{"id":307655,"date":"2024-10-24T07:59:52","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T12:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/?post_type=articles&p=307655"},"modified":"2024-10-24T09:07:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T14:07:58","slug":"pitch-hitting-a-designers-experience-of-essen-spiel","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/articles\/pitch-hitting-a-designers-experience-of-essen-spiel\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitch Hitting\u2014A Designer\u2019s Experience of Essen Spiel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jim

Most important of all in noticing and remembering Jim Williams is Jim Williams himself. The Englishman approaches every interaction with a level of sincerity, enthusiasm, and engagement that is rare. When Jim talks to you, you cannot help but feel that he is speaking to you<\/i>, and you alone. He seldom checks his phone and rarely looks about the room. Like many people who are easily distracted, his attention is absolute when he applies it. Speaking with Jim over food in a crowded courtyard at Spiel 2024, we might as well have been the only two people in the entirety of the city of Essen.<\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t, of course. There were 204,998 other people in attendance at Spiel 2024, the largest attendance in the convention\u2019s history. While the majority of punters attend Spiel to experience board games as consumers, Jim didn\u2019t have time for that. He was a man on a mission. Jim had flown over from London for the day to try and rustle up some pitch meetings.<\/p>\n

This was, by his own admission, rather last minute. What with one thing and another going on in his life, he didn\u2019t have time to organize. He\u2019d originally planned on coming to Essen for multiple days, then thought he mightn\u2019t come at all, but as is often the case with Jim, impulse won out. He decided to come for the Saturday.<\/p>\n

How impulsive is impulsive, you ask? He realized Friday evening that he didn\u2019t have a ticket. Normally that wouldn\u2019t be a huge problem, but 2024 marks the first time in Spiel\u2019s history that the convention sold entirely out. There were no tickets to be had. Fortunately, with the help of some friends in the industry, Jim was able to find an abandoned exhibitor\u2019s badge. So much the better for us, since that meant we could meet in Hall 6 before the doors had opened to the general public. \u201cYeah!, so. Here we are,\u201d he said, taking it all in. \u201cI\u2019ve managed to get two appointments for this afternoon, so until then I thought I might pop around and see if I can manage anything with other publishers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had brought four games with him, all of them either party or family games. \u201cI\u2019ve decided to focus on lighter games for the moment,\u201d he told me. \u201cI have loads of more complex ideas that I\u2019m excited to get to, but for now I want to focus on really getting these right.\u201d Without being too specific\u2014it seems best to keep nascent ideas to themselves\u2014the games represented a good spread. Jim was going to spend the day pitching a dexterity game about food, a family game about pigeons, a party game centered on impressions, and a word game.<\/p>\n

We made a quick stop over at the shipping booth so I could send some games home. Jim\u2019s mind was already furiously at work. \u201cYou know,\u201d he said as he eyed up a box, \u201cthis would make a good surface\u2026I wonder\u2026\u201d He changed his focus to the man behind the counter. \u201cDo you have a knife?\u201d The side of a box became, with some alterations and a bit of tape, a base upon which to mount the pigeon game. In its current prototypical form, the board is a felted green mat, in the center of which stands a large cardboard tower. Jim mounted the mat, placed the tower, set up some cardboard boundaries, and went about distributing components across the board. He then picked it up from opposite edges, testing the weight and balance.<\/p>\n

After a moment\u2019s consideration, he moved two cubes about a quarter of an inch to the right. \u201cThere we go,\u201d he said, more to himself than anyone else. \u201cThat\u2019ll do nicely. Shall we?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Whatever impracticalities you suspect may present themselves while carrying a 2\u2019 x 2\u2019 piece of horizontal cardboard through the halls of Spiel, know that you are, to my extreme surprise, more wrong than right. \u201cIt\u2019s almost easier, isn\u2019t it,\u201d Jim remarked. \u201cPeople by and large seem to get out of the way.\u201d It was true. A bit of Moses and the Red Sea, my friend Jim walking through the crowds with his game.<\/p>\n

