High Concept

also known as: Elevator Pitch, Mission Statement

Classification

  • #method
  • #medium/text
  • #roles/designer #roles/manager
  • #used-by/designer #used-by/manager
  • #tools/non-digital #tools/digital

    Intent

  • To capture the essential game elements.
  • To help people decide whether they are interested in the game or not.

Problem

  • How to summarize a medium in a concise yet detailed sentence or paragraph so that everyone understands its essence.
  • How to pique the listener’s interest.
  • How to efficiently convey the concept of a product.

Specific

  • Games can be summarized just like movies and other consumed media.
  • How to present a game to a stakeholder, investor, or customer in one minute without omitting crucial details.

Solution Approach

  • Create an elevator pitch or high concept for the game.
  • Aim to condense your game idea into concise, meaningful sentences.

Application

Input

  • At least fleshed-out ideas for the game, if not the entire game.
  • Key characteristics of the game.

Application

  • Organize the information about your game based on relevance and importance.
  • Construct a coherent sentence that succinctly describes the game.
  • If one sentence isn’t sufficient, it’s acceptable to use multiple sentences, but keep them brief.
  • Utilize expressive vocabulary in your pitch to convey the emotions experienced in the game.
  • Thirty Seconds of Gameplay:
    • Provide a glimpse of your game and show thirty seconds of gameplay or describe your gameplay in 30 seconds.

Output

  • The High Concept, Elevator Pitch, or Mission Statement.
  • Document, Text

When to use it

  • When you want to break down your game to its core characteristics.
  • When you aim to effectively market your game and persuade people to play it.

Relevant Roles using this model

  • #roles/designer Designer #used-by/designer
  • #roles/manager Manager #used-by/manager

Relevancy in the following processes

Applicability

  • Easily applicable and essential for maintaining focus on your core ideas.
  • Helpful for breaking your game down into essential components and expressing what players can expect from your game.

Relation with other Methods

Examples

  • One elevator pitch example:

    “Lovecraft immerses you in an atmospheric action game full of twists and turns as you discover tools that help you reach a towering castle with a potion that could save the world from decay. As you progress and explore the crumbling world around you, cockroaches, ants, and scorpions guide you toward the castle and help you uncover what caused the once-vegetated world to begin to darken before your eyes. Catered toward action-adventure fanatics and played on PCs, Lovecraft takes around 10 hours to beat and includes non-linear gameplay, with various options to capture the potion to win.”

    _(Source: link)

  • A community that tests each others game elevator pitches and gives feedback on them: link

Relevant Tools

Relevant Literature

GDD Tutorial

High Concept - Movies and Marketing in Hollywood

...

Notes mentioning this note

High Concept
also known as: Elevator Pitch, Mission Statement
Game Development
also known as: Agile Game Development
Designer
#roles
Manager
#roles

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