Racing Games In Decline: Gaming School Says It Is So...

Well, I didn't talk about this now but since it has come to its conclusion, now would be a good time to do so.

I talked before about pitching a racing game at FIEA.  Well, I did so, on Monday.  There were two days worth of pitches on Monday & Wednesday.  Each pitch was limited to five minutes.  There were 27 pitches.  All the producers had to pitch but any programmer/artist who was interested could participate also.  Names were drawn randomly out of a hat.  When the pitches were done, everyone ranked the games from 1 to 27 depending on their pitches.

I went second out of 27 people.  My pitch began and end with enthusiasm.  The goal--to create a fast-paced racing game with iconic graphics and awesome sound effects.  How we can do better than the "generic" racing games we have today.  I got a lot of compliments for a "good" presentation.  Even the instructor sent me an e-mail saying I did a good job on Monday.  I was glad I went early and hit a home run, so to speak.

But that's all I heard.  All I heard was "good presentation" this, "good presentation" that.  Nothing like "wow, let's make an awesome racing game, Eric."  No, none of that.

And as you probably guessed, as the list of games dwindled from 27 to 10, I wasn't chosen.

I'm pissed off.

One reason why I'm utterly surprised was that my Producer teacher said that it's THE PITCH that makes the biggest impact on whether or not the game gets green-lit.  Not the idea itself but THE PITCH!  So I went up there and gave 110%, all emotional, letting everyone know my heart was in this.  This really came through in my pitch.  My instructor has a good say in what games get picked too so for him to say "great job Eric," and then drop what he said was kind of stupid.  It was certainly a lot more heartfelt than a lot of people who had silly ideas and talked out of their ass, TBQH.  So I thought I had a tactical advantage there.  I should also say I was quite humble about it, not running my mouth and twisting arms to get people to support my game.

And what else sucks is that 14 people (me included) went on Monday.  That means that on Wednesday, the other 13 people had the chance to tweak their presentations to one-up the ones that were already given.  One guy on Monday included all sorts of movie clips from 300 and Braveheart.  So what happened next?  On Wednesday, a bunch of people came in with movie clips and music.  Even one student didn't go up and speak to the class--he convinced the instructor to speak in his place!  What the hell?  Not to mention that by going two days after everyone, the emotional impact of these presentations would've been better burned into our heads (seeing as they happened minutes instead of days before we voted)?  So I go up there and give a passionate speech for the ages (apparently) and get nothing?

I'm just ticked off because all these compliments I received misled me into believing I did a much better job than I did.  That just makes me more pissed off.  Felt like I had a chance.  But you know what--racing games are garbage and FIEA just made it known today.

But we will not quit.  We're here to make racing games.  Colorful racing games.  Ones that aren't loaded up with all this crap like Burnout or Need for Speed.  And we're gonna keep trying and I'm not letting a couple of mainstream gaming tards get in the way.  That is all.  I'm glad I went up there and wasted everyone's time with my presentation.  Suck it down since at least I fought back even though I may have failed that one time, we will persevere.  Can't do it this way--we'll make the game through some other means.

And this has to be the last time I talk about my coworkers since the last thing I need to do is start a way.  I already got tons of homework now and in the future.  It's sucks enough as it is so I cannot make it worse on myself.

Read the conclusion here.