The State of Games, Ep. 92 – The One About Taking Care of Business
We typically do a good job of podcasting via Skype, but the best results come from when we are all in person. Thankfully we had the opportunity while taking care of business in St. Louis this past weekend. If I had my druthers, we’d record in person all the time, but that could only happen if we managed to organize that board game compound we’ve talked about for the longest time. One day, maybe – but, for now, we’ll settle for the joy of looking each other in the eye while we record for special occasions, even if they are few and far between. We hope you all enjoy one of those special times like this.
Links to important things mentioned on the podcast:
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
TC Petty III’s Designer Ego blog (with Don’t Get Eated print-and-play)
ALSO, OUR KICKSTARTER ALL STARS:
Please visit our new game store! You can now find all the Dice Hate Me Games titles at the Greater Than Games store!
And, finally:
The Dice Hate Me Games Newsletter! Sign up for the best in behind-the-scenes goodness from our hearts to yours.
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Related posts:
- The State of Games, Ep. 80: The One About Some Business & Baseball
- The State of Games, Ep. 89 – The One About So Here’s The Thing
- The State of Games, Ep. 87 – The One About Growing New Gamers
- The State of Games, Ep. 91 – The One About We Can Do Whatever We Want
- The State of Games, Episode 58 – The One About Unpub 4
Nice show, I always enjoy listening to you guys chat.
Regarding your section on pitching to publishers – Chris said something about first right of refusal, which he described as something like “if you’ve submitted a game to me, and you get another offer, let me know before signing the other offer…” I’d like to put in my two cents on that. I think it’s not the right advice…
As the representative of a publisher, I do not want to waste time thinking about, playtesting, or working on a submission (yes – I said “working on” – sometimes a submission isn’t acceptable as-is for whatever reason, but could be a good candidate with some changes, and sometimes that needs to be tried before a decision can be made) if there’s any chance the designer will come back and say “someone else has made me an offer.” If I take a submission to consider, I prefer/expect it to be an exclusive submission. It’s fine to ask for an answer by a certain time (give the publisher a couple of months – you might be surprised how long it can take to get to, test out, and consider a submission!) – but during that time do the publisher the courtesy of not showing the game to anybody else.
Maybe that means a “right of refusal” contract, which basically spells out terms like a regular publishing contract, but indicates that after a particular date, the decision will be made to move forward per the terms in the contract, or to release the game. That essentially just tells the publisher that the designer is serious about having them publish the game, and it lets the designer know that the publisher is serious about considering it.
Other than that point, I think you guys had some good insights and advice regarding pitching games and the shotgun approach we’ve seen lately.
Something I don’t think you talked about regarding that shotgun approach, though I’ve heard inklings of it here and there, is this: I’ve talked to some people who have observed a trend in that shotgun approach, which is some designers pitching essentially unfinished games to many different publishers, with the goal of either finding a publisher who is interested in finishing the game, or finding a publisher who is OK publishing the game as-is. I always advise designers not to pitch games until they truly believe the games are finished – like ready to be on store shelves – and then also be prepared for a publisher to make some revisions or development changes. Pitching unfinished games does nothing but fuel the complaints you hear about how kickstarter produces half-baked games!