Pitching Terminal Grid & White Nights Conference

The Big Indie Pitch at White Nights Berlin 2019

So I was scrolling through Twitter and learned about the Big Indie Pitch that was apart of the White Nights Conference coming to Berlin, Germany.
http://www.bigindiepitch.com/

I saw this as a great opportunity to talk with judges about my game Terminal Grid Watchtower, get feedback, and get more experience with pitching ideas. So I signed up for it and was accepted shortly after. White Nights is a B2B event for the video game industry in Europe.
https://wnconf.com/

Through participating in the 2019 Big Indie Pitch I was able to get tickets for the White Nights conference. So in addition to getting to pitch my game Terminal Grid Watchtower, I was able to attend several talks & presentations on game design, marketing tools, & monetization.

Pitching Terminal Grid Watchtower

The judging process was speed dating style with about 9 different pairs of judges from the industry. I had about 5 min with each judge and it was a very casual conversation style pitch with my iPad showing a video of Terminal Grid Watchtower’s game play.

What I learned from the experience:

How to simplify my pitch & game story
Some people do not know the song All Along the Watchtower
It is difficult to explain what the song is about
2D retro games are not for everyone and that is ok

My simplified pitch:

I am developing my 1st game which is an adventure game based on a song: All Around the Watchtower. I hope to take this finished game demo to fully develop an entire non-linear adventure game with 3 dungeons.
Non-linear open world, solve hard puzzles, & challenging combat
Retro graphics, story, & music

I did not win the Big Indie Pitch but it was a very valuable experience and I learned a lot. Failing revealed to me what I needed to fix, make clearer, and the flaws of my game.

Business model of Facebook Messenger Games HTML5

I got attend a presentation by Alexander Krug CEO of Softgames. Softgames is video game company in Berlin, Germany that creates Cross-platform HTML5 Games that are free to play.

At this presentation I learned about you can make HTML5 games that can then be put onto Facebook’s Instant Games or also known as Facebook Messenger Games. These games are typically geared toward a casual audience and no downloads are required.

The games are typically free to play but they are monetized through ads and micro transactions. The Micro transactions are the main source of revenue for the developer.

Softgames does extensive A/B Testing on small user groups to learn how to effectively implement micro transactions.

Early on Softgames learned they needed to fix their business model. At first it was to easy to play the game and just watch ads. Their was no need for micro transactions from the customer’s view. So they changed the model and focused on getting committed players to buy micro transactions such as new levels, weapons, and etc. Committed players are hooked, engaged, and want more.

I also learned they used paid marketing and organic traffic to acquire new users.

DATA MAGIC Marketing Research Tool

I also attended the Data Magic presentation, which is a tool for video game market research.
https://datamagic.rocks/

The presentation was an overview on the Data Magic dashboard and how it can be used for researching your games market.

Presentation covered:

Soft Launch = Releasing your game to a limited number of countries.
Software views/options: store / launch date / countries / downloads / revenue
Compare downloads across countries
Study major companies and their soft launches.

Arnold Nesis making his first game

The final presentation I attended was by Arnold Nesis CEO of Capricia Productions. I really loved this presentation because I could closely relate to it. It covered Arnold’s story of wanting to make a game based off of a concept album his band wanted to make. It was so similar to my game’s concept Terminal Grid Watchtower which is inspired by the song “All Along the Watchtower.”
https://www.capriciaproductions.com/

At the time Arnold was working as a Music Composer & Producer for Films & Video Games. The metal band he was apart of was thinking about developing a concept album but wanted to do something different. They wanted to combine the ideas of a concept album and video game into one idea called The Birdcage.

The Birdcage: Game + Concept album

His team had ZERO experience in:

Game Art
Programming
Running a business
Raising Capital

So they went off into the unknown, got to work, and started learning.

First year they accomplished:

Made a business plan
Reached out to publishers
Created a demo of Birdcage
Learned to pitch
Attempted Patreon crowd funding

After a year they had no success.

A Twitter Sticky Note

So they started looking at successful Patreons trying to learn their secret to success. Then they found Dave on Twitter, he was supporting similar Patreons. So they decided to contact him by sending him a Twitter message asking him to check out their Game & Patreon campaign.

Dave thought it was a scammer or a spam bot so he cursed them out. They responded to him using a picture of a sticky note with a hand written sorry note & drawing. After seeing this Dave apologized and realized they were real people. Dave became the 1st $10 Patreon supporter.

This initial success opened the door on how get Patreon support and that it was possible. Arnold’s team went on to make about 5,000 hand written sticky notes and created a community of Patreon supporters.

Arnold noted in his presentation that the real power of Patreon was community. The community helped by supporting the game, telling others about it, and proving people were interested in The Birdcage game.

Since Arnold had a community built up he found it easier to approach publishers, investors, and media.

Conclusion

The 2019 White Nights Conference in Berlin, Germany was a great experience. I learned how to pitch my game to judges, attend industry presentations, and see other video games being developed by small and large studios. I would highly suggest this conference to any industry professionals, indie game developers, or people interested in the video game industry.