Austin, Texas: State capital, indie music mecca, and home to a few no-name development companies like, oh, Bioware, Midway, Retro Studios, NCSoft, and Red Fly. It's also the host of the annual Austin Game Developers Conference, SXSW, and where Richard Garriot rests his head. This past Thursday, tucked away in the University of Texas campus, the Electronic Game Developers Society (EGaDS) held the preliminaries for their annual game design competition “GameCraft”.


The contest challenges design teams to come up with a professional pitch for a game of their own creation. Plot, visuals, gameplay mechanics, production costs, all must be accounted for and delivered in a neat and appealing package, just the way a developer would pitch to a potential publisher. GameCraft also gives companies a chance to scout out potential employees. Industry veteran and now Executive Producer (read: “head ass-kicker”) at Red Fly studios, Mike McShaffry ( http://www.mcshaffry.com/mrmike ) was on-hand to give contestants advice on how to pitch to publishers. His top elements of a perfect pitch: originality, preparation, conciseness, and lots of art. “This is a visual industry” he said, encouraging participants to show, rather than tell publishers about their game. Mr. Mike ended by reminding aspiring developers not to be nervous – big publishers like EA need people with ideas just as much as people with ideas need funding.

Stay tuned for the GameCraft finals taking place on November 20th. If you're in the Austin area, don't miss out on the chance to score some free schwag, talk to developers, and see some cool games.