It's a common refrain in game development. When you need to learn more about programming, design, marketing, etc., go to GDC Depot.
The resource maintained by our sister organization is a dense as hell archive for over a decade of video game history. But there's a small challenge that presents itself when analyzing its depths: all the insights you find were more appropriate for the year they were archived.
Some conversations may always be relevant, but others fade away as console generations advance and the industry landscape changes. The landscape that has arguably seen the most change is the economic state of the gaming industry. The already turbulent business has been upended in the past two years, with studios laying off thousands of workers and investors closing their doors to anyone who doesn't launch the next project. Fortnite.
In 2019 Finji co-founder and CEO Bekah Saltsman gave a talk for indie developers on introducing publishers. The pitch was direct, direct, and challenged developers to accept that they were playing in a crowded market and that their proposals needed to be the best they could be to gain publisher support.
Five years later, this fact is truer than ever. Saltsman admitted in an email interview with Game Developer that he is no longer an “optimistic person” about the gaming industry and funding opportunities. She's still out there, though, signing games like Wilmot solves the problem and continuing to support titles like I was a teenage exocolon AND Chicory: a colorful story. He also does his own launching, often looking for funding to support those games.
Saltsman sounds more world-weary, but she took the time to tell the game developer — and, more importantly, our funding-seeking readers — what she expects from pitches now and how her ratings of the industry have changed .
Changing the economy means changing budgets
In 2019, Saltsman explained that Finji classifies proposals into different tiers where they evaluate how many copies a game they are launching or are launching could sell. They range from a low of 300 units to a high of 300,000 units and more (the last category was an outlier, to be clear). Most of the games released by the company aim for the 3000-30,000 range.
Those are still the levels used, although Saltsman said he would add a “small increment” between the 3k and 300k range. “I would probably add a small increment between 30,000 and 100,000,” he wrote. “I would do this because reaching 100,000 copies of an indie game on one platform can be quite difficult.”
“Gaming budgets are even higher than when I gave this speech, and I'm specifically talking about North America. It's much more expensive for normal people.” to make ends meet in the United States and this directly affects your game budget.”
Should you include your budget in your presentation documents? The answer is still “no”. “I put a lot of other information in there,” he said. “I put my goals out there, which might be something like 'we're looking for an enthusiastic partner who wants to create something special and wants to work with our team. We're looking for final development funding, a co- marketing, and a team that wants to launch this game with us.'”
Image via Northway Games/Finji.
He said he clearly communicates what he's looking for: that Finji is looking for money, that he's looking for “end of project” money, and when the pitch goes to the platform owners, that the team is looking for an account representative or team production to help the developer.
Saltsman still has a budget ready — it's not something he shares up front. He said that “the last thing you want to do is have someone text you back and ask you how much and you're not ready to talk about it.” Its budgets are self-contained documents that estimate production costs, unit sales information at “various launch prices,” and a breakdown of milestones related to budget payments. Will make many of these documents to prepare for different potential partners.
His documents will clearly state the costs of the game he wants to make, the game that can be made if a certain amount is cut, the amount that can be produced if Finji needs to make a “minimum viable product”, and the game he wants create more than 6 months of content after launch.
These are four flexible templates, multiplied across many documents. Developers should definitely take the time to do the math before sending them out into the world.
Be flexible with the stores and people you target
Speaking of flexibility, Saltsman's original talk breaks down how developers should be prepared to pitch their games to all kinds of parties. Investors. Publishers. Players. Your dog, cat or ferret. Your mom. Your stepmother. The extended branch of your policola that extends into the world of finance and there's that guy Jim who comes out sometimes but his dad is a dentist who patented a chemical that helps teeth deal with aging and you know what he missed by hand.
“I will never stop encouraging developers to learn about people,” Saltsman said (no reference to the dentist, but he lobbied to learn to talk to “friends, parents and partners”). “If you're in charge of going in and out of camp meetings, going to shows to talk to fans, giving interviews to the press, you have to practice communicating.”
Since developers can find themselves in a state of “cultural isolation” (talking to other developers and becoming familiar with words like “projects”, “jungle” or “bunny hopping”), they will start to speak in ways that are understandable to ordinary people not cursed by such knowledge. “It's like when you're at the grocery store and the middle school kids behind you in line are talking on YouTube,” he said.
In 2019, Saltsman encountered another form of flexibility that has since evolved her approach. After being left struggling for the launch of the Nintendo Switch Night in the woodsFinji took some assets for the Nintendo store that they didn't really intend to make public. It turned out that they were perfectly optimized for that platform. Should developers prepare different assets for different storefronts today?
“Short answer: yes,” he said, hinting that he would give a “whole speech” on the topic. “Short answer a little longer: Each platform has a different audience that has different expectations. It's your job as a developer (or at least as the person communicating your game to the world) to understand how these different platforms work. This directly affects how where your art assets and store text are interpreted.”
“You should understand your audience: your first audience who will buy it on day one, your second audience who will buy it in the first month, your third audience who needs peer pressure and validation from others, and your Long-tail sales audience. Your assets: visual, both static and video, and text-based, should communicate directly with the top three audiences.”
Stay tuned for more on Saltsman. Hopefully we'll see that speech soon.
Don't do it. Just throw. A prototype.
2024 Bekah Saltsman is just as passionate as 2019 Bekah Saltsman when it comes to prototypes. He doesn't want to see them on the pitch. Developers, he said, should head for proposals with vertical sections. “The idea of a prototype is still a playable version of your game that's a proof of the system or a proof of the mechanics. That's not enough for most people to understand what the game actually is.”
“In general, you still want to work towards a game that shows a publishing partner or financier what the game will be like when it releases.”
Image via Hollow Ponds/Richard Hogg/Finji.
Don't panic, you don't need the fanciest vertical section or a full Steam Next Fest demo at the ready (couldn't hurt though). His advice once again concerns communication. The developers want the business developer in the room to understand very clearly what the game is and who it can be marketed to.
You can fill your vertical section with everything it needs to communicate the genre, the “vibe,” and what players will be doing in the game.
“It's more competitive today than it was five years ago,” he noted. “There are fewer resources out there. Present yourself with the best chance of securing the funding or contract.”
Be business-minded, even if you don't have the mind to
In a perfect world, artists could practice art, technicians research their technology, and people work hard to bring money to the people who need it most. However we live in a world where Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles didn't get a third season, the smallest indicator that we're not in a perfect world.
It is a post-pandemic world where everyone is exhausted by the still lingering presence of COVID-19, wars AND invasionsinflation (or not? greed?) and… well, you get the point.
Poor funding for games is perhaps among the smallest issues we face, but if you're an indie out there struggling to get funding, Saltsman feels your pain. “People's funding prototypes have been around for about 20-24 months, but they've mostly canceled or cut all their projects. Diversity funds, platform funds, angel funds, investor funds – all are a fraction of that that they were.”
Indie developers, he said, need to do their best to be “less risky.” They can do this by having a better vertical slice, a wider range of financing methods, and being ready to adapt to whatever comes next.
“You need to spend some time on business.”
Game Developer and Game Developers Conference are sister organizations of Informa Tech.
