I have a treatment for an MMO that i would like to pitch to video game companies and maybe some indie investors. Do you guys have any tips to make this happen. i really dont know where to go from here.

 google.

it doesnt work like that sadly. you have to come up with a proposal, and a working demo. i forgot what the proposal was called, but its about 10 pages long, or was it 100?

 i already have a proposal written out and it is about 78 pages long. But i dont have a working demo. Do i have to have a working demo before pitching the idea? would game companies not see the potential and realism in making the game by the proposal alone?

Have you tried attending gaming conferences and networking there?  You might find more people who know something about the industry.

Sadly, most people that are starting up their own game ideas find out one common thing: Pitching doesn't work well. Every game company already has so many ideas, that they cant develope them all.

Basically, what you need to do is start development on your own, and get the game presentable, and then pitch to publishers. however, this is still going to cost a LOT of cash, and you will obviously need a team capable of actually making the game. So, save up a couple million dollars, spend a few years in development with a team of 10-20 people, and then pitch your game to a publisher once you have enough of the game complete that investors and publishers can see what they are biting in to.

The gaming industry is not the same as the writting or movie industry with the whole pitching thing, and even in the movie industry, pitching movie ideas is less and less common due to the fact that they already have millions of ideas.

Sorry to burst your bubble a bit, but it is going to take a long time, and lots of cash to manage what you want.

1. If you provide them with a completed game, and you present it to the publisher in person and you have, waiting in the wings, a professional developer ready to make any required changes or ports, you are most likely to get a deal (especially if that professional development company is yours). 90% rejection rate.

2. If you provide them with a 2/3-complete game, you are less likely to get a deal. 93% rejection rate.

3. A 1/3-complete game is less likely to get a green light - 95% rejection rate.

4. If you come to the table with a working interactive demo of a game, you are less likely to get a deal. 97% rejection rate.

5. If you provide them with a videotape or other animation that shows what the game might look like, you are less likely to get a deal. 98% rejection rate.

6. If you bring them an idea on paper (and no developer standing ready to make the game at your behest), you are less likely to get a deal. 99% rejection rate.

7. If you present the idea verbally, you will not get a deal.

8. If the idea exists only in your head, you will not get a deal. You have to express it in tangible form. I mean, seriously - are you living in the real world, or are you just a dreamer with his head in the sand?

_________________Source______________

Yep a completely finished game and a well polished game has a 10% sucess rate of getting published.   This is based on the assumption that you approach all publishers AFTER THE FACT(that it's done).

 Thank you for the info but i dont think you read a damn thing i said. ive already stated that i had a treatment/proposal ready for them that is 78 pages long, very intricate, but no demo. Im not sure whet you need.

Originally posted by jadan2000

 Thank you for the info but i dont think you read a damn thing i said. ive already stated that i had a treatment/proposal ready for them that is 78 pages long, very intricate, but no demo. Im not sure whet you need.

Lets be honest if a publisher is likely to turn down a nearly completed game for little to no reason, why would they be interested in paper?

Start Here save yourself time and figure out any direction you could take.   Free advice from a real and competant game developer, instead of this bastard(me) who is a college student for BUSINESS programming and has very little short term interest in anything gaming.

_______________________________

Evening getting a perfectly working flash game, using an old version so it works on even more computers, and using innovative game play.  Is insanely hard(well tedious) to get game companies like miniclip to have it on their website(espcially with favorable terms on the developers side, they'll probably even lose their naming+IP rights as well), it's even hard with sites like arcadepod where they don't do the hosting in some cases.   The flash market is also a whole lot more forgiving and light hearted than AAA development since the actual publishing is just periodic dimes on a dollar of "semi-sure" profit and 20 or so hours of "human hands on board"(publishing side: contracts, legal, deployment, testing for their site, and a few other things).

_______________________________

Now think of another aspect.   It's hard enough to make any game.   Now you have a stranger approaching say "Oh hi I don't just want to make any game, My game is also going to have the equivlent of a mid-sized corporations IT network and then a massively sized support network that will be running 24/7 for the next 10 years".   

