A Developer’s Guide to the Galaxy of Success. How to become a UnityContainer family member!
We have been in business for 10 years when we joined the THQ family in 2020. Since then, we are operating as an international publisher for small and mid-sized projects. The team’s main focus lies on creating and publishing games for current and next-gen consoles by Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony as well as Steam and many other PC gaming distribution channels. Like most other branches within the IT sector, gaming will, for the foreseeable future, be innovated drastically. Therefore we try to stay up-to-date with publishing on available or upcoming streaming platforms like Google Stadia as well as cater to the ever-growing VR market. Already having released a couple of games since we joined the THQ Family, we are now working on projects with studios from many different corners of the globe, like Mexico, Spain, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Sweden and the USA. Our mission statement: Establish an awesome portfolio under the brand of a well-known indie-publisher with outstanding reputation.
Publishing Team
Our team is a combination of people from different backgrounds like Producing, Sales, QA, Game Design and Business Development and all members have years of experience in their field of work. This setup allows us to be looking at new projects from different perspectives to get the most out of our evaluation process.
How to get in touch
First of all and very important to us: the current public situation has changed our lives pretty heavily for the moment, but we are fully up and running and still looking for new games. This means, any developer can get in touch with us if they are looking for publishing support for their game.
www.unitycontainer.org
Developers can pitch/submit their game on our website. They will need to fill out the necessary form in the Publishing section, attach their pitching documents and send it over to us. We will be taking every pitch into consideration as soon as possible.
Meet and Greet
We are going to attend all major events, no matter if held only virtually like most are these days. Therefore, developers can always reach out to us if they are registered for events like Nordic or gamescom and request a meeting to pitch their game to us personally.
Socializing
Naturally, anyone can also get in touch with us on business platforms like LinkedIn. We are represented everywhere in the digital world.
You have 1 new Message
That’s right. We are constantly looking for interesting new projects all over the world wide web. If we see something that attracts our attention, we won’t hesitate to get in touch with the developer. Another reason why developers should always make clear who they are and how to get in touch with them.
Pitching
As a rule of thumb: The more documentation/material we get, the better for the developers. Usually, it will take no longer than a few weeks for us to get in touch with them after we’ve received their pitching documents.
Round One, Fight!
Creating the perfect pitch is near impossible because you never know what the other side expects.
Creating a bad pitch, on the other hand, is very easy, but there are many sources “out there” that can help a developer if they feel uncertain. They just need to use them without being shy or even vain.
One important thing for a pitch will be a high-level concept that describes the whole project in one or two sentences – which is not as easy as it sounds. Developers should use screenshots if possible, to avoid walls of text. They should give their pitch a branding (e.g. if it is a game that takes place in the 80s, then classic shapes, colours and old school visualizations will make the pitch more unique).
All in all, you should at least focus on Who – What – Where – When – How – Why. Who is creating the game and who should play it when it’s finished? What is the game about and what will players do in it? Where will the game be playable, meaning on which platforms will players be able to have fun with it? What will project management or milestones look like? When will production start or when will development be continued? How long will it take to finish production and how will the game be developed (tech, tools, team types etc.)? And finally, why will the game be successful, and why will it convince us to publish it?
Pocket Money
We certainly need to know how much full development of a title will cost if financial help is required. Best case, this already includes all possible portings for all platforms that developers wanted to support anyway.
Planning the Route
A detailed development plan instead of a rough development timeline (as the one that most pitching documents include) helps to understand where we’re heading towards. Even it isn’t necessarily needed for the very first step, we are going to ask for it for the second step and the more detailed it already is the less questions might come up. However, we know about the cone of uncertainty which could be huge, especially at the beginning of a new project. But there are paths and milestones in every product creation which can reflect a development plan at least.
Paying the Bills
A rough budget plan could be part of the pitching document or come as a separate document (e.g. an Excel sheet). It should at least reflect the costs for individual staff members, licenses and any outsourcing services. UnityContainer will take care about localization, and we can support the project with our in-house QA, so these costs don’t need to be part of the budget plan, the same goes for marketing and PR costs.
