Game Development - Pitch & Document

Author: Sebastian Gross

The pitch helps to sell a game concept to a developer. Either an outside writer/designer approaches a developer or company with a game concept, or an in-house designer takes a new idea to his or her bosses. Before that meeting, the writer/designer makes sure to put all his or her ideas and material into a document that offers a good overview of the concept (hopefully along with some punchy descriptions to hard-sell the idea).

In addition to serving as an attraction to investors and senior producers, the pitch can also act as a story or design overview for other people who come on board the design team down the road. A well-conceived pitch explains how the idea would work as a game and why it would sell well at stores. Investors or developers need to see why they should sink their money into your idea. The best answer you can give them is that they will get that money back with a significant profit because players across the country will flock to the store shelves to buy your idea.

While working for a game developer that has since been bought up by another larger developer, I was asked to write up pitch materials for a new sci-fi game. We'll call it "Project X." And, for the sake of simplicity, we'll call the company behind the concept Project X Entertainment. I took the concept, elements, characters, interface, and other game factors and composed them into a brief overview the Project X executives used to pitch the game to investors.

Once a game is approved and moves into the official design phase, the design document becomes the single most important item in the game's creation.

While design documents can vary from company to company and project to project, a design document needs to be shaped in all situations to keep everyone on the same page. Producers, designers, writers, composers, programmers, and testers all need to know where a game is coming from and where it's going. The design document resolves any potential confusion. The design document is a map for the game as a whole that any member of the professional team can turn to for answers during the design process.

A computer game design document can contain elements including: concept, genre, theme, synopsis, character descriptions, faction backgrounds, interface design, game engine description, art samples, and (only occasionally) marketing strategies.

The document grows over time as new elements are completed and added to its pages. The game's entire flowchart (and maybe the whole screenplay) will end up in the final game design document. While working on Command & Conquer II: Tiberian Sun for Virgin Interactive, I contributed story and character elements to the C&C II design document. While these pages changed a great deal after I was done with my work on the project, I include my contribution to that design document here as a sample. The lead designer wrote and presented a majority of the design document, but I made sure to cover every base I could in my portion.

Note that all the characters and concepts included in this computer game design document portion are Copyright, Westwood Studios and Virgin Interactive, 1999. While the words are mine, I wrote to the best of my abilities in hopes of satisfying the hardworking folks at these companies.

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