You can simplify MMO developement as saying:  Take a midsized corporations IT network, take the number of transactions that network experiances over a day and compress it down to a hour,  then take a very high end game and attach it to that, next take the content of 3 other cames and add it to there, you now need to add a developement team to work on that 5 days a week 8 to 10 hours a day for the next 10 years, you can't forget that MMORPGers are like little children and need customer support systems capable of handling that, and finally you need to tie in a few REAL bussiness applications for handling billing.

All in all the thought of writing out just one design document calling it good then thinking it's time to start calling names and picking teams is silly.

_______________________________

Is your game design document even readable.   Example format, take special note how things like "story" are saved for last other things like areas are near the end.   The document itself empasises "these core features" sell themselves.

The design document like all sales documents(including resumes) should have zero, zip, nadda and no surprises in their format.   They should also follow an expected order, and an order that makes sense.

_________________________________

The truth of ideas is this:  No one cares if someone has an idea, if someone has a truely good no one will realize it unless it's rammed down their throat.

You could litterally post every idea in your design document over a couple of years of hanging out in ANY forum.   The only thing that will become of them are some interesting comments.   I can almost gaurantee that no one will steal them or even borrow from them because by default their idea is better.

_________________________________

Arrogant yes(me),  but your posts are pretty damn arrogant even if you don't realize it.

Oh hello I'm looking for an easy way to pitch an idea.   I'd prefer to avoid work if possible since I already have 78 pages of questionable content.   I also have a few glaringly annoying mistakes like "indy investors" and the sort.

But I'm confident that my idea is mind blowing and worth a 10 to 20 million dollar investment.

_________________________________

Of course if this even remotely disheartens you you should first ask yourself why you started "your dream".

Paulscott is pretty much spot on. I was like the OP though, before I had really looked things over. Hell, I had a full writeup, a webpage AND a wiki for all my ideas. What did it get me? A bunch of back and forth from forum posters, and about 75 bucks in donations, lol.

In the end, if you don't have a couple million dollars to do the startup, or VERY good network connections (I dont mean the internet type...) you wont go anywhere. Your best bet would to at least get a couple hundred grand, get a game engine, and then recruit some guys from your local college. They wont be amazing, but they might become amazing one day, and they can test out there game creating skills by working on your game. Beleive it or not, you could more than likely scrape up 10-15 guys pretty cheaply from a University if you tried. I worked with several guys on a MUD some years back, and they pretty much just donated all of their time because they were like minded with me. The ones that would not donate time, often were fine with a free room in your apartment or something.

Were they good programmers? Sure, for second or third year guys.... But not for a big publication. However, if you can recruit a good team of like minded people, get them to work for free/cheaply, and then get a shell of a game put together, you will increase your odds exponentially. However, the odds still wont be all that great. I think Paulscotts numbers were even a bit forgiving... I think even if you had a fully completed, ready to be polished and published game, your odds would still be in the 5% success area.

But, by all means, give it a shot. If you like using your spare time coming up with your ideas, than do it! Just for funs sake. I did, and it entertained me for months. Just don't think that your game will ever see the light of day, or you will become depressed.

P. Scott mad my day. As another dude with 30+ games on docket that wants to get in, even I know that without a background in computer sciences it's impossible to get it - even as a writer, designer or idea guy. You could leak billion doller ideas out your seams and it will not matter, you gotta have references, be that work history or a full-blown team of developers behind you.

Those links were good resources for me as well.

Oh, I will say that any good game setting would make a good book. That is the route I am going, and hopefully it could get me, in the very least, noticed. That is something that one man can do, and still has a chance to get published.

Bah away with your negativity.

1. is does not take millions of dollars to produce a mmo. With the amount of open source programs out today it is very easy to design and produce a very playable game that might even grab you a contract with a large corp. Just know this will take hard work and long hours.

