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在游戏设计师大会上展示作品的10点建议

发布时间:2013-06-20 11:29:18 Tags:,,,,

作者: Filip W.

上一周,我去参加了游戏设计师大会(对我冲击很大!)。因为我是第一次参加这种会议(我之前的经验是游戏会谈或行业展如Essen),我觉得我大概会像一只无头苍蝇一样茫然无措——我想我会从犯错中吸取教训,为下一次游戏设计师会议积累经验。

我确实犯错了。但我也确实从中学到许多。以下是新手们常犯的错误以及解决建议:

E3(from audyssey.com)

E3(from audyssey.com)

1、明确与会目的

也就是你要在游戏设计师会议上做什么。对我而言,我想见识一下设计师大会是怎么样的、认识其他设计师以及了解行业现状。这是我学习某事件的第一步,也是我当初从业余设计师变成职业设计师的第一步。

因为这个目的,我决定尽量提问题,向尽可能多的设计师提问,特别是那些在大型发行公司工作的设计师,这样我通常就能了解行业情况了。不幸的是,如果我能够更加开放并且提前提出自己的疑问,我本可以避免许多不切实际的成见。

2、准备

是的,这是再明显不过的了。我确实准备了,打印了原型、仔细考虑了“电梯游说”原则(游戏邦注:电梯游说,Elevator pitch,即假设你在电梯里,只有30秒的时间来向一位关系公司前途的大客户推广产品且必须成功,这就要求你必须用最简洁的语言说明市场需求和你的解决方案)、琢磨了我想提的问题等。但是,在销售量和发行商合约方面,我完全没有准备。

这次大会为期两天:周六是行业交易活动,周日是对外开放活动。周六那一天的安排非常混乱和紧凑——与会设计师们的焦点任务就是向40家以上的发行公司出席代表推销自己的作品。对此我真是毫无准备。我知道会有代表,但没料到会有那么多代表,更没有想到所有人都在努力推销、表现、突出自己。

我与发行商代表们有过几次谈话,听取了他们一些好建议和对原型的若干要求,但如果我能准备得更加充分的话,我能得到的东西应该不止这些。

3、市场研究

明年,我要做的第一件事尽早就是为二月份召开的大会准备(是的,这么棒的活动我还要去!)一份与会发行商名单。之后我会对他们做一个基本的市场调查。

看吧,今年我邀请对方看我的原型时,竟然误把Schmit Spiele公司的发行代表当成了Queen公司的。来者倒是十分和善和体谅(因为我一开始就声明这是我第一次参加大会、第一次演说),但如果我提前做过研究,我应该早就知道他对我的设计不感兴趣——Schmit并不发行我所设计的那类游戏。我为此道了歉,他很理解,甚至想看看我的其他原型作品(这是我没有预料到的)。重点:了解与会公司,然后确定受众。由此就引出了本文的第三点。

4、提前预定会谈

发行商是大忙人,特别是当周围有200名以上的设计师时。能不能争取到20、10或5分钟都是不确定的事。但如果你提前约定谈话,你就会得到你需要的时间了。在发行代表还没审美疲劳、积极性比较高的时候,你在谈话时争取时间的可能性就更大。这比在周六下午、代表们饿了8个小时的时候找他们谈话更好得多。成功获得发行机会的设计师就是提前约定会谈的。在宾馆时,我遇到Kristian Amundsen ?stby和Eilif Svensson,他们告诉我一些展示的技巧和设计原则。所以我推导出第四点:

5、与人交流

害羞是推销员的大敌。养成接触代表和设计师的习惯会给你带来无数学习的机会。我不知识读者你是什么情况,我个人并不是社交达人。但在我打算参加大会时,我决定尽可能地找人说话。我要跟所有人说话:发行商、设计师、无关的路人。这真是英明的决定,我确实养成了打破僵局的习惯(注意:设计师喜欢炫耀自己的游戏——当有人询问我的原型时,我总是感到狂喜;发行商喜欢听人说游戏。所以他们才成为游戏发行商,因为他们爱游戏,总是在寻找他们没尝试过的、新鲜有趣的游戏,他们也喜欢谈论游戏)。我确实收到非常非常多有价值的反馈,现在我有很多要测试的东西了。

