I am at the point where I am looking for publishers for my upcoming game series. I have created a trailer to show to potential publishers along with the pitch to gain their interest in publishing the game. Keeping in mind that the trailer is aimed at potential publishers, I'd love any critiques on it before I start sending it out.

Thank you!

If it's seriously a pitch to publishers, it has terrible VO, and it doesn't have a competitive analysis, and it doesn't say anything about the monetization or how the publisher can be assured that it will make back their investment. It's a humorous parody? of dungeon game tropes, in a point-and-click format? Who's the development team, what's their track record? What platform does the game support? (PC? Browser? Smartphone? Console?) It's a series, you say - for Steam? On the Web? Who's the protagonist, what's the goal (looks like the Unicorn quest consists of finding the guy who has one and doesn't even want it - what's the challenge in finding him?) - and what kind of serialization do you have planned? A publisher will want to know all that. I assume you'll be answering those questions with other pitch materials, but the video addresses hardly any of them.

Thanks for your comments.

You're right that the video doesn't attempt to answer any of those questions. In fact, I think it would be a terrible idea to put that information in video format. That sort of thing is better written down. This is supplementary material to give them an idea of the game. I will keep your comments in mind when writing up the pitch though.

You are right that it is a point and click comedy adventure game that is a surrealist parody of dungeon games and the genre of fantasy in general. I think it's a good sign that you have correctly gotten the gist of the game from the trailer.

All the dialog for the game hasn't been finalized, so it doesn't make sense to have the VO professionally recorded yet. I would hope any sensible publisher would understand that. It seems to be your contention that they would not? In that case, do you think it would be better to not send a trailer at all and just a text description?

52 minutes ago, HighTreason said:

All the dialog for the game hasn't been finalized, so it doesn't make sense to have the VO professionally recorded yet. I would hope any sensible publisher would understand that. It seems to be your contention that they would not? In that case, do you think it would be better to not send a trailer at all and just a text description?

You don't need ALL the dialog finished. You do need a POLISHED demo. As it stands, the demo makes a poor presentation. I don't think you're ready to submit to a publisher at this time.

Thanks for your opinion.

If you have time, would you mind elaborating on why you believe I am not ready to submit to a publisher at this time? Is this simply because of the VO quality and after getting that recorded more professionally then it would be ready? Are there other reasons you believe this to be the case? Other than the recording quality of the VO, I don't see any other critiques of this actual video in your original reply.

Thanks for your time.

Your video does not meet the high professional standards that publishers look for. 

If your game is point and click, I guess the story is the main attraction for your game. A good comparison would be Telltale games. They make successful story driven adventure games with minimal game play. Look at some of their trailers to see how a trailer for this type of game should be done.

Since the strength of these games isn't the game play, you shouldn't have any in the trailer. It seems your game is comedic, try to take a comedic bit in your the game and extend it to a good 30 seconds worth of trailer and the rest is filling.

The telltale borderlands trailer for example is only about 30 seconds of actual content. The other 1 minute is ambience setup, credits and information display.

Thanks Michael. Your comment has been the only really useful one I have gotten anywhere so far to be honest. It gave me a new perspective on what kind of trailer I might make.

I did look at numerous trailers for adventure games on Steam, and even modeled the one above closely after one of them in particular. However, I hadn't thought of looking at Telltale games trailers even though I am a fan of their work. One thing that Telltales Games has that I do not have is a large following already in existence, and because they only make games based on existing IPs, they have that following as well, so they basically always have a built-in guaranteed audience for their games. Their trailers need not show very much about what the game will be like, because everyone already knows. Their trailers are basically just reminders about the game for people who already plan to buy it. Also my games do actually have a game to play while Telltale really just makes minimally interactive stories.

That said, it is an interesting perspective to consider that maybe the most powerful trailer is not several short clips from the game as I have in my current trailer but actually a longer clip of only one scene. In that way the pacing and timing and real feel of the game can be portrayed. I think I'll probably make such a trailer and see what people think of it.

Thanks again