4 réponses à ce sujet

[mrcooley]

 At this time, BioWare is not in the business of developing or publishing outside proposals or submissions for new games or software products. As a result, all unsolicited submissions, proposals or ideas relating to game concepts, story ideas, or other proposals cannot be accepted and will be destroyed upon receipt.

100% realize that the company couldn't read many of the ideas but this seems harsh and unnecessary, any comment?

[Stanley Woo]

you will find that most, if not all, publishers of games, music, and prose manuscripts have similar warnings. there are two main reasons that I can see:



1. Like someone said earlier, this prevents the companies from being inundated with manuscripts and documents that someone has to read.



2. This prevents potential legal challenges to content produced by the company. If it is even hinted that the company read your submission and released a product containing concepts similar to something you sent in, you may think they "stole your idea." This creates a legal quagmire that the company would have to wade through all the time, and it's simply not worth the trouble.

[Stanley Woo]

JHorwath wrote...
A few years ago, maybe like nine or so I wasted an entire year working on a design document. I was very naive at the time. If I knew now what I didn't know back then I wouldn't of even bothered. Publishers and Developers should be more open to professionally put together documents by outsiders to the industry. It's very ignorant to just turn a blind eye.

Simply put: why? Why should they be obligated to review something that an outside considers "professional" or awesome? They are the professionals, and they worked very hard in school, at home, and in the industry to get to where they are today. Why should they be open to something a random non-professional sends in unsolicited?

I can see why they have to do this in a way. They would be slammed with ideas and such but they should have a means or a department to look at copyrited material submitted by people.

Again, why should they spend the money to support such a position or department when the company already is paying a department of talented professionals they've researched, hired, and depends on to create stories and games? why should these talented professionals support people wanting to take their jobs?

For a growing industry it's still years behind other forms of media that encourage fan or outside input to produce scripts, books, movies, music, ect...

Name me an industry that encourages random non-professionals to produce unsolicited scripts and send them in. the videogame, comic book, movie, television, music, and book industries generally do not. what else is there, and what gives you the impression that this it he way to "break into" the industry when everyone else has to work hard, pay their dues, get schooling, and apply for very competitive positions?

The problem I ran into was I wasn't really looking to work full time for a company.  I really wanted to sell my design document and consult on it through the course of development. 

Essentially, you wanted to give someone else your idea and sit at home while everyone else goes to work and works hard for a couple of years to create it while you look at the work everyone else does and sip your coffee and nod. This indicates you don't really know what game designers do for a living.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. While writing this response, I have come up wtih a dozen game ideas. Even assuming I can develop one of them into a workable design document, why would a company even look at it when I haven't shown that I can do the work required to develop those ideas into a viable, marketable game? Why would they take/but/rent by GDD over, say, guys who have actually created playable proofs of concept based on their GDDs? Why me, over guys who have released mods? Out of all of them, i would be considered to have done the least amount of work. And why would they buy your idea when they'rea already paying an entire department of designers who area already doing the job, and proven it time and again?

[Stanley Woo]

I would encourage you to read the advice columns on Tom sloper's Sloperama. It is practical advice about what it takes to get involved in the videogame industry.

[Stanley Woo]

Cool, thanks for the clarifications.

JHorwath wrote...
Like I said I wrote a design document.(posibly not a good one, obviously) It wasn't just an idea. So Stan, in the time it took you to write that post you put together a full design document that consists of a few hundred pages or so? Did a bit of artwork, thought about a target audience, put together a budget, thought about the limitations of current technology and how it could effect the ideas on said idea, wrote a complete narrative, developed characters, setting, created maps, put together a complete outline of said idea, created backstory for every character, researched meanings of names to help drive a little psychological angle, thought of hundreds of power ups for character, created weapons that can be used in the game world (on paper of course), created enemies, an enemy caste system, contemplated how encounters would resolve, penned in multiple endings, devised boss encounters, designed how a character would look, talk, act, and relate to the game world, devise theoretical gameplay mechanics, and a host of other activities to complete a design document.

No, I think that amount of work for a GDD is great, and I applaud your efforts on that. You are miles ahead of those folks who just "have a great idea for a game."

Oh, and Stan. I can go to Waldenbooks or Borders and buy a book that lists a thousand publishers and submit any amount of poems, short stories, novels, or whatever they are interested in as I see fit. Of course, there is no gaurentee that they will be read but believe it or not some publishers will take the time to look over what people submit.

That's as may be, but it's unlikely you could simply drop it off at or send it to a Random House or Doubleday or Penguin office unsolicited.

Heck, Troma Studios, an independent movie studio will take homemade movies from people and view them in hopes to find talent that they can work with.

Sure, they are always on the lookout for films that fit their genre. But you are giving what I believe to be the exceptions to a more general rule.

Anyway Stan, like I said I shopped the thing around for a bit and was told by some companies the route to go.  That route was just apply.

Indeed, applying to be a game developer is a good way to potentially get your game made.