How to get a publishing deal? This is a question to which there is no clear answer. This depends on a variety of factors (some of which, such as your current funding status, may be beyond your control), but there are ways to tilt the odds in your favor.
During a recent conversation with Pocketpair PR Director and Publishing Manager John Buckley at the Gamescom Asia x Thai Game Show: we found out which titles the company is not interested in signingbut we also heard how one of the proposals immediately won over the Japanese company.
According to Buckley, Full truck MythicOwl developer fired over stellar presentation and budget breakdown hours after Pocketpair advertising a call for applications on its website. The Polish studio's approach to precisely describing what it needed to develop and launch an adventure game reassured Buckley that the development team fully understood their product, costs and target market.
You might think that this is a given, but you would be sadly mistaken. Buckley explained that MythicOwl's method was the exception, not the rule. From the moment of official signing Full truck At the beginning of 2025, Pocketpair received a lot of offers, but only a few of them lived up to expectations.
“We have opened a form on our website [to accept pitches] And Full truck was the very first step. It arrived within the first hour,” Buckley says. “It was the very first offer that came through the door and it amazed me with how it was structured. Not only is the presentation itself an art form – but they also had Excel spreadsheets showing month-by-month data. [budget] breakdowns.”
Buckley explained that the presentation was perfect in every way – so much so that it even caused a little panic.
“I turned to the guys in the office and said, 'We're in big trouble because how are we going to pick games if this is what it's going to be like?' but I can tell you Full truck was one in a thousand.”
Following that conversation, we asked Buckley if Pocketpair and MythicOwl would be willing to share a presentation and budget breakdown to help other developers interested in attracting publishers. They kindly agreed and now we can share both with you.
We've compiled some examples from MythicOwl's budget spreadsheet for Full truck below (with edited numbers) to show how the studio broke down the cost of everything from dynamic obstacles, day/night customization, UI modules, console ports, story and location design, and more. All pitch deck slides can also be found below.
The game developer took part in Gamescom Asia x Thai Game Show 2025 as a media partner, with tickets and accommodation paid for by the event organizers.