2. If you have free time why let anyone tell you that you can't? This is where we ask are you a mexi-can or a mexi-can't? (johnny depp once apon a time in mexico) The great thing about the world is if you have the drive you can do it, or you can be like these guys and aim low. I'm not saying you'll be successful, I'm saying you'll never know if you are if you don't try.

3. You don't "need" a team, but it does help a lot. Programing, writing, drawing, conducting music, by yourself sucks. Not to say you can't do it, it just sucks. If you want to aim for it just remember games have a lot, I mean A LOT of programming behind them. We're talking thousands of hours of it. Then you have graphic design, music, and don't forget a story which seems to be lacking in a lot of mmo's even the big ones. Know this before thinking "oh this will be fun!" No it will be hell and you'll hate it, but if everything in life was easy then we'd all be rich and happy.

If I may suggest, if you really want to get into it you need to have more than just an idea. Idea's are great and they are the birthplace for innovation but with out any action all you are doing is talking. If you have an idea but don't want to put in the work to make it a game then maybe you should see about a book like one poster said. Perhaps even hold on to the idea get into advertising or communications and try and get a job with a game company then work from the inside. Now if you want to turn your idea into reality, into something innovative, then you're going to have to make a working tangible mmo. If you have an idea build your team, don't let people tell you that you're an idiot or your wasting your time, asking people for their thoughts on what you're doing is just keeping the idea as an idea, you'll always be talking. If you post some where that you're looking for people for a team and people tell you you're stupid, let them! What are they doing with their lives? Never stop never give up. If you drive yourself to do what you want then what bad can come of it? What, you get better at writing, or programming, or communication? Maybe it turns out your idea flops but on the way you found a new passion that drives you and you succeed at that. For anyone looking to really get into building an mmo do some research, find the information that you need, and then follow it until you can't go any further. Once you've come to that point you'll either decide it's not worth it or you'll drive even harder to get it. Great things come from those who think I can than those that say I can't.

A few programs you might want to look into:

1. Blender (www.blender.org/) A free open source 3D content creation suite

2. Axiom (axiomengine.sourceforge.net) A 3D rengering engine for C#

3. C# (msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp) A programming language, one of many you could possibly use.

Again don't take no, can't, or you're stupid from anyone! Don't engage them with discussions on why you aren't because thats agreeing with them and you're stuck in your idea. Simply do.

Originally posted by chill808

Bah away with your negativity.

1. is does not take millions of dollars to produce a mmo. With the amount of open source programs out today it is very easy to design and produce a very playable game that might even grab you a contract with a large corp. Just know this will take hard work and long hours.

2. If you have free time why let anyone tell you that you can't? This is where we ask are you a mexi-can or a mexi-can't? (johnny depp once apon a time in mexico) The great thing about the world is if you have the drive you can do it, or you can be like these guys and aim low. I'm not saying you'll be successful, I'm saying you'll never know if you are if you don't try.

3. You don't "need" a team, but it does help a lot. Programing, writing, drawing, conducting music, by yourself sucks. Not to say you can't do it, it just sucks. If you want to aim for it just remember games have a lot, I mean A LOT of programming behind them. We're talking thousands of hours of it. Then you have graphic design, music, and don't forget a story which seems to be lacking in a lot of mmo's even the big ones. Know this before thinking "oh this will be fun!" No it will be hell and you'll hate it, but if everything in life was easy then we'd all be rich and happy.