6、不要担心你的原型外观

我没有时间为我的原型制作精美的图像。游戏的某些部分确实有体面的材料,但其他部分仍然很简陋。问题不大。

发行商不看图像,其他设计师也是。看看成名设计师的原型,基本上是十分粗糙的。没有人关心我的图像,最多就是提到设计让人误会的地方。发行商对图像尤其不感兴趣,他们只想知道游戏的核心。

game prototype(from gizmag.com)

game prototype(from gizmag.com)

7、不要泛泛而谈你的游戏,要解说它

我很快注意到,发行商不想了解规则,他们没有时间了解。他们只想知道你的游戏的乐趣点和创意点在哪里、与同类型游戏相比有何突出特点。以下是我为我的一款游戏准备的解说辞:

这是一款拍卖游戏,在标准的拍卖活动中:玩家叫价,拍卖师喊“第一次,第二次”等,但我做了如下四个调整:

第一,玩家不知道你投标的物品价值,只知道该类物品的平均价值。

第二,取决于出售物品的数量,你可能会渐渐了解一些物品的实际价值。

第三,你可以出高于自己拥有的钱的价,然后立即以更高价格转卖竞得的物品,用挣得的票面价值抵偿你的投标价,但你也可以自己留下物品而不是二次转手。然而,如果你出价过高又不能支付,那么你就不得不以一半的票面价值出售你竞得的物品。

第四,当你竞得物品,你必须支付拍卖师一美元。但不知为什么,测试者对这个设定发笑却不问我为什么,我自己也不知道。

拍卖师的角色每一回合都会转变,在游戏末尾,最有钱的玩家获胜。当然,游戏还有其他小的调整,但最重要的就是以上四点。

以上。这款游戏归结为核心部分(结束解说后,问问开发商的想知道什么)。这跟我第一次所说的很不同。说得比较长,我得展示所有卡片、解释了所有可能性(而我在第一次解说中,甚至没有提到可能性,因为如果发行商有兴趣,他们自然会问),但这个方法管用。这就是电梯游说原则,我甚至不必展示产品(发行商有向我索取原型)。

8、准备游戏的简短的、书面的展示材料

当看到其他设计师的桌面时,我想到了这一点。一开始,我只是把我的游戏放在桌面上,但我想到当我四处走动时,我的桌面就没有人照看了。当有人来看我的游戏时,就无法了解游戏了。

所以,我从笔记本上撕了几页纸,简要地写下了以下四项内容:

1)游戏的名称

2)玩家人数

3)游戏持续时间

4)难度水平

我还放了一叠商业名片在桌上(我只有文案名片,没有游戏设计师名片,可能要等到我有游戏发行时才会做设计师名片,这样的名片上才有东西可写)。

我没有看到太多其他设计师这么做的,大多数似乎只想亲自用演示片和原型来展示他们的游戏,但因为我的游戏占地小,所以我可以把大部分游戏一直放在桌面上。我的小抄很管用,大会后,我甚至收到了一封电子邮件。给我发邮件的代表没跟我说过话但看了我的小抄和名片后对我的一款游戏产生了兴趣。

9、准备销售表

这是我没有做到的。如果我更加关心销售而不是会谈和学习的话,我本应该想到这一点。如果我有准备,我就可以像其他设计师那样拿给目标代表看,效果应该会很好。当我不在摊位前时,销售表可能更方便推销我的游戏;并且如果我想谈话,我可以提前把销售表作为邮件发给发行商。下一次向发行商展示我的游戏时,我一定要做一些销售表。

10、休息安排

我发现周六那天,每个人都兴奋异常,很多人带了大量茶水/咖啡和零食。有些设计师甚至提前打包了一篮子食物,这样他们就可以一直呆在自己的桌子前。

我认为这不是最佳解决方案。我在大会上呆到约两点,体力几乎透支,所以我决定离开会场去找吃的。天差地别!只要走到餐馆,就能享受安静舒适的休息环境和美味的食物,这意味着当我回去展示我的作品时,我的精力会更加充沛,而其他设计师看起来都疲惫不堪。我理解设计师必须尽量接触发行代表,但我认为休息,哪怕是到安静的地方呆几分钟,可以更好地恢复精神和体力。下一次我还是要好好安排休息。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

10 tips for demoing and selling your games at game designer’s conventions (learned the hard way at G?ttingen GDC)

by Filip W.