There was some top-flight gawking, too, none of which I managed to capture with my camera. The looks trended towards curiosity about the game, but there was annoyance at someone carrying something so large through a crowded area, delight at seeing something unusual, and bemusement at the spectacle of this veruchte \u00c4nglischer<\/i>. (Enough time in Europe and you learn not to make assumptions about where people are from based solely on their appearance, but Jim is most assuredly \u00c4nglischer<\/i>.)<\/p>\n

\"Jim

Much of the early day consisted of rejection, but only in the sense that calendars were full. We settled into an easy pattern. Jim, who I will remind you was carrying a horizontal 2\u2019 x 2\u2019 board with a foot-tall cardboard tower on it, would walk up to a booth. \u201cHullo,\u201d he would chime. \u201cI\u2019m in for the day to pitch some games, and have a few meetings this afternoon, so in the meantime I\u2019m popping around from booth to booth to see what pitches I can scare up.\u201d The wisdom of this struck me immediately. To say\u2014truthfully, mind\u2014that he had appointments in the afternoon put people at ease, reassuring them that he was a professional and not some loon walking around the convention hall with nothing but a game and a dream. Despite both appearances and, one could argue, the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there any chance you have anyone at the booth who is available to hear some pitches today?\u201d Typically, they would check the calendar, or grab the appropriate party, or immediately say that the calendar was full, but this was to be expected, and Jim\u2019s spirits never faltered. \u201cWhere else should we go?\u201d One publisher did have space for a 6:30 pitch, which fit in perfectly with Jim\u2019s already-scheduled 4:30 and 5:30 appointments. Tremendous.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere else should we go?\u201d became a bit of a mantra, often said as Jim opened up an app on his phone where he kept exhaustive lists of publishers, the games he\u2019d submitted to them, the games they\u2019re known for publishing, and the status of all those submissions. Even if the amount of organization for Saturday itself wasn\u2019t necessarily ideal, the general level of ongoing organization Jim practices is exemplary. That sort of dedication and focus is what allows for whims like Saturday to be something of substance rather than a complete lark.<\/p>\n

\"Jim

One publisher sent us to their space up on the second floor. Jim had the good fortune of showing up right when another appointment did not. \u201cSure, yeah, come on back,\u201d the publisher\u2019s representative said. At last, here we were, in the belly of the beast. While I was busy thinking about the extent to which the big, round window overlooking the whole of Hall 3 gave things a bit of an Emperor Palpatine\u2019s Throne Room feel, Jim was focused. He reached into his bag and pulled out four full-color sheets, one for each game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got four games to pitch to you today,\u201d he said, comfortable without feeling scripted. \u201cI\u2019ll give you a general overview for each of them, and if you want to hear more or play a few rounds of any, I\u2019ve got copies of each of them with me, and would be happy to pull them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the specifics of each subsequent meeting would change, the overall form remained consistent. Jim would walk through each game in about a minute, giving a brisk sense of mechanics, age group, game length, and theme when applicable. For some, he used video and digital slides. For others, he stuck to analogue. Something I noticed: he was not afraid to start talking about a game by saying \u201cI don\u2019t think this will be of interest to you.\u201d The publishers appreciated that. Rather than self-defeating, it came across as what it was: Jim knowing his audience and being respectful of their time.<\/p>\n

The first, impromptu pitch meeting was a success. The representative told Jim to submit his party game through their online portal. I was thrilled, but Jim didn\u2019t dwell on it. \u201cThat\u2019s great, isn\u2019t it,\u201d he said as we headed back to the main floor, and that was the last it was mentioned. The lack of interest in the other titles didn\u2019t even merit a mention. It was more important to Jim that the representative provided clear and actionable reasons for why they were not interested in those titles. The better pitch meetings weren\u2019t so different from (good) art-school critique. Negativity was packaged alongside explanations and suggestions. The reasons why a game might be rejected vary, and I was surprised by the frequency with which those reasons had nothing to do with the games themselves, or at least nothing to do with Jim\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