 

If I may suggest, if you really want to get into it you need to have more than just an idea. Idea's are great and they are the birthplace for innovation but with out any action all you are doing is talking. If you have an idea but don't want to put in the work to make it a game then maybe you should see about a book like one poster said. Perhaps even hold on to the idea get into advertising or communications and try and get a job with a game company then work from the inside. Now if you want to turn your idea into reality, into something innovative, then you're going to have to make a working tangible mmo. If you have an idea build your team, don't let people tell you that you're an idiot or your wasting your time, asking people for their thoughts on what you're doing is just keeping the idea as an idea, you'll always be talking. If you post some where that you're looking for people for a team and people tell you you're stupid, let them! What are they doing with their lives? Never stop never give up. If you drive yourself to do what you want then what bad can come of it? What, you get better at writing, or programming, or communication? Maybe it turns out your idea flops but on the way you found a new passion that drives you and you succeed at that. For anyone looking to really get into building an mmo do some research, find the information that you need, and then follow it until you can't go any further. Once you've come to that point you'll either decide it's not worth it or you'll drive even harder to get it. Great things come from those who think I can than those that say I can't.

 

A few programs you might want to look into:

1. Blender (www.blender.org/) A free open source 3D content creation suite

2. Axiom (axiomengine.sourceforge.net) A 3D rengering engine for C#

3. C# (msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp) A programming language, one of many you could possibly use.

 

Again don't take no, can't, or you're stupid from anyone! Don't engage them with discussions on why you aren't because thats agreeing with them and you're stuck in your idea. Simply do.

To try to make an MMO from scratch by yourself, when you dont have any knowledge of programming or networking systems is going to take 5 years just to learn the skills, and at least another 10-15 in development. And even then, it will more than likely just be a mediocre game at best. You could viably make a single player game, most likely a platformer, by yourself in short order (still meaning a year or so, plus all the time to learn programming) but MMOs are just too big, with too many "extras".

Once again, it IS possible, just not within a reasonable amount of time.

Ah I see I have an expert on my hands. So how many have you built now? MMO's that is...

Originally posted by chill808

Ah I see I have an expert on my hands. So how many have you built now? MMO's that is...

I worked on 3 different MUDs, one being my own. Three years of work, with 3 other people, and it was still barely worked on, and MUDs come with a large base of the game already made. And, they dont involve graphics. And, I dont need to know anything about connectivity to work on them. I also learned LUA scripting thanks to Ragnarok Online. I threw about a year into a server that, once again, never got much changed, even with tons of work and time.

Now, I have been self teaching myself C and C++ for about 2 years now. Even with my prior knowledge of scripting, I dont have a good enough grasp of the language to even HOPE to build a game. Build some apps with decent functionality? Sure. Games, or especially a gaming ENGINE? Hell no. And, once again, that is just one very small side of the development. As i said, I could easily spend 5-10 years just hammering out programming languages, and that does not help me for any of the other facets.

How many have YOU made?

So what you're really saying is you haven't built any. So basically you're speaking from opinion and not fact. It's ok negative people run wild in the world, never a bad thing to be just like everyone else.

BTW a very impressive story I'm glad you wanted to tell me. Good luck with the learning.

Originally posted by chill808

So what you're really saying is you haven't built any. So basically you're speaking from opinion and not fact. It's ok negative people run wild in the world, never a bad thing to be just like everyone else.

 

BTW a very impressive story I'm glad you wanted to tell me. Good luck with the learning.

Once again, how much work on gaming have YOU done? I have actually been there. The fact that I have never FINISHED one should just add to the fact that I know what a time and money sink it is. But, whatever. If you want to give this guy hope that he can learn, apply, and create all the knowledge he needs in just a few years, than be my guest. The rest of the people, in reality land will be carefully watching, I am sure.

I'm sorry you feel that way, must be awefuly boring in, what was it called- reality land. Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote, then re-think what you're saying, and then wonder why you're here defending yourself to someone who isn't even attacking you. You seem like an alright person and I'll leave it at that.

Originally posted by chill808

I'm sorry you feel that way, must be awefuly boring in, what was it called- reality land. Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote, then re-think what you're saying, and then wonder why you're here defending yourself to someone who isn't even attacking you. You seem like an alright person and I'll leave it at that.

You are making it sound like the OP can just up and do it, and that is setting him up for failure. I understand that it shouldnt all be gloom and grim, but seriously, making it sound easy is not going to help either. If you go in knowing that it is going to be a VERY long, uphill battle, and are willing to work at it, you might make something one day, long in the future. However, if you go in thinking it is going to be a walk in the park, and then it ends up taking 10 years or more, you are going to lose all hope way before that end time comes.

