Pitchify founder: Listen to what people actually want

Gina Jackson has a career spanning more than 30 years in the computer gaming industry. She has worked on around 300 titles in development and publishing roles, designed for consoles like the Nintendo SNES and PlayStation 5.

In 2023, she drew on her experience to co-found Pitchify, a marketplace built to speed up the funding process for developers and publishers.

Business Leader caught up with her earlier this year at the annual Games Finance Market conference in central London. It's a kind of speed dating event for video game makers to meet publishers and pitch ideas.

“As developers, we need to develop exactly what the audience wants and not the games we want to play,” warns Jackson.

Jackson encourages developers to scour game reviews and analyse sales data before pitching their ideas to publishers, however passionate they are about their concepts. Online customer reviews can be a very useful source of information, she points out, and you can now even use generative AI tools to summarise them for you.

“Don’t be afraid to really be vulnerable, really listen and be challenged by clients,” advises Jackson.