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[increpare]

an oversight.  it has been added.

also: i totally thought the deadline for noir was next weekend.  AH WELL.

[increpare]

added:

Apr 15, 2009: 2BeeGames competition

[Fuzz]

added:

Apr 15, 2009: 2BeeGames competition

5. Ownership/Use of Entries: Entrants retain ownership of the Games they submit, however, by entering you, on behalf of yourself and any Third Party Creators, grant Contest Entities the perpetual, fully-paid, irrevocable, non-exclusive license to reproduce, prepare derivate works of (including modification to allow game play on different platforms), distribute, display, exhibit, transmit, broadcast, televise, digitize, otherwise use, and permit others to use and perform throughout the world the Games in any manner, form, or format now or hereinafter created, including on the internet, and for any purpose, including, but not limited to, advertising or promotion of Contest Entities and Contest Entities' goods and/or services, all without further consent from or payment to you, Third Party Creators or any other third parties.

That is not good.

[increpare]

IANAL, but:

I saw this.  The company sponsoring is a big Wii publisher, so it's more as if they're 'buying' the rights to distribute (though they can only legitimately do this on ones they award prizes (money has to change hands for a contract to be valid, right?)).  So it's as if these 10k/2.5k prizes constitutes a purchasing of distribution rights (for no royalties).  It is non-exclusive, however (though it's still giving up a lot if you had plans to monetize your works).

(edit, as paul pointed out on indiegames; the winners are obliged to grant the games company to give them an exclusive licence for distribution...so that means that you won't be able to even distribute it yourself with their permission then?)

[Nulldorf]

Speaking of the miniLD, where is the theme posted? What time on friday does the theme go up? The announcements always just say standard time, standard rules...aint much help if you're new.

And yes, I've read the wiki. The whole blog setup of the site makes it much more confusing, there isn't like a center for the mini LD (or I don't know where it is... )

I've commented over there asking for this info, but no one responds...

I want to enter this time!

[increpare]

Yeah, minilds are a bit weird that way.  IRC is usually the best place to find out.  There'll be a post tomorrow evening probably on the compo blog.

[GameBuilder]

Game builder is having a competition for clickteam users.  http://www.gamebuilder.info/world/content/spring-competition   it ends March 28, but not many people have entered.

[JLJac]

It's interesting with those profiles that are an organization rather than a person. I never really know how to adress them

[2beegames]

Hey Stephen (and other TIG peeps),

Figured I would post in here since the news story has the comments disabled.
We have listened to the advice and feedback that has come along.
It was our first time doing a contest and the lawyers kinda took over.
Our mistake completely. We have addressed almost every major concern and blown the contest wide open. 

Now the details are:

• $10,000(US) + publishing deal for the grand prize winner chosen by a panel of judges
  (the publishing deal is negotiated, if we do not agree to terms the winner can still keep the $ and is still the grand prize winner)
  
• $5000 and $2500 for top 2 community favorites
• XNA is allowed as well
• Games can be entered in other competitions as well (even past winners are welcome)

If anyone is coming to GDC feel free to stop by and chat with us at booth #6149 (near the IGF).
we'll have some promotion for people who submit their games there.
Shoot me an email or PM if you have any more questions.

-Tony

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Those rules do seem improved, particularly the 10k being chosen by judges now. However, question: what if the top 2 community favs includes the one the judges pick as the winner? Would one game win 10k + 2.5k or 10k + 5k in that case?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Also, from your FAQ:

So what is considered indie? I do this for a living.
We accept all kinds of submissions from the basement coders, college kids learning game design in college, small teams who meet via skype, etc

As long as you’re not getting paid to do this, it’s all good. If you were commissioned for anything that makes up your game, it will be disqualified.

"Getting paid to do this" is unclear: wouldn't that mean that people who are selling their game, or got a Flash sponsorship, or any money at all for their game, can't enter?

[increpare]

added:

Apr 12, 2009: Interactive Toy 2 (IndieLib)

[2beegames]

Those rules do seem improved, particularly the 10k being chosen by judges now. However, question: what if the top 2 community favs includes the one the judges pick as the winner? Would one game win 10k + 2.5k or 10k + 5k in that case?

If the Grand prize winner is also one of the community favs, the 5k or 2.5k will go to the next highest vote receiving games.

[2beegames]

Also, from your FAQ:

So what is considered indie? I do this for a living.
We accept all kinds of submissions from the basement coders, college kids learning game design in college, small teams who meet via skype, etc

As long as you’re not getting paid to do this, it’s all good. If you were commissioned for anything that makes up your game, it will be disqualified.

"Getting paid to do this" is unclear: wouldn't that mean that people who are selling their game, or got a Flash sponsorship, or any money at all for their game, can't enter?

Ah, good point. Going to fix it in the FAQs now.

It should be read to mean that if another company is paying for the work (as in they own the rights to the game) then it would not qualify as they may oppose to putting it on the site and would be difficult to get the game published on consoles. We may get into sticky situations with developers who also work at large developers/publishers as well since they can claim that the work was done on their equipment, or time etc.

Games that are self published and are sold by the developer are fine by all accounts. How do flash sponsorships usually work? Do they hold any rights to work by sponsoring them?
The main goal is to find games that developers would like to see on other platforms and need help accomplishing that.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

If I understand it right, Flash sponsorships (like Armor Games, Newsgrounds, Kongregate) etc. pay for the game to contain their logo and link to their site, and often pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for that. So to my understanding they don't actually buy the rights to the game, just the right to "brand" the game with their site and link. But I've never done that yet so I'm unsure, you'd have to ask someone more familiar with it (there are many people on this forum who have had Flash games sponsored, maybe one of them can chime in).

[agj]

http://www.saveearthgame.org/

There's one competition hosted by the IEEE. Basically two competitions, one for idea people, another for developers looking into working on a year-long project for 20,000 USD.

[increpare]

cool. added (the playable design one).

thanks

[agj]

There's PyWeek 8 coming up in a month.

[ithamore]

Intel's Game Demo Challenge for this year, Level Up 2009, is currently accepting entries, and the deadline is July 1, 2009.

[agj]

There's the upcoming Ludum Dare, due April 19th, if I understand correctly. Also, there's this Microsoft competition, called Imagine Cup, for XNA games.

edit: Ah, looks like that last one is not open anymore. My bad.