This weekend past I went to the G?ttingen Game Designer’s Convention (and let me tell you that it was a blast!). Since this was my first game designer’s convention (all my previous ones have either been gaming conventions or trade fairs like Essen) I realized I would be going in effect blind – I’d be going to make mistakes and learn for the time I went to another GDC.

Boy did I make mistakes. But I did learn from them. Here’s a list of rookie mistakes and what to do about them:

1. Decide why you want to go.

That’s at the core of what you’re going to do. For me, I wanted to see a designer’s convention, meet other designers and learn the trade. It was a step in my learning curve, the path that I’m taking from being a hobbyist designer who likes to throw his ideas out there to being a professional.

With that in mind I decided to ask as many questions as I could, from as many designers, especially designers published with major publishers, that I could and generally observe what was going on. Unfortunately I had some preconceived ideas about what would be going on that didn’t match reality, something I could have avoided by being more open and asking more beforehand.

2. Prepare. No, really.

Yeah, this is a silly one. I did prepare, print out prototypes, think through my elevator pitches, consider questions I wanted to ask and such. I was totally unprepared for the amount of selling and publisher contacts what would be going on.

G?ttingen runs over two days: Saturday, which is a trade only event, and Sunday, which is open to the public. On Saturday things were very chaotic and intense – everything was focused on selling to the 40+ publisher reps that were there. This I was completely unprepared for. I thought there might be a few reps, but not that many, and not that everyone would be trying to impress them and sell, sell, sell.

I even got a few meetings in, and got some great tips from publishers, and several requests for prototypes, but I would have gotten even more if I’d had been prepared.

3. Market research.

Next year, the first thing I’ll do as soon as the lists for the convention opens in February (yeah, I’m going again – it was GREAT!) is look at which publishers will attend. Then I’ll do basic market research for them.

See, this year I asked a publisher from Schmit Spiele, whom I mistook for Queen games, to look at my prototypes. He was incredibly kind and supportive (I was very up front with this being my first time and my first pitch ever), but if I’d had done my research I would have known that he wouldn’t be interested – Schmit just doesn’t publish the sort of games that I design. I apologized for this, and he was very understanding, and even wanted to see my other prototypes (which I hadn’t counted on). Point in fact: learn about the companies, then decide whom to pitch too. Which brings me to the third point.

4. Book meetings in advance.

Publishers are busy people, especially when surrounded by some 200+ designers. Getting 20, 10 or even 5 minutes is far from certain. But if you set up meetings in advance you will get the time you need. And you’ll get it early in the convention when the reps are fresh and on their toes. That’s way better than late on Saturday afternoon when they’ve been in meetings for 8 hours straight with no lunch. That’s what the published designers do. I met Kristian Amundsen ?stby, of Escape fame, and Eilif Svensson, who stayed at my hotel and got some great tips about presenting and rules writing and game design in general. Which brings me to:

5. Talk to people.

Shyness is a salesman’s worst friend. Getting into the habit of approaching reps and designers will open countless doors to opportunities to learn. I don’t know about you but I’m not a supremely social person. But when going I decided that I would talk as much to people as I could. I’d talk to anyone: publishers, designers, innocent bystanders. That preparation helped and I did get into the habit of breaking the ice (tip: designers love to show off their games – I was overjoyed when someone asked me about my prototypes and so were they; tip 2: publishers love to hear about games. No really. That’s why they’re publishers, because they love games, and they want to find that new, fresh and interesting game they haven’t tried yet. And they love talking about games too). I did get a lot – a LOT – of great feedback as well, and now I’ve got loads of ideas to playtest.

