Oh boy, something I can actually speak on with some authority. And it's one of those rare times I'm actually incensed enough to say something!
Overall the basic concept of a competition for helping newer developers break into the market with funding and resources isn't itself bad. But the execution here is simply baffling.
Twenty work hours is literally no time at all for more than the most simple of projects. One freelance project I was involved in the past was able to allocate somewhere around 20-30 hours to paying programmers a reasonable enough rate each week, and that was with legit funding. That was barely enough time to get even a few major game features implemented and do bugfixes. I'm struggling to think of what you could actually get for that amount of time from a consultant/worker who you have no prior relationship with.
MAYBE a very simple prototype for your idea if you find somebody that's fast enough, though considering that twenty hours is
less than half the time that Ludum Dare allows for its solo competition (you know,
the event where the whole idea is to spit out a game as fast as you can), I doubt it'd be sufficient to actually create even the most basic of working prototypes to build off of.
It's even worse because this is being specifically targeted (
and limited to) complete novices (as young as 16 years old!), most of who would have no realistic idea of what game development actually entails, and won't have any skills to actually build that rudimentary prototype any further without a massive learning curve.
I think the
absolute best scenario anybody could hope for is:
- The paid consultant/worker is a jack of all trades and well versed in at least a few of those trades, fast at working, and has experience with dealing with novices.
- The winner of the contest has at least a basic understanding of the different aspects of game development, is ready to work alongside the consultant, is easy to work with, and focused on getting things done.
- The team is able to quickly work to implement a solid, fun prototype that showcases the unique idea well.
- Said consultant/worker is willing to lend their time after the 20 hours are burnt through, either for free, or promise of revenue share from the finished product.
- Or the winner has enough money to be able to actually pay somebody, (in which case, why would they enter this competition in the first place).
- Or, the idea is attractive enough to catch the eye of a publisher or investor (which, just to be clear, almost never happens for people entering into the industry) to actually fund the project.
Maybe we're not talking about actual work on the game, but design consultation instead. That's still a very short amount of time to get anything done at all. Talking over the idea, drafting a basic design document, having the winner implement the game themselves, and then a consultation session about the prototype at the end. That's
slightly more rational, but still a drop in the bucket for any reasonably sized commercial project.
But the main page doesn't state "Paid time with a professional consultant about your game at key stages of development." It says " Opportunity to work with a professional game creator, who’ll make your dream game a reality!". Which that you're hiring somebody to work on the game with you. So there's already a discrepancy between what the competition markets itself as, and what the actual T&Cs state. I also personally take issue with the "dream game a reality" line. Almost nobody's first game, no, their first serious commercial project, will end up being their dream game, because nearly everybody's dream game (even the smaller ones) would take an entire studio to create. This is just blatant marketing speak.
This is not even touching
all the other obvious issues with it (which some here have already stated):
- Apparently nobody either knew or remembered that the T&Cs should include something about ownership of IP. Out of all the legal issues I think you could run into when running a competition like this, this is the most basic item any legal team would tell you to include. (I'm not kidding, I'm not trying to be insulting to anybody here: How did this get released in this state???)
- The T&Cs never define what laptop is being offered as a prize, or indeed any details about it whatsoever. The main page says "A high end gaming laptop to help you continue your game making journey." What happens if the laptop arrives to the winner in an unusable state (faulty/damaged during shipping)? If the laptop arrives damaged through no fault of the winner, will Yoyo offer to replace the laptop at least once, or try to find an alternative? What happens if they can't? Does the winner's project just die?
- Which "professional game creator" are you fronting the bill for? What is their rate? Can we see examples of their prior work? Has said creator even been picked out yet?
- Why are submissions limited to 500 words, when the whole point of the competition is to submit interesting and unique game ideas? You have 500 words to explain: Plot, Mechanics, Style, Genre, Inspirations. That's a lot of information to fit into 500 words. All you're doing is cutting off complex ideas. Is it to lessen the workload of having to sort through thousands of submissions? Okay, but the entire competition is based around these submissions. That's the main job of the people running it. A (potentially) better system would be to have an "elevator pitch" field where the idea of the game was explained as succinctly as possible, and the ability to attach design documents, reference sheets, plot notes, ect as files (within a certain upload limit obviously) as the actual meat of the submission. That would give a lot more leeway for contestants to actually submit real ideas that might have some potential.