Pitching a Small-scale Story Concept

Sandy Scoredos and Kevin Johnson

Introduction
This is a hypothetical case study of a property that has not yet been made into a game. The aim of this lecture is to figure out if it will make a good game or not. The property under consideration is a small-scale property. (By small scale, one means having a small budget, small crew, short schedules, etc. So, for instance, a small-scale property would involve a budget of US $ 500,000 and have a time schedule of 9 months. A large-scale property on the other hand, would entail a budget of US $ 5-10 million and a time schedule of 2-3 years.) The property we will use as a possible video game concept is a small-scale animated film made by Kevin Johnson, Animation Artist at Sony ImageWorks, which itself had to be pitched to Sandy Scoredos, the company's Executive Director for Technical Training and Artist Development, in order to be made. The idea to make the film came about during an animation-training workshop being conducted by Johnson at Sony ImageWorks. Johnson and his team of animators successfully pitched their story idea to Scoredos, which was greenlighted and made into the 4 minute long animation film called Early Bloomer.

Early Bloomer - background information and actualization
One can look for stories everywhere – either in pre-existing properties like books, films, etc. or one can talk to friends. For Johnson, the story idea came from his son, who was always the shortest person in his class and feeling different because of this. Johnson decided to take this idea of feeling left out or being different from the rest and convert it into an animation story that everyone could relate to. He called it Early Bloomer and it was conceived as a comical coming-of-age tale about an awkward, but adorable, tadpole just trying to fit in and keep up with his mischievous and playful friends.

The concept of the story needs to be clear and simple. One also has to think of the treatment (or writing out a synopsis of how the concept could be executed) and the story reel (story boards). The story reel is critical in this process – you can see immediately if the concept is working or not. The storyboard artists do the blocking – the shot selection, the angles, and the actual look and feel of the story. Planning is everything in both, video games and animation. Everything – the money, crew, and equipment – is time sensitive – so one has to plan meticulously to ensure the completion of the project. One often has to let go of big ambitions in the process and extraneous storylines and plot structures. Also sometimes, some things that you conceive of seem simple in your mind, but are actually difficult to execute. So you have to think of not the biggest way to do things, but the most inventive way to get something done. Your vision has to be flexible, always. The characters too need to be flexible – sometimes they need to be changed around in order for the project to be more economical. Johnson wanted each frog to look different, have different shaped eyes and unique movement, but in the end, due to reasons of economy, he decided to just design one prototype character and simply scale and color the others differently. The environment in which the story is set is closely related to the characters and the story itself. For Johnson, the challenge was to give the constant illusion of being underwater as the environment of the film was that of being in a pond.

Though Early Bloomer began as in-house training exercise at Sony Pictures ImageWorks, its universal theme and expressive characters made it less an exercise and more a labor of love for Johnson and his ImageWorks team. However several innovative processes came out of the exercise, including a facial expression modeling technique that Sony ImageWorks has used on subsequent projects as well.

Considerations While Pitching a Video Game Property

Some elements that need to be considered while pitching a game property are:

1. What is the story?
2. Who is the audience?
3. What are the game characters like?
4. What is the environment – is it 2D or 3D?
5. What is the game's delivery mechanism?
6. What is the development cycle?
7. What is the budget going to be?
8. What size crew would be needed for the project?
9. Who would be the publisher of the game?
10. How would the game be distributed?

Let us examine some of the above questions in
relation to our property – Early Bloomer, and see if it can be pitched
as a viable video game concept.

It is not enough to have the rights to the
story alone – you need to have the rights to the characters, the names,
the content and the music, if any. For Early Bloomer, the rights are
available with Johnson and Sony ImageWorks. There also has to be a
clear understanding of the premise – in Early Bloomer, the premise is
"change happens". Also what is the genre of the story and does it lend
itself to the video game format. The video game version of Early
Bloomer would clearly be focused on the kids' market – one could chose
to pitch it as an educational game or a purely entertainment game
depending on other factors mentioned below. There is a huge market for
early childhood games now that educate the players about socialization,
for instance. It would also work, for example, as an action adventure
game with several levels, each of which leads the main tadpole closer
towards becoming a frog. Or it could work as a memory game using visual
and sound cues, or even as a scroller or a role-playing game. All these
possibilities need to be evaluated closely before making the final
choice.

It is clear that the audience for this game would be children. But even in the children's market, there are several sub categories and this game would probably be targeted at the 4-8 year old age group. The demographical break up would be mostly girls, but also some boys.

The film characters in Early Bloomer are well defined and these would be further enhanced through the game. These include Lilly (green and the main character of the film), Zip (yellow and the fastest), Rose (red), Bubbles (orange, who blows bubbles through the film) and Iris (purple). While deciding on the character, a point to consider is whether there already is a rigging or character design model available in the market that could be purchased for one to base one's game characters on – instead of creating one from scratch that would involve a lot more development. In the case of this particular property, most of the work on the character is already taken care of, because of the original film, so this would be advantageous for the video game.

For the art direction, one would think that the game would be better suited to 3D, keeping in line with the film property it is based on. The color palette, design, and other art direction elements would be similar to the look and feel of the film. The entire environment of the game has to be planned – and how the characters interact with the environment, and with each other – all need to be mapped out.

Since one is considering the 4-8 year old age group, game play would have to be fairly easy. It could have very simple starting levels and then more difficult levels as one's proficiency in the game increases. The aim is for the kids to have success at the lower levels, so that they stick with the game and continue playing it. There could be different goals – the one most directly related to the film would be for the tadpoles to "earn their legs" after playing through several different levels.

One also has to consider the delivery mechanism of the game – whether one wants to deliver it through PS2, PC, or any other delivery mechanism. One would think that for younger kids, the PC would be a better bet, as the parents would already have this and hence be willing to buy the game software, as opposed to the combined hardware and software purchase in case one were to make it for the PS2. There are also other formats, such as the Leapster or the Game Boy hand held that kids might own, and these could be considered as possible delivery mechanisms too. A typical PS2 game would cost US $ 50, which may be too expensive for the Early Bloomer property – the ideal price point for this might be US $ 20, and the game delivery mechanism should be decided after considering this factor as well.

The budget of the game is another crucial element – it has to be realistic enough in order to enable the concept to be actually made into a full-fledged game. Obviously, it also has to be a profitable proposition. Hence, one has to estimate the number of units that could be sold – after deciding the price point, and come up with the estimated revenues. In the case of Early Bloomer – 500,000 copies might be a reasonable number to estimate.

The cost of production is highly dependent on what the crew members of the production team will be. The labor cost is the highest component of cost while creating a vide game, and it will depend entirely on the nature of the crew. Other aspects include the game engine (pre-existing vs. new), AI, design documents, etc. In terms of crew members, a small scale game version of Early Bloomer would need 8 artists, 12 programmers, a few supervisors and production people, testing and research people, as well as test marketing cost. The budget for all of this should be about US 500,000.

One should also think of a possible publisher for the game depending on who in the market might be a good fit, as well as the distribution options (payment in advance, back end purchase, etc.)

Conclusion
Thus we see that Early Bloomer would have several things going for it if it were to be pitched as a possible video game concept. Every property that one considers needs to be analyzed in the same meticulous manner as above in order to determine if it would be a feasible game concept to pitch.