Pitching Ideas to Obsidian - Process?

[Jackalgirl]

Howdy,

Is there an established process for pitching a game idea to Obsidian?  I see at least one pitch in this Forum, but I imagine that for legal reasons, there probably has to be something formal and possibly less public.  Or does one just go hog-wild here?

TIA -- 

 -- JG

[UrbaNebula]

I suspect you can pitch your ideas anywhere you please. They're not going to make it.

[ShadySands]

It's actually recommended that you not pitch your ideas here... or at all. Sorry.

[Jackalgirl]

Thanks for your reply, ShadySands -- it's not recommended by whom?  Have Obsidian reps specifically posted this?  (I wouldn't be surprised if so.)

[majestic]

I do not know if any Obsidian officials ever stated it directly, but it is standard procedure in the entertainment industry, not just for game developers. Here is Neil Gaiman's explanation on why he does not read unsolicited pitches (public pitches make the situation worse) and blocks people who repeatedly send him any. It includes an anecdote from the Babylon 5 production too, and with intellectual property rights being what they are, this is no different for game pitches.

Pitching games to studios is barely possible (in general) without being part of the industry yourself. The only way to get your game idea made is to either do it yourself, or start working in the industry to a point where you can pitch your ideas to either studios or game designers directly on a trusted basis. Royalty lawsuits happen all the time, and even if the sued party can believable demonstrate to not have copied ideas from (unsolicited) pitches, it usually is not pretty.

Edited November 3, 2022 by majestic

[ShadySands]

3 hours ago, Jackalgirl said:

Thanks for your reply, ShadySands -- it's not recommended by whom?  Have Obsidian reps specifically posted this?  (I wouldn't be surprised if so.)

IIRC, it has a lot to do with what majestic already said but I do believe we once or twice got a dev on here to offer more info.

This thread has a couple Obs devs responding

Edited November 3, 2022 by ShadySands

[Jackalgirl]

Thanks to you both for the response -- that makes sense, and I figured that there would be a legal worry about copyright infringement if someone viewed an unsolicited pitch and then ideas from that pitch leaked into something they did down the line (or there was some kind of "convergent evolution").