Hey, I just came up with an idea for a new car. I don't know anything at all about engineering, but I wrote a really long description of all the features that I think would be totally cool. 

To make sure that none of my valuable time is wasted, let me make this clear right up front:  I DON'T want to hear from any doofuses who work for car companies or know anything at all about car design or the automobile industry itself.  I only want to hear from people who have personally made made cold-call presentations that got corporations to realize all their own ideas suck, and invest tens of millions of dollars turning your daydreams into a real car design.

Thanx in advance!

Originally posted by chill808

Ah I see I have an expert on my hands. So how many have you built now? MMO's that is...

I feel compelled to reply because the poster thinks C# is something worth looking into.   While it undeniably is the fact that it's something worth looking into it's so far out of context and the fact that it's declared something to look into when if the OP was clueless about it they would have MUCH MUCH further to go before they could even consider making/designing a Missile Command clone(rather working on a team making a good clone with tons of extras).

The basic fact stands that if you plan on picking up game developement skills of any sort with making a MMORPG as a goal you WILL tire yourself of your training before you get anywhere close to being ready for working on an MMO team.

___________________

As for making a multiplayer game it is not hard at all if you remove a lot of the more tedious things.   As a matter of fact making a multiplayer game was my second semester programming project in highschool, even if it was a really simple two player shoot them up with Visual Basic 6.0.  

Making a multiplayer game now I could probably make something very interesting and compelling, thinking a nice racing game over a browser with a high scores ranking and all that good stuff.    Granted that would take a lot of time, compared to smaller fun projects that I don't need to maintain a server for, it's really a screw that kind of mind set.

As for making an insanely NAIVE clustering simulation that I would consider worthy of load balancing an MMO, that took a month(in hobby time).

___________________

As for costing money to make an MMO well it does in all cases in some form or another.   Money is really just a synonym for "the easiest way to get people to do what you want".

___________________

Now seriously lets think about what it would take to make an INDY MMO for free:

To start with you're going to need to first find a handful of very very competent people(I would actually place myself below this level in most cases).   Then you're going to have to pull a "small group miracle"  keeping everyone focused on that one project for 3 years.   I mean seriously have you ever even kept the same best friend for 3 years, what's to say you can keep a group working together on a work intensive project with varying ideas, and actually get "productive work" done.

Now lets say you managed to get the project done.  At this point you're like "WOW that miracle where I assumed we'd have a server, and a player base never happened".  

Now lets say you got past that point.   Now you're at the point of "WOW I NEVER EVER imagined wife agro so intense, she found out my dream has been costing $600-$1,000 dollars every month for server hosting and a bunch of other expenses like webhosting".    Time to release early.

Oh wow community outroar.   At least we're up and running we have postive income.    WTF where did he come from, oh I remember now he contributed that tree model a couple of years back, and was the "false leader that did nothing" in our graphics team.   Oh wow he's demanding a fair share of profit and is even threatening legal action.    Art assets cut WTH is he still playing our game after that dumbarsry.

Oh wow I'm A professional IT developer(and a hobbyist) how the hell did we have such incompetent back up methods of our data...   Time for Gold Two and some misc. gifts.    Hmmm we lucked out on that one we drew back all our old playerbase as well when they saw the improvements most stayed.

I'm the client developer I love the game I still have a staunch interest in it.   However for the past 10 years I've been working on the project it has been a blackhole for me, I need to get a real life before I never have a chance to have one.   Community response overwhelmingly positive since it's average age is above 26.    Result Client team with people taken from our own community.

WOOT we're making enough to keep our server developer paid enough so he can work on it fully part time.   three months later WOOT we're making enough to keep in in work mostly full time when he's not consulting.  1 year later same thing.

/\ extremly abbreviated history of WurmOnline /\