[IGDA_indies] Competitions

[Brandon J. Van Every]

C Ratchet wrote:
>
> http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/egads/experience/gamecourt.html

Prize money is pretty irrelevant unless you're offering $100K or
something.  Only big corporations offer that kind of purse, and then
it's to suit their purpose.

Some indies are looking for opportunities to get publishing deals,
others think that's repulsive and the main reason they're an indie.

So in the end, I think it becomes a matter of critical respect and
acclaim.  It can be a career booster, *if* the standards of the contest
are high enough that it's worth winning.  And, if the contest is
marketed enough that people in the game industry know about it, so that
winning it 'counts' for something.  The IGF is successful in these
respects.  The judges are a good pool of industry professionals, and the
scoring system has matured over several years.  Not all contests can
provide that.  It's definitely a lot of work to provide that.

I don't think we need another "all comers" contest like the IGF.  I
think we need more prize money and judging categories for the IGF.

"High Concept" contests could work.  I think the aforementioned Digital
Gaming Competition is attempting to be high concept, but it's really not
high concept enough.  The contest requirements should be more arbitrary,
avant garde, specific, and difficult to work with.  Humor helps too.
For instance, "You must make a game featuring the interactions of the
following 3 chicken models.  One chicken is required to give live birth
halfway through the game.  You will be judged on several criteria and a
prize will be given for each: humor, fun of gameplay, profundity of
story," etc.  Best would be to design criteria that are mutually
exclusive.  That way, an entrant would likely have to choose a
competition strategy.

If such contests resembled the challenges of improv comedy, it wouldn't
be accidental.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.

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