Developer Contest

omaremad · Post by **omaremad** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 7:27 pm

I found this in their site

Acclaim Games is pleased to present the biggest gaming prize ever in a $1 million game development competition for the "Top Secret" Project , directed by superstar game director David Perry WHO?. Teams of indie, mod, professional, amateur & student game developers can enter a once-in-a-lifetime competition to develop a real MMO game, get an industry standard development deal, and earn royalties on the title. Teams will manage their projects and resources at ModCenter (http://www.modcenter.com), a developer site recently launched by IGN Entertainment. ModCenter, will provide free tools for the teams participating in the "Top Secret" $1 million game development competition.

The total prize package is worth up to $1 million, plus royalties, to the winning development team. As part of this cash prize, Acclaim will pay the licensing fees for any commercially available video game engine in the world, thereby removing one of the biggest obstacles preventing many talented developers from releasing professional products.

"The 'Top Secret' team is where the concept of Web 2.0 meets the video game industry . We've had close to 50,000 people sign up to help design this game. The best participant will win a future Acclaim title to direct," says David Perry, Game's Director. "With so many people involved, this is already the biggest team in history. I am directing the project, but this game is going to be designed by the community, produced by the community and developed by the community."

isnt this a compettion? whos helping who and who is competing for what money?

The basic core of the game has already been designed and is a ground-breaking new kind of beast racing game that doesn’t stop at racing alone. The “Top Secret” design includes the ability to breed and collect beasts, fight in player versus player battles, and explore an expanding world.
OMG that game play mechanic is not structured or logical at all. Do particpants have to be limited by this?

IGN’s ModCenter will provide online project management and tracking tools for all “Top Secret” development teams for free. Teams will manage their projects at www.modcenter.com where they can organize tasks, track bugs, store source code, and communicate with team members. This also allows teams to become “virtual,” meaning that individuals around the world can join together to form new virtual teams and still work on the same project.

“Giving users the power and tools to create one-of-a-kind development projects aligns directly with why IGN created ModCenter in the first place,” said Jamie Berger, SVP Consumer Products & Technology for IGN Entertainment. “Joining with Acclaim and David Perry on this groundbreaking project builds on IGN‘s commitment with ModCenter to support the creation of new and unique game concepts from within the gaming community.”

ModCenter was built by IGN around the SourceForge toolset by CollabNet (http://www.collab.net) and is completely free to use. ModCenter is aimed specifically at modification and independent game development. The new site provides project management utilities, industry educational resources and promotional services to the development community. Utilities include a bug-tracking system, project discussion forums, source code repositories, a wiki system, document storage and an internal file release system, all controlled via a project administration area.

The competition is open to any developer worldwide who is technically qualified to create the game. It will be published by Acclaim.

yet another contradiction

This sounds as practical as communism

btw acclaim is dead their name and IP's were sold in a auction

CuteAlien · Post by **CuteAlien** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 8:14 pm

Acclaim Games is pleased to present the biggest gaming prize ever in a $1 million game development competition for the "Top Secret" Project , directed by superstar game director David Perry WHO?.

Perry made Earthworm Jim, MDK and Messiah. Also he got really well known when trying to patent realtime tessellation, because a lot of people in the game industry got very very angry by that. Though it speaks for him that he didn't do it in the end. Superstar is maybe a little bit much, but he's rather well known in the industry. One of the few people who actually risk doing new stuff regularly!

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 9:04 pm

Oh! Right! Now I remember laughing milk out of my nose the first time I heard of Top Secret, the Segway of game projects.

omaremad wrote:isnt this a compettion? whos helping who and who is competing for what money?

Yup, it looks like they thought they could get "50,000" stoners and schoolkids to co-operate and contribute to one implementation, but now they've realised that's never going to happen, so instead they're just going to let them fight it out, and may the best slackers win. The design appears to have been created co-operatively (in the sense that the last to edit it before the freeze wins), but now they're going to go hog-wild on duplicating effort in implementing it.

By the way: this is exactly how a lot of Asian development houses actually work. Redundant teams compete internally to implement features. It's a hellish back-stabbing atmosphere to work in, and results in some absolutely appalling code being lashed together in the rush to be the first to cry "Done!"

omaremad wrote:
The basic core of the game has already been designed and is a ground-breaking new kind of beast racing game that doesn’t stop at racing alone. The “Top Secret” design includes the ability to breed and collect beasts, fight in player versus player battles, and explore an expanding world.

Ah, good spot. That's what I was asking the poster. Here's the design doc, which is reasonably detailed, but still has a fair amount of "Uh, we'll fill that bit in later".

It also requires a huge amount of effort! 3,000 concurrent players per server (and so therefore ~300 servers), quests, guilds, homes, trading, plus all the racing and combat. I thought it was a subset of a MMORPG, but actually it's a superset. Seriously, it specifies nearly everything that's in WoW, plus customisable homes, plus the racing specific areas.

I don't think the designers appreciate that one simple throwaway line in a design can pan out to a feature that requires man-years of detailed design, implementation and testing.

Posting a link to the 'rules' was clearly an error; they don't even mention this design. The link should have been to this page.

btw acclaim is dead their name and IP's were sold in a auction

Yup, this is nuAcclaim. I've got nothing particular against them, I just can't see how they possibly expect to get anything usable from this. I mean, other than publicity.

Virion · Post by **Virion** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:15 am

I don't think project like this will gonna be successful anyway. Gamer-made game? Or noob-made game. And OMG it's an MMO!!

mjuricek · Post by **mjuricek** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 1:53 pm

reason why desing doc is rather vague is that we are still in desing process, still easrly stage. And any dev team can participate as well.

Server architecture is up to a dev team to decide what they think would be the best. Minimum required was 3000 players per server and 8 players per instanced race.

It also requires a huge amount of effort! 3,000 concurrent players per server

Isn't there already a "3rd party tool" to implement interface like that?

The rules state 4 milestones. It's not required to be a full version of a game (based on design doc) at the end of the contest. That will come after and winning team will get to implement rest of the features.
And if there is something that would require lots of manhours to implement dev teams are more then welcome to suggest workarounds. And we oul most likely listen and make apropriate changes.

You call it a "Racing" game, but then mention "Beasts" rather than "vehicles" or even "mounts".

There is a history behind this. When dp opened this project to community. He said this project is to create a MMO Racing game (something like mario karts, simple online game). In the very first tasks lots of people suggest riding beasts rather then driving cars. ANd the whole idea of a "little" online racing game was overruled by the community. And dp listened.

1 other note. At least for me it have been good experience. I'm a programmer myself (but in logistic field) so I would consider myself rookie/noob when it comes to game design or development. And I find it rather exciting that I get a chance to chat or exchange emails with shall I say celebrity rather then superstar (little overexagerated)like dp practically on daily basis. I don't think I would have this opportunity outside of this team.

mjuricek · Post by **mjuricek** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:49 pm

dejai wrote:I think this competition is a great Idea, be aware of the following though all entrance.

1. Each Entrant further agrees to and does hereby grant the Sponsor, their subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, and customers the non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right and license to reproduce, modify, display, publicly perform, and demonstrate the Entered Application for promotional purposes as well as merchandizing and licensing rights to the images, code and content of the game.

this is directly from dp:

--- David Perry <> wrote:

The whole thing is an opportunity for new developers
to get a shot at a publishing agreement. (To become
PROFESSIONAL developers.)
If you work on a game, and you don't win. You own
EVERYTHING you did, EVERYTHING you created
(art/engine/program/everything) You just don't own
the COMMUNITY's GAME DESIGN.

dp

all teams willing that enter the contest need to register with modcenter

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:29 am

mjuricek wrote:this is directly from dp:

Hearsay from a random poster on third party website is only considered legally binding by Slashdot 'lawyers'.

mjuricek wrote:all teams willing that enter the contest need to register with modcenter

Why? They're already working for you for free for a year; I don't think you should be making the deal any worse with "need to" conditions.

Out of interest, how many teams have signed up so far?

mjuricek · Post by **mjuricek** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:41 pm

rogerborg wrote:Why? They're already working for you for free for a year; I don't think you should be making the deal any worse with "need to" conditions.

Out of interest, how many teams have signed up so far?

I'm not here to promote MC, but they offer tools that could be very helpfull. It's free anyway.
As far as I know there 8 registered teams so far (it's 9 but I don't count 1 team). It is also to help us to track teams. Most of them are still private some made it public with limited access. There might be some other teams that didn't register yet.

From last night's meeting:
The rule's page is being clarified (dp is working on it). And the contest dates might be moved further. He wants us to set up some meetings with participating dev teams. He will be participating on those as well.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 2:29 pm

I have to admit, it's a fascinating project. There's some nice concept art, and you're making progress on producing requirements. Also, dropping the bullshit description of it as being Massive in any sense is a sound idea; instanced rather than persistent brings down the compexity by an order of magnitude.

The idea of competing development teams working within a co-operative community is certainly... unique. OK, the only devs working on this will be inexperienced students and dropouts, but even they should be able to figure out that it won't be in their interests to co-operate with each other in any way. I'm not sure what the plan is (if any) to avoid 9 teams producing duplicates of the same 20% of what Acclaim really want, rather than having them all work in one team to produce 50%.

Clearly the 'public beta' date of November 2008 is just a ruse to get the maximum number of people to donate a year of their lives. There can't be any credible belief that any dev team starting now could release a 'public beta' of even the required core features in 240 elapsed working days. Valve could do it, perhaps. A loose associated of unemployed dreamers? Not even within the realms of fantasy. But a realistic date, say summer 2010, would put off even the starriest eyed (starry eyedest?) hippy, so I guess it'll have to be kept on a rolling "one year from today!" schedule to keep them donating their time.

Don't get me wrong; it will be a fun and valuable experience for everyone participating, but the project goals are just risible. Either the requirements need paring down to the bone, or the date needs pushed out by two years.

Good luck with it though; I'll be watching it with interest to see when it dies.

Spintz · Post by **Spintz** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:12 pm

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:34 pm

Spintz wrote:
I'll be watching it with interest to see when it dies.
Shouldn't that be, "I'll be watchig it with interest to see if it ever starts!" ????

I can't believe that a human being could be so cynical! You, sir, are worse than Hitler.

Spintz · Post by **Spintz** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:58 pm

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 10:49 am

Happy to oblige! And the best part is that it's not aimed at Irrlicht developers, so hybrid won't get sand in his swimsuit.

What do we know about this project, from reading its website and forums:

#1 It's a 'community' project, but the actual dev teams are competing with each other.
Consequence: there will be zero co-operation or communication between dev teams. The smart ones won't even submit demos, so as not to give ideas to the competition. Acrimonious schisms, defection and code theft are likely. Duplication of work is guaranteed.

#2 The 'prize' is derisory, and paid in arrears. $100K (plus whatever royalties Acclaim feel inclined to offer once they already own your work) is one year's salary for a decent software engineer. Split amongst a team large enough to produce a beta quality product in a year (and split how? Decided by who?) it's beer money. Split statistically amongst all the teams, it's pocket lint.
Consequence: Most devs will be unemployed and not actively seeking real employment. That means that they're either students, slackers, or retired. Discounting the last category (see issue #4), that leaves hobbyist developers. That doesn't mean that they're not talented or enthusiastic, but it does mean that they'll lack the experience to make realistic assessments of their productivity. They won't know what they can't achieve, and are likely to over-reach.

#3 The visual look is to be "anime", as decided by a close community vote.
Consequence: The community is made up of Wapanese teenage boys (which supports conclusion #2) and/or Acclaim had already decided what they needed for their target market and just fiddled the vote, knowing that the students and slackers making up their community would be too naive to question it.

#4 The requirements and timescales bear no relation to each other. It is not possible to produce a "public beta release" of their required core features by November 2008 (~240 elapsed working days from today). Either their requirements aren't really required, or their timescales are off by 2 years, or Dave Perry doesn't know what a "beta" is. None of those is a good alternative.
Consequence: Nobody with any experience is going to touch this with a bargepole. As the scale of the task becomes apparent, even their students and slackers are going to have a harsh reality check. It's not just a stretch goal, it's unachievable. Maybe Valve could do it. Students and slackers? No. No way. So they can only lose developers from here.

#5 The current requirements are marketing driven, rather than technology driven. They focus on the game's USPs, while skimping on core technical requirements, such as server load, reliability or architectural robustness.
Consequence: If they do receive anything at the competition close, it will still be a tech demo. Then they'll either have to start over with a ground-up redesign, or just release an unstable hackfest that will only he 'played' by robots and farmers. Again.

#6 Because Acclaim are asking for all the work up front, they are reliant on maintaining the goodwill of their community. However, jerking your community around is a good way to lose that goodwill. As well as the issues in #4 and #5, they've only just stopped calling it a "Massive" game, and explained that when they said 3000 players per server, they meant in 8-player instances, with no persistent world or massed interactions. That's the right decision, but it's so completely fundamental to the requirements, design and implementation that it should have been crystal clear right from the start. Also, the milestones and demos are now suddenly optional (and from #1, there's no incentive to delivery them). All of which begs the question: what else might they suddenly "clarify", and when? For example, when will they get round to specifying the requirements for the absolutely mandatory (but currently glossed over) in-game stores where they'll make their money?
Consequence: If you keep moving the target, the dev teams can't hit it. If they lose the goodwill of their community, then the project is over. Even if by some miracle someone actually produces a beta quality product, why would they give it to Acclaim for a token $100K when they could take it to a real publisher for $millions instead? Goodwill and a dollar will buy you a twinkie.

The thing is, I actually hope that I'm wrong. I hope that a collective of 30 Malaysian student work 20 hours a day for the next year on modding an existing engine, produce a stable, unexploitable, fun and challenging game that meets all of the requirements, and that they all reap mad rewards and lucrative careers out of it, but until that happens, I retain the right to be a skeptical curmudgeon. Having worked in the industry, I can tell you this: it's not possible to be too cynical about it.

sio2 · Post by **sio2** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 11:48 am

rogerborg wrote:why would they give it to Acclaim for a token $100K when they could take it to a real publisher for $millions instead?

Does the "sign your team up now!" action tie a team into Acclaim, I wonder?

Also, am I right in that there is a secondary "prize" of the "winner(s)" becoming a Director of a future "guaranteed" project. Perhaps this is the primary goal...

Virion · Post by **Virion** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 2:34 pm

If your dev team has the ability to make a working MMO, even if it's just a half-complete demo, congrats you are now able to form your own company. just like what rogerborg said:

why would they give it to Acclaim for a token $100K when they could take it to a real publisher for $millions instead?

don't waste your time on acclaim!

btw i never heard of the name david perry until i get accros with project top secret. 9Dragons/2Moons aren't that popular in Asia...