6. Don’t worry about how your prototype looks.

I didn’t have the time to do great graphics for my prototypes. I had some decent ones, for some parts of the games, but some parts were still sharpie-on-index-card level. It didn’t matter.

Publishers don’t look at graphics and neither did the designers. Looking at the established designers’ prototypes they had some very raw ones. No one cared about my graphics more than to say where the design was misleading (“I didn’t realize you could have zero income, that should be represented by a step.”). Publishers especially weren’t interested in the graphics; they wanted to know about the game.

7. Don’t talk about your game, pitch it.

I quickly noticed that publishers didn’t want the rules – they don’t have time for that. They wanted to know what was interesting and new about your game, what set it apart from other games in the same genre. Here’s what I developed for a pitch for one of my games:

Quote:

It’s an auction game, standard auction: auctioneer, players shouting out bids, “going once, going twice” and so on, but it’s got four twists:

One; you don’t know the value of what you’re bidding on, only the average value for the category.

Two; depending on the number of items for sale you may get to see the actual value of some of them.

Three; you can bid more than you have and then pay for your bid by immediately selling the items you’ve won at their face value. But if you decide to keep them instead they’re worth twice their face value at the end of the game. However, if you ever overbid and can’t pay for your items you have to sell any you’ve set aside for half their face value.

And four; whenever you bid you have to pay the auctioneer a dollar. For some reason this makes my playtesters laugh but don’t ask my why, I don’t get it myself.

The role of auctioneer shifts each turn and whomever has the most money at the end of the game wins. There are some other, minor, twists but that’s the gist of it.

That’s it, the game boiled down to its core parts (over several pitches and listening to what publishers wanted to know). It differs quite a bit from what I started with, which was wordier and had me showing all the cards and probabilities and stuff (I don’t even mention probabilities in the pitch, if they’re interested they’ll ask) but it works. It’s the elevator pitch, and I didn’t even need to show the product (and I got requests for the prototype too).

8. Have short, written, presentations of your games.

This is something that I came up with when seeing the other designer’s tables. At first I just put my games on my table but I realized that I wanted to walk around and thus my table would be unattended for parts of the time. People would look at my games and not know what they were all about.

So I tore out some sheets from my pocket notebook and wrote up a very simple presentation on each containing:

* The game’s name

* The number of players

* The play time

* The complexity level

I also put a pile of my business cards on the table (my copywriter’s business cards, I don’t have a game designer’s card and probably won’t get any until I have some games published so I can have my experience visible on the card).

I didn’t see many other designers do this, most seemed to want to present their games themselves and switched games between demos, but since my games have a very small footprint I could have most of them on the table all the time and the cheat sheets worked like a charm. I even got an email after the convention from a rep I hadn’t talked too who wanted rules to one of my games based only on the cheat sheet and the business card being available.

9. Have sale sheets.

This one I didn’t do. I should have thought of it, if I’d been more focused on selling rather than meeting and learning. I’d made do, but having something I could have given reps, and possibly other designers as well, would have been good. It would also had sold my games better when I wasn’t at the table, and I could have used them to email to publishers beforehand if I wanted a meeting. I’m definitely making some sale sheets for next time I’m going to present my games to publishers.

10. Plan breaks.

I noticed that Saturday was very hectic for everyone and involved lots of tea/coffee and snacks. Some designers even had pre-packed baskets with them so they didn’t have to leave their tables.

I don’t think this is the best solution. I tried to stick around but about two o’clock I felt that my energy levels were so low that I decided to leave the convention and get something to eat. What a difference! Just walking to the restaurant (I had some picked out from Tripadvisor that I wanted to try), getting some air, some quiet, some rest and some food, meant that I was much better able to present my designs when I got back, at a time when other designers seemed to be rather tired. I understand the need to present as much as possible to as many reps as possible but I still think that taking breaks, and going somewhere quiet even if for a few minutes, helps to present better and sell more when you get back. That’s what I’ll be doing the next time too.

How about you, what are your best tips for presenting to publishers at a convention?(source:boardgamegeek)


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