Just seen IGDA nominees for rookie game of the year.
and by rookie they meant first-game-teams.


how did they get to publish their game at a software publisher?

i mean, lets hypotheticly say i have the next FPS/RPG/RTS, how
do i get recognition for it (to get a big publishers deal)?

coz none of these games were published as a shareware

You can use a game agent, like http://www.octagon1.com/. You need to have something special and already a good highly motivated developmentteam (artists, programmers, projectmanager).


Rookie Studio of the Year

Arkane Studios for ARX FATALIS

Day 1 Studios for MECHASSAULT

Gas Powered Games for DUNGEON SIEGE

Pipeworks Software for GODZILLA: DESTROY ALL MONSTERS MELEE

Retro Studios for METROID PRIME

hello

Based on my exerience it is very hard to get a *big* publisher deal.

The easiest way to meet with publishers is to go to a conference ( E3 or ECTS ) where all the publishers are exhibiting. A couple of months before the conference try to get some appointments with them ( it's easier that way ). For the ones you can't get in touch with, just show up and ...do your best to get in touch with the right person.

Bring a pile of CDs and printed screenshots ( they might not have time to test your game, but they will always be able to look at screenshots ;) , if they are appealing that's a good start )

The main argument you will face is the following:
"since you are a beginner and totally unknown we are doing you a favour in buying your game for very cheap"
( usually less than $3000 for a 2d game and less than $10000 for a 3d game )

You also have to be careful about selling the rights of your products, there are a lot of publishers buying the exclusive rights on your products, and they sell the licences to other publishers ( $2000 x 10 publishers.. = a lot ) A good way to deal with that is to limit the rights per publisher and per country ( so you can sell it yourself to another publisher in another country and don't feel like you've been ripped off )

hope this helps
pat.

Well, I don't know the stories of any of those studios in particular, but I suspect there are a few things in common.

First, the key people probably have some sort of experience. The CEO probably wasn't someone who just slapped that title on his business card. He was probably a high level manager at a another company. The project leads probably worked on another successful game (probably several). I'll just take a stab at it here....looking up Retro Studios....lead designer for Metroid Prime was Mark Pacini (hmmm, MP...same initials...interesting), so let's look him up.....ahha, he was the project manager for Turok: Rage Wars. I bet the same story holds true for other key people.

Second, I'm sure they had some money involved. It wasn't the case of "Hey, can we have 2 million dollars? I can throw in 20 bucks if it helps". They probably had a bit of their own money and/or some personal debt involved. At least enough to let the publisher know that they were really serious about the project.

Third, they probably had some type of detailed design document for the project already completed. And given point #1 (they had previous experience) they probably knew all the details of what elements go into a design doc, and had it looking quite professional.


In summary, "rookie" does NOT mean "newbie".

Ron is absolutely correct. Do not confuse first game teams with teams of newbies. Publishers look for experience. That means the teammembers have developed games before; for a first game that generally means the teammembers are all former employees of other, established game companies. They may even have an added in from knowing the right people (eg. their lead designer used to work for the publisher.)

Given this the most important thing for a team of newbies to do is gain experience. While working for an existing company is one way (and probably the most common) another way is to develop a few games of your own. If no publisher will look at those first games just distribute them as shareware. Just get some titles under your belt so that next time your pitch to the publisher can include all the work you've done before.

Here we also come to the concept of "paying your dues." A lot of newbies in the game industry seem to think they'll develop a spanking first-person shooter as their first game. Time to face reality: your first project should/will be something small. Your second project will also be small. These initial projects will, among other things, build up your experience and reputation so that eventually you'll have the opportunity to do bigger things. Remember, "Doom" was not id's first game, nor was id the first game company for any of id's staff. (By the way, here's a great read about id's founding, starting from they days when Carmack did freelance programming while working for a pizza parlor: http://www.3drealms.com/keenhistory/)