The dexterity game is more of a gimmick than a game (Jim agrees with that, while correctly noting that it is a great gimmick), and the cost of production is too high, pricing the game out of its market. The pigeon game skews a little too young for the publisher\u2019s brand and marketing, is too similar to a game the publisher has coming out next year, or, most intriguingly, is too similar to a game the publisher did some development on last year but ultimately didn\u2019t publish, which they fear could open them up to lawsuits. The party game wouldn\u2019t work in a lot of international markets, \u201cbecause people in certain countries don\u2019t want to embarrass themselves. It wouldn\u2019t sell in Germany, in East Asia, these sorts of places.\u201d The word game would require too much localization, and \u201cthere is no room in the market for anything that isn\u2019t Scrabble<\/i> or Bananagrams<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is, it would seem, quite a bit to consider when running a low-margins business. Who knew?<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst pitch I ever did was my very first one. I had an hour-long meeting with my favorite designer, Vlaada Chv\u00e1til. Within ten minutes of that appointment starting, he interrupted me to say, \u2018We are not going to publish your game.\u2019\u201d Jim says that pitch taught him a few important lessons. Chief among them? You can\u2019t take a rejection personally.<\/p>\n

\"A

That\u2019s what I was most impressed by over the course of the day. Jim\u2019s ability to take a poor reception and turn it into something positive was wondrous. He took detailed notes throughout each meeting, following each rejection with a series of de facto<\/i> follow-up questions that would better help him gauge potential interest in the future: \u201cWhat sorts of games would you say you are looking for? What makes a game fit your brand?\u201d He would meet each rejection in the present as an opportunity to find acceptance in the future. Indefatigable, old Jim, in situations that would have almost certainly taken the wind right out of many a sail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I have so many designs going at any one time. When I started designing, I would work obsessively on one game, but then it\u2019s easy to get stuck, or discouraged. If you\u2019ve got a bunch of games going, it\u2019s easy to pivot to something else, to get excited by progress with a different idea.\u201d The trick, it would seem, is to juggle multiple balls at once. If you drop one, you\u2019re still juggling.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say Jim is completely inured. The final pitch of the day was far and away the most brutal, with two representatives who seemed to take pleasure in being dismissive. It didn\u2019t shake his confidence so much as it rattled him. \u201cIf that had been the first pitch I ever did,\u201d he acknowledged after a bit of quiet, \u201cI think that would have really discouraged me. But,\u201d he added, temperamentally incapable of sitting under a rain cloud when he knows sunshine is over the next hill, \u201cthey were also extremely knowledgeable about their markets and their product line, and I quite liked that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the course of our day together, I found myself astonished by the gumption required to be a game designer. A life spent spray painting letter tiles or carving little wooden pigeons isn\u2019t one you\u2019d assume to be a source of endless negativity, and yet. To face rejection after rejection, to recognize that many of them have nothing to do with you, and to be able to walk up to the next booth with just as much of a smile and say, \u201cIs there any chance you have anyone at the booth who is available to hear some pitches today?\u201d is remarkable. Unpublished game designers are no different from any other kind of aspiring artist. You have to be relentless, you have to be confident, you have to believe in the work you are doing, and you have to know that the \u201cNo\u201d you just got has no bearing whatsoever on the next response. It\u2019s hard not to believe that all our lives would be better if we were able to approach them with that mindset.<\/p>\n

\"Jim

Andrew spent a day following a game designer around Essen. Step into the harried world of game pitching in this Meeple Mountain article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":307728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":true,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[1929],"coauthors":[6354],"class_list":["post-307655","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-board-game-design"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPitch Hitting\u2014A Designer\u2019s Experience of Essen Spiel — Meeple Mountain<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Andrew spent a day following a game designer around Essen. Step into the harried world of game pitching in this Meeple Mountain article.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/articles\/pitch-hitting-a-designers-experience-of-essen-spiel\/\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/articles\/pitch-hitting-a-designers-experience-of-essen-spiel\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Board Game Articles\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/articles\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Pitch Hitting\u2014A Designer\u2019s Experience of Essen Spiel\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pitch Hitting\u2014A Designer\u2019s Experience of Essen Spiel — Meeple Mountain","description":"Andrew spent a day following a game designer around Essen. Step into the harried world of game pitching in this Meeple Mountain article.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/articles\/pitch-hitting-a-designers-experience-of-essen-spiel\/","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/articles\/pitch-hitting-a-designers-experience-of-essen-spiel\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Board Game Articles","item":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/articles\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Pitch Hitting\u2014A Designer\u2019s Experience of Essen Spiel"}]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/307655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/307655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307655"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=307655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}