Author Topic: How To Devise a Game Show (Read 5285 times)

Game Show Man · « **on:** August 03, 2003, 04:17:02 PM »

Many of this group's members are fond of posting their proposals for new game shows here at Invision. Recently, David Bodycombe, co-webmaster of UKGameshows.com and veteran British TV game developer, brought a report he had written to the attention of this group. At some expense to myself, I decided to purchase a copy of this report. Here now, I present a review of this report.

Presentation: US buyers can only receive the report via e-mail, as a PDF. It costs 39 GBP (about $60; GADZOOKS!). The actual report prints out as a 145 page document, intended, apparently designed to be printed single-sided (as opposed to double sided, the way most books are printed). The margin is always on the left hand side. The text uses the same font used on WWTBAM (the actual name of the font escapes me), and is attractive and easy to read.

Format: The report is divided into thirteen sections: \"Industry Overview,\" \"Generating Ideas,\" \"Development Issues\" (important non-format considerations for developers), \"The Game Engine\" (how the game works), \"Entertainment Value\" (what makes a show fun to watch), \"Analysing a Format\" (comparing a fictional format example to a real one), \"The Paper Format\" (how to properly commit a format to paper). \"Format Protection,\" a Market Guide, a brief game show timeline, \"Future Developments,\" a glossary (developed in part with the help of this group), and a bibliography.

Readability: An easy read, entertaining and in-depth on most issues facing someone who wants to come up with their own game show format. The book does tend to focus on British television, with many British terms and titles, but does make a considerable effort to maintain relevance to international readers.

Relevance: beyond question. There was very little in this report that I could not tie into almost every show I ever seen. Again, lots of British flavor (like the idea that British companies accept submissions, wheras most American companies do not), but still applicable to American formats and procedure.

The Verdict: Recommend. If you have the money to buy this report, and you have the interest in developing your own full fledged game show, you must read this report.

Way to go, Dave.

\"Game Show Man\" Joe Van Ginkel
gameshowman@winning.com
captvangin@aol.com

davidbod · « **Reply #1 on:** August 04, 2003, 08:02:06 AM »

Thanks for your very fair review.

Admittedly, the report is more expensive than a book, but it is 10% of the price that specialist business reports are regularly sold at. We had to strike a balance between selling to the commercial market and the average punter. Considering the amount of time this report could save you, I still think it's good value. Or to put it another (more brutal) way, if you can't afford 40 quid, chances are you're in the wrong business straight away. Format devising can be a looooong and costly process.

The report is formatted so that people can print it out once without having to do clever double-siding. I can make printed copies available to the US but I figured for cost and speed of delivery, PDF was the way to go.

Regards

David

tommycharles · « **Reply #2 on:** August 06, 2003, 12:19:16 PM »

[quote name=\'Game Show Man\' date=\'Aug 3 2003, 03:17 PM\'] Again, lots of British flavor (like the idea that British companies accept submissions, wheras most American companies do not), [/quote]
WHA?!?!?

That's a different way of doing it (and much better, I might add). Maybe I'm taking the idea out of proportion, but could anyone explain why British companies can accept submissions, and American ones cannot?

clemon79 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 06, 2003, 02:20:06 PM »

[quote name=\'tommycharles\' date=\'Aug 6 2003, 09:19 AM\'] Maybe I'm taking the idea out of proportion, but could anyone explain why British companies can accept submissions, and American ones cannot? [/quote]
I imagine it's mostly legal. I dunno about England, but a lot of our less intelligent population on this side of the pond consists of idiots who file a lawsuit at the drop of a hat.

So the problem comes up when someone submits an idea, is rejected, and then somewhere down the road the production company develops an idea that borrows (whether intentionally or not) one or more concepts from the rejected idea. The rejectee then immediately hires a phalanx of lawyers, screams that his intellectual properly was stolen, and takes the production company to court for a kajillion dollars.

Whether or not he wins, this costs the production company a good deal of money.

So, in order to avoid that scenario entirely, most US production companies don't take submissions. For anything. They stop reading when they think it MIGHT be a submission, so there is no possible way that someone can cry foul down the road.

Crock of crap? Yeppers, but thus is our legal system.

davidbod · « **Reply #4 on:** August 06, 2003, 05:21:12 PM »

This situation does happen in some British industries (particularly board games) but thankfully shows such as The Weakest Link and even Millionaire mean that you don't have to work in the office to get your idea read.

David