Why Not To Pitch A Game Too Early

So day 0 of Gen Con is in the books. Part of mine was filled with general logistics (Hotel check in, Gen Con tickets, prep for tomorrow) while the rest focused on pitching a clearly-not-ready legacy game...

See all that pen marks on the cards? Yeah, that's not a good sign. I fell prey to the temptation to be Johnny-on-the-spot, the guy with the exact right idea at exact the right time. I'll try and take some time next week to write about the process at length but the short lesson is, no matter how tempting the circumstances, don't go into a meeting unless your current game rules have...

A. ...been playtested to get the kinks out

B. ...are stable long enough for you to teach the game coherently.

Despite that the pitch could have gone worse. They got to see enough working bits to feel there was a game in there (somewhere) and they told me they're open to a second pitch. The unfortunate truth is that I didn't have that game yet and we all knew it.

All of this leads to the importance of moving bg forward not back in this industry. Making s pitch too early was an easy mistake to make, but it's 12:43 now, so that was yesterday. In front of me is the fun part, the part where I get to slow down, nail the mechanics, vet the rules, and give them a follow up pitch they can't resist.