[ 13 posts ]  Reply to topicPost new topic 
Author Message
 [at]
 Post subject: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 12:21 pm 
Real horses don't run into trees
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
This is an announcement regarding our regular competitions (Minigame, Spriting, Drawing, Music).

After the currently active competition in its category ends, please do not start a new one. This is part of a restructuring of the competitions that is being planned at the moment in a response to the low amount of participants and voters.

Let me explain more clearly something that some of you may have observed themselves already:

Symptom:
- Small amount of participation in competitions, it is not rare to see only one person entering, or even nobody at all. Ideally, we'd have 8 or more people per competition, at least 5.
- Small amount of members voting on each competition

Assumption:
- There still exists interest in having competitions in general

Possible explanation:
- MFGG exists for over 10 years now, having all those competitions one after the other, all at the same time, without a break. There's likely an oversaturation of competitions that causes this lack of interest. You can only do something so many times without losing the sense of excitement that comes with it. The participants also tend to sit out the next one or two, as they might want to invest more time in their own bigger projects, which we do not want to discourage either.
- A lack of awareness. With 4 competitions typically going on at the same time, spread across multiple boards, it is easy to lose track of which competitions are active right now and which competitions are new and interesting, so it is easy to miss the start of a new competition suddenly and come in half a week too late, and then just say "screw that, I'll wait for the next". Likewise, Mainsiters might get motivated to enter, if competitions got a spotlight on the mainsite too, but with this many competitions, the mainsite would then be flooded with competition news.
- A lack of incentive to enter. You can only feel good about getting that golden badge of your discipline so many times. While this is working to get older members to make room for newcomers in principle, it is way too easy right now, especially with the low participation rate and the high frequency of competitions.

Solution:
- Less competitions overall will increase the novelty factor of a new competition happening, and focus the amount of participants usually spread across multiple competitions into one bigger and thus more challenging and therefore more interesting competition. When a badge is not guaranteed for everyone who enters, entries should become better, too, improving the quality/quantity ratio in our competition entries, leading to more quality submissions on the main site and everyone having something to look forward to.

A great example where this works is Ludum Dare. This indie competition only happens three times a year, takes 48 hours, has absolutely no rewards for the winners, and has thousands of people participating, as they anticipate the event, prepare for it, and take their time off just to be in there.

These are my ramblings on the topic, and an explanation for the hiatus of competitions.
Which solution exactly we will come up with will be announced at a later date, and you can bring in your influence by posting in this topic.

Some suggestions that have been thrown around are:
- Having only a single competition going on at the same time, thus cycling through the different categories (Minigame/Music/Drawing/Spriting) and bringing the full focus to one competition at a time.
- Trying out a new type of competition every once in a while to mix things up (Gaming/Writing/Cooking/etc.)
- Announcing the dates way in advance to allow everyone to prepare and schedule around them.
- Having special competitions every once in a while with "real" prizes like Steam keys (obviously requires someone to pay for them, so no guarantees on this)

What do you think of this, and do you have more suggestions?

_________________
Guinea 2013 Reference (1) | 11 (1) | 10 (1) | 08/09 (1, 2)
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [us]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 2:13 am 
User avatar
C# Programmer
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
What if pre-made engines (not game engines) and stuff were allowed during some minigame competitions? I know that it's about what you can do from scratch in a short period of time and helps keep the competition a bit more fair. But I feel that allowing pre-made stuff allows people to still work on some aspects of their bigger projects, but within in a simpler setting. I'd love to use the pathfinding stuff in a future comp just to play with it and see what I can do with it. It might also motivate some to join just to show off what they're working on without them worrying that they're wasting time.

This also allows those who are quite new to programming to join since they don't have to start from scratch. I actually found the "not allowed to use pre-made engines" a bit ambiguous. Most here use gamemaker which offers some things already built in. What about those who use Unity? That has a whole lot built in. What if someone used something lower level? They'd have to actually remake the physics, collision, animation, etc over every time. It becomes a bit of a hassle for them to join comps.

When I say pre-made engines, I mean things that don't include actual game objects.

_________________
MFGG TKO (scrapped) - Animations
Image
"It feels that time is better spent on original creations" - Konjak
Focus on the performance, the idea, not the technical bits or details - Milt Kahl
 
Top
Offline 
 
 
 [at]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 7:40 am 
Real horses don't run into trees
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
^About pre-made engines, it has always been allowed to use libraries and own pre-made code, as long as those components aren't a game by themselves. GM/Unity/MMF, what have you, all count as libraries.

Ludum Dare actually has a rule, that you can use every tool that's publicly available, and if you use your own code, you have to share it first, to make it publicly available. We can maybe take some inspiration from this.

_________________
Guinea 2013 Reference (1) | 11 (1) | 10 (1) | 08/09 (1, 2)
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [us]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 4:58 pm 
User avatar
C# Programmer
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
Really? That's great then. Thanks for clearing that up.

