
How to explain your game to an asshole - arthurbrown
http://www.pentadact.com/2012-03-17-gdc-talk-how-to-explain-your-game-to-an-asshole/
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chrisacky
You can switchout `game` to `startup` and the similarities are quite the same.

The four points that you discuss to explain your game as quick as possible is
similar to the elavator pitch for startups, or even more accurately Adeo
Ressi's MadLibs for pitching...

My company, __(insert name of company)__, is developing __(a defined
offering)__ to help __(a defined audience)__ __(solve a problem)__ with
__(secret sauce)__.

He did a video here. <https://vimeo.com/16447520>

At a glance when I first saw those snapshots of you giving the talk I thought
you were Sheldon Cooper for a split second! Perhaps you get that a lot!

~~~
Random_Person
That was an awesome video. Thanks!

I'll be pitching new board games this year at shows and I'm certainly going to
use this.

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haberman
I like the sentiment, and I would extend it to websites for just about
anything. Often I'll use Wikipedia to learn about X instead of going to X's
own website because Wikipedia will at least say _what it is_ instead of
blowing a bunch of marketing-speak at me and asking me to download a PDF
whitepaper.

~~~
swah
The other day I was in the bathroom and there was an Oxford dictionary in
front of me, so I looked at the definition for 4 words (root beer, ginger,
tumbleweed, ?) in a couple minutes. Then I realized if I had done that on
Wikipedia it would probably take me an hour.

~~~
lparry
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Comparing reading a dictionary
definition to an encyclopedia entry, and complaining that the encyclopedia had
more detail? Perhaps it'd be a fairer comparison if you compared reading the
first paragraph of the wikipedia article to the dictionary definition

~~~
jacalata
Perhaps it'd be a fairer comparison if he compared reading the Encyclopedia
Britannica to wikipedia. Or perhaps he's trying to make the point that
sometimes all you needed was a definition, and you should have <your favourite
search engine>'d "define: root beer" instead of going to wikipedia to be
distracted?

~~~
swah
Yes, but I didn't knew the define trick, so Googling and going to the first
result (always Wikipedia) is "consulting the dictionary" these days.

~~~
herval
no, it's consulting _the encyclopedia_. There's a big difference between an
encyclopedia and a dictionary...

~~~
swah
Who opens m-w.com to check what something means? You just google it, Everyone
googles it.

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sjmulder
Even worse is when you describe your game by the technology it sues. This is
something that tends to happen a lot in the open source world: “X is an
SDL/Python platformer for Linux, Window$, Darwin and OS/2 licensed under the
GPL (version 3!)”

~~~
jiggy2011
This is true, perhaps it is something to do with making sure people have the
correct dependencies installed.

Many open source games websites are badly designed also, often the front page
is full of feeds from the developers blog or changelogs.

All you really need is a trailer video , a few screenshots and a download
link.

~~~
jebblue
Ironically the author had this to say:

"The first bad way to explain your game is to not explain it at all. People
often put out some raw footage or a screenshot and let it speak for itself."

Also, I would not be a Minecraft fan if my son had not shown me Paul Soares
Jr's excellent "How to survive your first night in Minecraft" video. The
Minecraft web site itself never appealed to me though it's better now.

------
geuis
I like this quote "But reasonable people still respond better to writing that
values their time, and doesn’t waste it to gratify the writer’s pretensions".

Sadly the author doesn't take his own advice and regales the reader with about
6 paragraphs of text before getting to the point. Once we're at the point,
it's all interesting. The lead up, not so much.

You see, I'm an asshole too. I don't really know who you are yet and don't
give a flip about why you did or didn't go to GDC. So get to the point first
and then add the details about yourself once you have interested me.

Excellent write up otherwise.

~~~
scott_s
Keep in mind this was a talk originally. Talks are going to be structured
differently than essays.

Although, a professor at my university gave excellent advice to someone in my
research group after an interview talk dry-run: put your conclusions first.
Say the most important thing as soon as you can, because most people will not
follow the whole talk, for many different reasons. I've tried to structure
talks like this since hearing that.

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larrik
I buy a lot of Humble Bundles.

A lot of those games I haven't even tried, because I can't figure out what any
of them really are. Their websites are usually terrible (one game even _shut
down_ their website during the bundle. How helpful!).

Why would I spend time on them, then, when I have a ton of games that I know
what to expect with?

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phzbOx
Interesting article. I like the provocative asshole.. with a nice conclusion
at the end specifying that people are just busy and not being direct is just
non-respectful to your audience.

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polemic
Kinda wondered why it's "to an asshole"? It's a great set of tips that would
make sense for explaining anything _you_ are seriously passionate about to
anyone who isn't quite as passionate about it.

~~~
robertskmiles
Would you have clicked on a link titled "How to explain your game"? I probably
wouldn't have.

~~~
polemic
So, link bait. Fun.

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sreyemhtes
From my experience.....this is how to explain your game to everybody. An
asshole will just tell you to stfu if you waste his time. Which I guess is how
the article concludes itself.

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benohear
Maybe there's a series to be made here, a little like Zed Shaw's "Learn X the
hard way", only it would be "Explain Y to an arsehole".

------
FredBrach
_Point number two, before you even finish your first sentence, is to tell us
the coolest unique thing about it._

There isn't a cool unique new thing in one game. There is a cool unique new
thing every 3-5 years. It's just a fact: most games are remake if you prefer.
I'm not saying games are not enjoyable and if they are for you, it's very
cool.

~~~
mattwrench
I agree with the sentiment here, but the bigger issue is most games may not
have a cool unique new thing _that is communicable to listeners_. Considering
most games take at least a year to create, they usually stumble upon at least
a few innovative, but small, ideas. Looking back at a game like Halo, probably
the coolest feature was the ability to only hold two weapons at a time, a
nowadays popular design choice which radically alters gameplay balance.
However if you had told me before release that was the "killer feature", I
would have been bored and uninterested.

~~~
unimpressive
Agreed. You just touched on one of the oddest quirks in psychology as well.
_People don't like to have their options taken away._ But at the same time
_they don't want to think about the options they have._

So even though only having two weapons at a time is arguably a killer feature,
it would be _almost impossible to convince someone that this is true._ Another
example might be Apple, every time they take away an option and people
complain _they are arguably making their product better, but theres no way
they can convince people that's true._

If people don't know they have an option they usually don't care about it or
put up with any inconvenience.

