This outline highlights how you might want to build your pitch deck. A good deck isn’t 100 pages, it’s 10-20 highlighting the key points, and getting people excited to learn more in a second meeting. Each section here is 1-4 slides, depending on how much you need to say. With that said, EVERY section can’t be that many, you’ll lose your audience.
Outline
Title Slide Name, Logo
Pitch Set the stage for the rest of the deck, give us the one to two sentence overview of what we’re going to see.
Background Briefly introduce your studio, its founding, and key milestones. This should establish credibility and set the stage for why your company is uniquely positioned to succeed with this project.
Team
- Experience: Highlight the background and expertise of key members, especially those in leadership roles. List each team members prior shipped titles and other relevant experience
- Advisors: Include advisors, but only those with skin in the game. It’s likely any of them will receive a phone call, so they need to be very aware of what you’re doing, not just a face on a deck.
Market Opportunity
- Gap in the Market: Identify where the opportunity lies. This could be an underserved audience, a lack of innovation in the genre, or a shift in player preferences that makes your game especially timely.
- Potential for Growth: Use market analysis to explain how your project could grow the player base or appeal to adjacent audiences, e.g., players of related genres or platforms.
- What they’re looking for: Do they agree with your assertions? Is there a gap?
Game Overview
- High Concept: Present the high-level idea of your game in a few sentences. What’s the story, genre, or unique feature that makes it stand out?
- Core Pillars: Briefly introduce the core pillars that define the game. These could be character types, gameplay modes, or other unique elements.
- What they’re looking for: Are you focusing your innovation in one or two areas? Are you leveraging a few areas that are well-trodden? Every game has an innovation budget, and cannot innovate everywhere.
Moment to Moment Experience
- You’re explained your game, now show me a video and narrate it. Give me a taste.
Monetization Strategy
- What are you selling: How do you make money? Microtransactions? Subscriptions? DLC?
- Alignment with game: Does the monetization strategy build on (or better, build up) the game experience
- How will you service the monetization strategy?
- What they’re looking for here: Will the game’s business model provide opportunity for an adequate return on capital. Can you do it.
Technology
- Engine and Tools: THighlight the game engine and any custom extensions or technologies that will support the game’s development. Focus on why these tools are right for the project.
- Network Model: If applicable, explain how your network or multiplayer model will enhance the player experience, especially for competitive or large-scale multiplayer games.
- What they’re looking for: Are you innovating in areas of technology. Do you understand what you’re talking about.
Community & Marketing
- Are there any unique opportunities, based on the game, the genre, or your team to acquire users in an efficient way.
- What they’re looking for: Any edge on taking the game to market.
- Development Plan
- Timeline: Lay out a clear roadmap for development, from early prototypes to full launch. Include key milestones such as closed alpha, beta, and full release.
- Funding & Scaling: Detail how much funding has been secured, how it’s being used, and any future rounds you’ll need to raise. Provide a growth plan for team size and resource scaling.
- Why this publisher / VC
- If you want to get a little cheeky - this is your chance to show you did some research. Why this publisher? What is unique about them?