_________________
MFGG TKO (scrapped) - Animations
Image
"It feels that time is better spent on original creations" - Konjak
Focus on the performance, the idea, not the technical bits or details - Milt Kahl
 
Top
Offline 
 
 
 [ca]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 6:37 pm 
User avatar
No games
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
A gaming competition would sound pretty interesting. Though I do agree with the oversaturation of the competitions.

_________________
Spoiler:

Refs: ~CaMTenDo~: http://i45.tinypic.com/2cfv0xk.png supernova: http://i50.tinypic.com/16gd4h.png kremling: http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m206/KiddyKong/ultluigi_zps2612660b.png Mit:http://i.imgur.com/eW2W9zl.png
Dustinvgmaster wrote:
Because I'm over here being a doofus, almost everyone else is cruelly denying and Ult is offering beverages for some reason
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [us]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 6:38 pm 
User avatar
Am I making you uncomfortable?
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
What if we had these "special competitions" after every round of the normal ones? For example, it could go something like this:
Minigame - Drawing - Spriting - Music - Gaming - Minigame - Drawing - Spriting - Music - Writing...

 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [us]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 11:29 am 
User avatar
Goodbye.
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
One idea that came to mind was an end of year tournament.
We take the years comp winners of the given comp type (ie: Minigame) and have a set of final vote sessions. Whoever wins gets a badge crowning them the champion of the given comp type for that year.

_________________
When the prey has gone extinct, the hunter must seek another bounty to feed.
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [us]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 5:00 pm 
User avatar
I'll be your 1-Up boy.
Social Media Manager
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
The problem with your competitions is indeed that unless you are a regular at the forum, you won't know about them. You don't make competition announcements on the site (you don't have to flood the site with them, you can have one competition at a time instead of several, this many competitions at once puts strain on people who might be interested in participating in all of them anyway) or through social networking or anything (also you have to click separate forums to find them because the competitions are not all posted in the same forum). Another issue may be that the prize (a badge) has grown a bit stale and is not enticing to anyone anymore, even if you increase the requirements to earn one.

_________________
also known as SonicProject
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [at]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 5:49 pm 
Real horses don't run into trees
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
^A big problem is indeed the lack of incentive to win. Do you have a suggestion for an alternative reward that's more enticing?

Something I just thought of would be a new set of badges each year, so your badges will reflect your competition performance on a year by year basis and might be an incentive to be consecutively scoring high. With the way the new schedule would work, it would mean you can earn up to 4 badges per category each year. To avoid clutter, badges wouldn't come in gold silver and bronze anymore, but in only one color representing your best rank reached and the number being a sum of points, e.g. 3 points for 1st place, 2 points for 2nd and 1 point for 3rd, so a maximum score of 12 points would mean you have won each competition of this year.

_________________
Guinea 2013 Reference (1) | 11 (1) | 10 (1) | 08/09 (1, 2)
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [us]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 6:19 pm 
User avatar
I'll be your 1-Up boy.
Social Media Manager
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
I think something more like having members or staff pool together money to do things like offer nintendo eshop giftcards or something might be cool. Probably couldn't do it for every competition though, but it's an idea.

_________________
also known as SonicProject
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [at]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 6:33 pm 
Real horses don't run into trees
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
Pedigree wrote:
I think something more like having members or staff pool together money to do things like offer nintendo eshop giftcards or something might be cool. Probably couldn't do it for every competition though, but it's an idea.

That reminds me, didn't you once host a level design competition where you promised the winner $50? How did that go?

Anyway, finding "sponsors" amongst staff/members for a couple of games for special bigger competitions is something we can try, or for an overall vote like Nite suggested for all entries of the whole year.

_________________
Guinea 2013 Reference (1) | 11 (1) | 10 (1) | 08/09 (1, 2)
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [us]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 6:56 pm 
User avatar
I'll be your 1-Up boy.
Social Media Manager
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
It didn't really draw in too much more activity, unfortunately, but I think that's because of the timing.

As for the prize, that is something I still have to and intend to resolve, it's just been a bad year with unexpected finance issues.

I personally won't be offering prizes in the future, but there is value in doing it for those who are capable.

_________________
also known as SonicProject
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
 [nl]
 Post subject: Re: Competitions temporarily on hiatus
PostPosted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 10:04 am 
User avatar
Wreck 'n get stomped
Member
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]
[*]

[*]
[*]
[*]
I don't think prize money should be given for competitions. You already get badges and they are just for fun, not for money.

_________________
My Youtube | My Twitter
 
Top
Offline 
 User page at mfgg.net
 
« Previous topic | Next topic »
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
 [ 13 posts ]  Reply to topicPost new topic 


Who is online

Users browsing this topic: No registered users and 1 guest


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group