Brian Upton is an old hand in the game biz, from design to dealmaking, and presented "30 things I hate about your pitch" at the Game Developers' Conference. Though it concerns the specific interests of independent and small-business game outfits trying to raise money, the lessons seem oddly universal to science fiction and fantasy in general. Number 1: "I don't give a crap about hearing … 20 minutes of the political situation on some fantasy continent."
(If, on the other hand, you love just sitting there drooling over elaborate yet generic fantasy backstories, you might be interested in the procedurally-generated fantasy map-maker that Upton used to illustrate his point.
