Video Game designer coming into the industry with an outside pitch?

[Ry]

Has anyone ever heard of a new game designer coming into the videogame industry with an outside pitch? My understanding was that this never happens, but I want to check to make sure I'm not needlessly crushing someone's hopes and dreams by expressing that.

 

[Piratecat]

I think it's very rare for a designer to be hired into the industry in order for the company to immediately produce his game. It's much more likely for a designer to be hired, to work on a few games, and then to successfully propose a game pitch.

- Piratecat (a game designer for THQ)

 

[Steel_Wind]

I would say your odds at this weekend's 649 are a little worse Ryan - but not by much. You'd have to know somebody REALLY well for you to get a chance to open your mouth.

Designers slog for 8-12 years or more with three or more published titles under their belt and a stint as a lead designer to be in the position to have a realistic chance of doing this. The injured feelings an outside idea would incur at any dev shop would be ... significant, in my view.

Pitching to a start up? Might be different. But it's a serious uphill battle.

Now - if you have a great and innovative tech demo, that might change the equation. But solid tech demos, say Project Offset style, or similar, these days are quite significant and expensive affairs to create.

Not going to happen, in my view.

 

[Ry]

Yeah, the fellow I'm talking to is looking for an opportunity to come in, pitch his ideas from "design spec, storyboards, concept art and such." and he's not talking casual game market either.

 

[takyris]

Yeah, no. It's about as likely to succeed as going to a published author and asking to co-write a novel by telling the author the ideas and having the author write everything down.

Which is to say, not likely. At all.

 

[Ry]

Excellent. I don't feel bad at all crushing false hopes.

 

[Thanee]

What's an "outside pitch"?

AFAIK the game designers who did Shadowbane were not working in the industry before, but rather have been quite successful in IT and then decided to make a game company and develop an MMORPG with their vast knowledge of programming and so on.

Wasn't quite the success, it seems...

Bye
Thanee

 

[trancejeremy]

There have been cases of people jumping from video game journalism to game design.
From about 10 years ago, Alam Emrich, from CGW, to the lead designer of Moo3. That worked out great. And more recently, a guy apparently was the personal translator for the designer of the Metal Gear Solid series, then jumped into design with Portal Ops.

There's always a big danger of designs being more opitimistic than can actually be developed in a reasonable manner. That's even more problematic today, with development for next gen/PC systems costing a ton of money. So I think companies really want designers who won't bite off more than they can chew with their designs.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Alan Emrich was deep in traditional board game design for years and was also a beta tester and designer on a half dozen titles before Moo3. And at the time, he was also hugely connected in the industry by virtue of his status within CGW. I don't think he would count as a rookie to anybody at the time in terms of his design experience. He had a name.

But I don't think he could have done the same thing today. There are a lot of journailists who do jump into design, A good friend of mine and a member of my gaming circle in years gone by, John McLean-Foreman, jumped into design with Lionhead, the moved on to Ubisoft - but he certainly didn't get a chance to get his own pitch turned into a game. And he still hasn't.

 

[WhatGravitas]

...lead designer of Moo3.

You know that mentioning MoO3 isn't necessarily something positive?

Cheers, LT.