Here's how you can articulate your game vision to investors and publishers effectively.

In order to create a proper pitch, you will need to assemble a small team and foresee several hours of work from each individual. Through a well-constructed description and some mockup images, you will need to communicate your unique value proposition, let your better artist create the mockup images, as they need to communicate clearly your idea and direction. Provide concept art to give a feeling of what the environments and characters could look like, get help from an illustrator. Your monetization strategy will also need to be very clear, you will need to define how it aligns with your game design and the current industry trends. Your product director can build a plan on how your resources will be used and for how long.

Also, - Development Roadmap: Outline a detailed development timeline, including milestones, key features, and release dates, to show a clear plan for bringing the game to market. - Art and Concept Art: Showcase high-quality art and concept visuals to give a sense of the game’s aesthetic and artistic direction. - Team Expertise: Highlight the experience and expertise of your development team to build confidence for the investor, emphasizing past successes and relevant skills that will drive the project forward. - Monetization Strategy: Explain your strategy for generating revenue, including pricing models, the in-game purchases, or advertising, and how it aligns with or exceeds the industry standards.

Be prepared to present your pitch in different forms and different situations. You should definitely prepare an Elevator Pitch - when you talk about the project and its potential in a couple of sentences in less than a minute; and an Investor Pitch - more extensive and with a compelling presentation of work done and plans, as well as potential benefits for the studio and investors. This way you'll be armed with opportunities to sell your idea in any life situation.

Investors want to be sure that the team is really excited about the project and will be able to make it through to the end and produce a high quality game. In order to combat these investor doubts, it is worth talking about the team during the project presentation and showing the work that the team has already done for the Press Kit of the project or for the demo version of the game, and ideally letting them try to play it.

If you have an appropriate publishing expertise, you can try to create a financial plan with realistic forecasts divided by platform and a pricing strategy. However, if you are presenting your pitch to experienced Business Angels or Publishing, making an error in this document will affect their level of trust on your product. You should rather give your publishers enough tools to make these forecasts by clarifying your game genre, value proposition, main competitors and your monetization strategy. Don't forget to highlight production costs, as they will clearly impact the break-even point.

Development Roadmap is an important artifact that not only publishers and investors need to see, but your game development team as well. So be sure to create it in an appropriate level of details for every kind of "audience" you want to share it. As obviously technical details, instructions and guidelines that are important for developers could be too much for publishing partners. On the other side your development team should fully understand what are the deadlines, key milestones and agreements that you have with publishing partners and investors to deliver game on time in budget. Keep in mind that it's only a general suggestion, as some publishers that help you with technical implementation will need a detailed tech roadmap as well.

When presenting a development roadmap to investors or publishers, clarity and realism are key. Your roadmap should not only outline the key milestones, such as production phases, testing, and release dates, but also demonstrate that you've accounted for potential risks and have mitigation strategies in place. In my experience, being transparent about the challenges and how you plan to address them can build trust. A well-structured roadmap shows that you understand the complexities of game development and are committed to delivering on time, which is crucial for securing investor confidence.

Nowadays more and more companies wish to create the next live service big hit and expect a long tail of post-launch support for all kind of games even those, that are not designed in a way to support a never-ending content delivery. So be sure to agree with the publisher and investors on what kind of post-launch activities are expected. There's no rule of a thumb, as it depends on kind of game you do, but try to think about at least 1 full year and activities you can do during all 365 days including special activities during the holidays and festivals.

-Put together a Gameplay Demo: Provide a playable demo or a video showcasing key gameplay mechanics and the overall experience, giving a tangible sense of what the game is about. - Create a Clear Game Vision Statement: Summarize your game’s core vision in a concise statement, focusing on what makes it unique and why it will succeed. - Market Research: Present “data” on market trends, audience demographics, and competitive analysis to demonstrate a strong understanding of the game’s potential.