Show versus tell

Came across this article on the value of giving a visual demonstration, which I agree with entirely.  In summary, show works better than tell.  From the article:

A powerful demonstration snaps a customer out of her reverie, because of one simple reason. Explanation is nice but not va-va-voom. It's a monologue. It's pretty one-way, if you know what I mean.

Demonstration, on the other hand, begs for involvement. And involvement, as we know, is a very persuasive selling factor.

If you cannot give an actual demo of your game, then at minimum put together a poster board show with high quality artwork that shows what the game will look like, revealing its art style, atmosphere and excitement.  I read somewhere that George Lucas convinced Fox to fund the original Star Wars by showing them several illustrations that he himself paid to have made, an unusual practice back then.

Here's another good article that talks about how presentations work well in Hollywood.

It's all about psychology.  People believe what they see.  Visual data literally gives us a much better picture of the product's potential than a spoken or written explanation.  If you're pitching a game, think visually.

Comments

[Tony Marklove]

Even more than 'selling' a product to someone, a demonstration can help someone to really understand an idea that they only thought they understood before. This is summed up nicely, I think, in "You Can't Tell People Anything" [http://www.fudco.com/habitat/archives/000014.html] a post by Chip Morningstar in his Habitat Chronicles.

[AdamW]

sorry, quick correction - it's 'versus' not 'verses'. 'verses' is the plural of 'verse'.

I note the colloquial usage of 'va-va-voom'. Sounds like *that's* an example of good marketing. :)

[Good catch, Adam! -- Scott]

[Paul]

Explointing "Show vs. Tell" works well after you've sold your game idea too. I find this combined with "thematic milestones" really helped when working as a 3rd party independent developer. The milestone themes were described in terms of visually tangible results. So each milestone build was dramatically different in terms of features and "feel" from the previous builds. It provides a great sense of progress for the internal development team and publisher.

[Robert Howarth]

Being able to give a good demo is an art form. I remember when Wizard Works stopped by to demo a Deer Hunter game years ago and some crappy motorcycle title and it was actually sort of exciting to watch because they did such a nice job presenting what little that had. ;)

[PaG]

A great book about giving good presentations is "Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling your Story" by Jerry Weissman.

It's written by a corporate presentation coach who trains executives who will go on IPO roadshows and such. He has worked for Microsoft, Cisco and many others. Really informative book that tell you how to make an engaging presentation that will convince your audience rather than doing just a boring "data dump".

[Damion Schubert]

Awesome articles, as always. Good finds.

[Johnathon Podgorski]

Look I have a very good idea for a game and I have think it could be really big better then MADDEN also NCAA so just look me up.