What you see is what you get
Videos are very helpful for getting a first impression. They are worth more than a thousand words. Developers don’t have to be afraid that we won’t take a look at the rest of the pitching material if we don’t like it. We won’t make a decision based on a trailer or gameplay footage only, but it can be the initial push and helps to grasp the vision.
Interactivity
A playable build or even a polished prototype or demo is the icing on the cake. We’re gamers, and we want to publish games we like, so playing something helps us to give feedback and to feel what developers are planning to do.
Getting most of the mentioned documents and assets is needed for us to decide if we move forward with the evaluation or not – but receiving all of them would be very helpful and completes a perfect pitch. Of course, this is not possible for every pitch or project, and we know that. We also know the difference between a first rough payable build and a polished demo of a game, so don’t worry that we get a wrong impression if it’s not a flawless vertical slice that is delivered.
Getting Closer
Now that we talked about how to get in touch with us and what to submit, we would like to focus on what happens after that.
When our team has evaluated all the material, we’ll decide whether to move forward with the game or not. Usually that happens in our weekly Publishing meeting but sometimes even faster, depending on the game. Even if we decide that we won’t cooperate with a developer on their game, we won’t simply remain silent and promise that we will reply. We know how much work goes into a pitch and we also know that developers have hopes and dreams, so we let them know what’s going on asap even if we don’t see the game match our current portfolio strategy.
If we like what we’ve seen and we think the game could be a match for us, we usually ask for a video call to meet the people behind the game or to talk in person once again if we already met them. We attend such video calls with two or more team members from our side. It’s up to the developer who’s joining the call, but it is important that we meet the decision-makers and sometimes vision creators as well.
Usually, we already have a couple of questions on our minds (after reviewing all the material), and usually, we’ll send those questions upfront, so developers can prepare their answers beforehand. Those questions are unique for every project, so it’s almost impossible to list them here, but generally, we try to understand everything about production and to get to know more about the team, their corporate structure and experiences.
All in all, this meeting is meant to get to know each other better. Chemistry is very important for us since we might work together very closely on a project for many months or years to come.
We’re almost there
If we decide to publish a game, we might dig a little deeper in some areas, like more detailed GDDs, budget plans and finally a milestone plan that will represent the long road ahead. We will work together with the developers to design a “battle plan” for preparing a contract.
ShowTime!
The contract has been signed, and we are ready to take off. The captain for the duration of the flight (and beyond) will be at least one Producer from UnityContainer. She/he and the UnityContainer team will make sure our new partner will have a pleasant trip without any unplanned delays.
Our internal producers are the main contacts for developers. They will connect them to every department at UnityContainer, such as QA, Marketing and so on. We always provide an overview of our full team, so developers already have some pictures with names and know who will be doing what. Our QA will perform the boarding procedure with them, like connecting them to our bug tracker tools and giving them an overview of how they are working.
We will setup weekly or bi-weekly project meetings, but beside those meetings we are always reachable for our new family members. We can jump on existing communication platforms on your end, or we can use our internal network setups for daily communications. It’s important for us that we are in close contact during the project.
There are also many other areas where we can offer support as well, like game design, gameplay feedback, porting support, or any other technical help because we are developers as well. We have a couple of internal developments going on while we’re also porting various projects for different platforms. We’re speaking your language, and we understand the needs of a developer.
Our Marketing & PR team will take care of trailer production, trade shows/events, dealing with press & influencers or handling social media and advertising.
We take care of the submission of your game and every task related to it. We have a very good relationship to Steam, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Google and Apple, so we will make sure your game is getting the most attention possible on the different sales platforms.
Customer support is an important factor in terms of user happiness. We’ve got this covered and will answer to all problems, complaints, and praises!
So…
We are family, and we are looking for new family members, not just for one project – we want to establish a long-term relationship with a developer if possible. In the best case, we will already talk about the next game before the running project ends.
This is who we are, this is how we do it, and we would be happy to hear from as many developers as possible.
Our family is not only looking for new games, we also want to grow with our internal team! So, if anyone is interested in working for us, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Apply for a job on our corporate website as we are always looking for talented people.