Writing Pitch Docs and Exec Docs - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 21

The ES generally starts with the name of the title followed by a description of
the genre and audience, as in “ GoPets: Vacation Island is a social networking-focused
pet simulator for the Nintendo DS targeted at boys and girls ages 6 to 14.� This
gives a concise description of the game and lets a publisher know where to “slot�
it. Game publishers, like topics publishers, frequently have genre slots that they are
seeking to fill—“We need an action-RPG,� or, “We need a platformer for kids.�
Many pitch documents are written specifically toward a slot, when a publisher has
a license (“Cabbage Patch Kids R Game Boy Advance title for pre-teens�) and is

seeking a studio to develop it.
An ES may also contain or come in the form of a high concept ,atermdeveloped
by Hollywood to streamline production of feature films. One method of high con-
cept juxtaposes two existing properties in an immediately evocative way using the
word “meets.� For example, Stephen King's Dark Tower series can be described as
“ Lord of the Rings meets The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly .� This form of high concept
is particularly useful in early brainstorming but can sometimes backfire in a pitch
document, depending on the audience (the high concept principle is seen by some as
part of the high-speed downfall of cinema), and should be used with caution. But a
high concept-style succinct description encompassing universal themes and familiar
archetypes is especially useful in an executive summary.
The executive summary should, as concisely as possible (usually not exceeding
50 words), capture the geist of a game—that is, what it will feel like to play it. In
creating pitch documents, I try to keep in mind Ursula K. Le Guin's description of
an effective short story: she says in her highly wonderful Language of the Night that a
truly effective short story should exist to convey one precise emotion. In a large game,
you might be dealing with an array of emotions driven by a complex story, but in
the end, the player should be left with a feeling of completion and theme. Find that
theme, that one driving emotion, and you have the center of your pitch and vision.

Audience Analysis

The audience analysis follows the executive summary and makes a case for the game's
role in the marketplace. It targets a particular audience as precisely as possible, e.g.,
“girls ages 8-14,� “boys ages 6-12,� “men 18-32.� The audience analysis may come
straight from the license of an existing product or, in the case of an original IP, serves
to frame the potential player. This serves to define future marketing efforts and
also conveys the studio's forethought in considering their design vector. Even a game
intended as “fun for all ages� has a core audience, and defining your audience analysis
as “all ages and genders� is risky as it does not help a publisher mentally fill a “slot�
and can convey uncertainty or lack of research on the part of the developer. Even the
hit title Brain Age for the Nintendo DS, which wound up being appealing to all ages,
has a core audience and was initially intended for men and women over age 55.
The more precise your audience analysis—try to define one gender and an age
range of no more than eight years—the clearer your document will be.