards you can talk to us later we'll chat about that yeah privately but in regards to follow-up it's amazing at some of these events when I meet with Publishers and they've already been sent the pitch deck a month couple weeks in advance and we're going over it and they said yeah I know that and then halfway in I realize that they just realized they never went to the pitch deck so we gotta start back over again so that professional follow-up goes on the on Publishers as well too you will see that happen and you will want to yeah and you can't do that yeah you have to show professionalism on that hard and like so there's something I learned in the film industry being like a virtual slave to a producer for two years and that is that you always always 100 of

the time acknowledge the receipt of a Communications you absolutely must do this and so many people don't and it's very very frustrating but if you don't actually say think so much got it then no one knows that you got it so that call and response is actually super vital so question lady there in the corner in the white when you send an email out and you have not gotten a response back how many days do you think you should go before you send out another response I would say three days three days that was a little aggressive but I think it's fine though I think would you put in just more of just a hey how's it going or would be like you suck where's my answer or yeah what would your message say what would be your how would you compose a message after then like I guess I guess it depends if it's crucial like if it's a deadline kind of situation yeah you haven't heard from

them yeah it says you've submitted a milestone for approval uh they contractually have let's say 15 business days to respond and and you only have 10 business days to remediate whatever the issue is with that particular Milestone deliverable and it's been three days you haven't heard from them how do you feel in that situation I think I would feel very pressured absolutely on that part so you would write in your email what do you think what would you write as a couple sentences or just even a sentence yes we're putting you on the spot we know um I would say like high person's name I hope you're doing well and everything's fine with you like um I'm still waiting for that answer and it's a very polite response on that part absolutely you may come down and grab a prize as well too yeah absolutely um two weeks later two weeks later we we picked them in the beginning we never actually asked him a question the man in

the blue hat oh man you have not got an answer now in two weeks after you've submitted your pitch what do you send but notice I didn't say not what you would like to send what do you send something that is kind of along the lines of I haven't heard from back from you but I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on the previous email or uh something along those lines yeah I think it depends on the relationship you have with the individual if you've worked with them before or if they're a brand new acquaintance because it's a brand new acquaintance you want to be more kind of easing into it because you don't want to scare them away but at the same time you want to make sure you were heard so so you want to be firm in that aspect would you point out the fact that you have an attorney on record or the contract specific paragraph and sends that they're in violation or could be in violation of yet um yeah what I guess in this scenario

you've already established a relationship with them right and and there is a expected feedback and Report already established as well what would you do in that particular yeah I think I'd want to lightly acknowledge the fact that um you know I'm putting forth effort to reach an end point and their effort is not matching mine and that's kind of where I would you established that thank you because yes you have the right to be firm you're an ND Indies feel to get pushed around they can't ask these hard questions sorry you have a contract you have a contract you have a legal right to get this done they have a legal right to get back to you own that is okay doing that is professional to own that it's professional points this out to them politely but it is professional in that part to remind them because unfortunately in this industry especially the same yahoos you may come down and grab a prize yeah that was very well done well done so

there's a question yes lady in green had your hand raised oh yeah um just just checking in that we're still on schedule uh whenever possible state that you believe that the other person tends to carry through a good intentions yeah that way they want to live up to that but it also gently reminds them of whatever the thing is yeah very good yeah and then if if if you feel like the benefit of doubt that you have extended to them if it's been violated at that point then then how do you respond once they're still ghosting you let's the temptation to go to social media with this 38 Studios comes to mind I can say that one because they don't exist anymore but yes uh avoid that temptation but you

and I've both seen deals blow up halfway through even after funding and the temptation to go and blast somebody if you're going to send an email out to somebody think on it for a day if it's a negative in some ways is apt on that part um now I'm going to date myself on this part because I have kids who are out of the house and married because I'm old I'm not old they're old actually in that part so you know everything's by text no not everything should be by text yeah a phone call is professional yeah not a text but I would say too though like if you if you've established a partnership with someone I think it is really important that you have as as much access to them as possible and it's not unreasonable to get their phone number and to be able to text them and develop that kind of relationship where you do text because then some of those

questions can get answered a little easier absolutely uh what are your thoughts on at least Inspire professional experience in situations like that I've been told and kind of used this to my benefit just giving them like a a deadline basically like hey you know quickly following up on this you know could you please do whatever you're supposed to do not not saying that but right by end of day Friday because we have X Y and Z to do yeah I think that's absolutely professional and fair oh absolutely so do you have anything that could point to that you've seen in action uh like a specific example well not naming names nothing immediately comes to mind because it is frequently like that is the case where a deadline driven industry right and so every week there are deadlines that that get missed because of people's you know inactivity on a project right um and and I think it's just about putting forth look we're being held

we're holding ourselves accountable our reasonable expectation of you is that you do the same right and I don't think it's unfair or unprofessional to ask that it kind of gets rid of that wiggle room too yes for sure and then when the deadline comes and goes you have another opportunity to reach back out and and you know that's what's happening before we let you go you guys have been a great answer on sorry on this give and take on we appreciate that very much I would implore you that future conferences you go to it's amazing how many professionals never ask questions ask questions on that part especially for Indies ask the Publishers questions get on them that gives them a boost of confidence if you know what to ask and you feel that you have the right to ask these things to them Andy should never get pushed around you're not less than because you're not an EA it's a professional environment

treated that way and that respect will definitely come back to you maybe not right away but the more professional you are in your appearance your mannerism your follow-up that percolates through and if you're going to treat this as a career path years down the road we remember that I've got uh 12 business cards from one gentleman who's bounced around this industry I'll never work with them but every other conference I see them in another another company and they do the same old thing and they don't know why they get fired so there we go yes but I it's not really a question it's more comment going back you said about riding on the back of the card yes and but you also mentioned a lot of Japan and taco game show do not write on the back of your card in Japan it's extremely unpolite yes in Japan you do not ride in the back of the card at least not there back in your hotel room maybe on that part and then you hand it with two hands and then you do not put

in your back pocket because you don't want to sit on their face it goes in the front beside the jacket on the front or you hold it if you have no pocket to put it into or have a card holder yes absolutely and you can find those at Goodwill for 99 cents I know because I found them on that part all right ladies and gentlemen we're good thank you sir thank you guys thank you very much that was a lot of fun appreciate you guys [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign