Developer Contest

mjuricek · Post by **mjuricek** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:22 pm

Hello,

We have announced a contest for any game developing teams out there.
The prize includes:
- $100,000 cash advance
- paid game engine license up to $1 million (any commercial game engine available)
- standard dev team royalties from shipped title

Estimated duration of the project is until November 2008. However, it is best to get involved and collaborating with our community right away!

For more details and the rules of the contest, go here:
http://www.videogameteam.com/modcenter/rules.html

Please contact me directly or post if you have any questions!

Martin

bitplane · Post by **bitplane** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 10:16 pm

Sounds like a really good deal for Acclaim.. all those mmos for a mere $1.1M! I'm not planning to enter, but I do have some feedback regarding the rules-

(4) Submit: a 16-bit 1024x768 .jpg color screenshot that bests depicts the Entered Application. Think of a potential box cover.

JPEG2000? I think they're the only jpg that does 16-bit colour

2. There is no “Entry Deadline”, as development work may commence at any time. Competition submissions will be accepted all the way through until the end of the Competition.

and later

Milestone 1 - NOVEMBER 1st, 2007: Video of Concept [...]
*Note: These are the Minimum specifications for the milestones.

So, which one is it?

6. Any team entering the Competition agrees to and does hereby grant Acclaim Games Inc., their subsidiaries, affiliates and agents an exclusive and irrevocable worldwide right to publish their entry as a professional video game and that the game will be the sole property of Acclaim.

You might want to reword this as it will put a lot of people off, it sounds like you're claiming all the rights to the entire game when actually you're talking about the release and "secret" name (I hope).

CuteAlien · Post by **CuteAlien** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:00 pm

bitplane wrote:
6. Any team entering the Competition agrees to and does hereby grant Acclaim Games Inc., their subsidiaries, affiliates and agents an exclusive and irrevocable worldwide right to publish their entry as a professional video game and that the game will be the sole property of Acclaim.
You might want to reword this as it will put a lot of people off, it sounds like you're claiming all the rights to the entire game when actually you're talking about the release and "secret" name (I hope).

I did read it as written. Acclaim claims the complete rights to your entry. And yeah - that does put people off. Because you don't spend a few months on something to give up all rights, even if you lose in that competition. You think it's meant otherwise?

Except that point (which kills it for me) it seemed like a fair contest.

mjuricek · Post by **mjuricek** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:41 am

that is ment to be for winning entry i believe

bitplane · Post by **bitplane** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:55 am

Oh.. You're right. I was thinking there was some kind of differentiation between "end product" and "competition entry", where the entry was yours but the product was theirs. I skipped over the word "exclusive" which makes it all too clear that this is completely one sided.

mjuricek · Post by **mjuricek** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 1:34 am

thank you I made note about it and it will probably be reworded so it won't cause cofusion;

good catch

GameDude · Post by **GameDude** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 2:11 am

The prizes look nice, but I don't like the idea of losing the "rights" to my game.

dejai · Post by **dejai** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 2:58 am

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.

mjuricek · Post by **mjuricek** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 1:49 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 for winning team and it will be reworded. Anyway would you mind your work being showed off? That means publicity for you as well.

mjuricek · Post by **mjuricek** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 12:49 pm

we are adding FAQ to the contest page, if anyone has any other questions please feel free to ask

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:10 pm

Step 1: Somehow pull together a team of 30 world class programmers and content developers who have nothing better to do than invest a year of their lives, entirely at their own cost and risk, to produce a million-plus player commercial quality MMORPG, a task that inevitably takes professional teams working with direct publisher support and resources at least 3 elapsed years to complete.

Step 2: For no good reason other than you're in a 'competition', just give it away to Acclaim for a piddling $100K 'prize', instead of the minimum $5 million payment that you'd receive for taking a completed MMORPG to a publisher.

Step 3: Realise that you've just spent a year of your life for <$2 an hour reward (if you 'won'), therefore blowing your big chance for fame, happiness and financial security, and instead spiral into a morass of depression and alcoholism, ending only when you're found dead in a pool of your own poop and vomit.

Of course, I'm probably being too naive about this. There's sure to be a catch somewhere.

Spintz · Post by **Spintz** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:01 am

mjuricek · Post by **mjuricek** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:27 pm

rogerborg wrote:to produce a million-plus player commercial quality MMORPG

perhaps it wasn't explained clarly enough. I appologize for that. The contest is to create a beta version of scalable multiplayer online game, which is I believe far from full commercial MMORPG.

$100k is a cash advance. There is much more to be done after the contest is over. The winning development team will also get industry standard royalties + cash advances from Acclaim based on all revenue sources for this title, for as long as they stay committed to supporting the game.

So far Acclaim has 4 million registered players. (only been around 2 years I htink).

It will depend on the dev team what they can come up with, and if it's succesfull there will be much more to gain for them then

piddling $100K 'prize'

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:50 pm

Please stop being so constructive and reasonable; it really effects my attempts to be cynical.

OK, being constructive myself:

The judging criteria makes no mention of exploitability. I would strongly suggest that you make this a critera, even if it's only to put it into the minds of the dev teams. It's far, far better to design out exploits than to have to catch and fix them in testing.

You don't say whether the million players can be split across (more or less) completely independent servers (e.g. WoW) or whether you want a single common back end, even if it's just to do occasional offline operations like constructing rankings tables. Those requirements will have a major effect on the design.

You call it a "Racing" game, but then mention "Beasts" rather than "vehicles" or even "mounts". You also mention "Item Store" as though it's a given. I infer from this that you already have a concept in mind. It would be fair to disclose that concept to all entrants so that the competition doesn't become about who can read your mind and guess that you really want a Schoolgirl Manga Witches on Mutant Robotic Anteaters game, that's ostensibly free to play, but where the players can (and pretty much have to) buy Fishnet Stockings Of Speed +5 from a store.

vermeer · Post by **vermeer** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:58 pm

100k... wow ...

well, surely too crowded to do sth..

Good luck to entrants