I'd be interested to see some statistics for how the availability of prizes affects the interest level in coding chalenges and contests. There's been some debate about the overall importance of prizes for contest participation. Hopefully this poll can give us some insight!

I like to enter contests just to have a reason to code. Prizes just make it more delicious.

It's nice if the prizes are worth something, though...

Losing weeks of sleep is its own reward. Prizes don't motivate me that much...particulary since I doubt I'll win any of these things.

Basically it just takes prodding from the certain people for me to join contests...*glares at dan*

My time is too limited to spend it on a contest without much of a benefit. With contract work and trying to get a giganto product out to market quickly, I can't afford to spend time on a game contest when there are more productive things I could be doing. Sure, there are times where I need to just sit back and relax, and writing a game (or trying to) is something that I enjoy, but I'm much more likely to enter a contest and get it done when there's a prize [worth winning] involved.

That's part of the reason. The other part is that I don't like to do things unless I can do them well. What's the point of entering a piece of junk in a contest? Someone downloads it, looks at it, "ewwww", and then "oh, nice effort..." It's not my style.

I aim to please, and I normally don't have the time to spend night and day for three weeks working on something for no visible reward.

And it's not that I'm just not that passionate about games, it's that I'm more passionate about doing other things that games just don't fit into so there's little benefit to doing it for nothing but my health.

Well, I voted for the "much more likely", but not because of the prizes themselves, but because of what it usually implies: a LONG contest, as opposed to, say, a 21DL.

Also, a contest with important prizes usually implies lots of sponsors and publicity, meaning that more people would get to see the result of all the hard work involved in making a game.

PowerMacX Wrote:Also, a contest with important prizes usually implies lots of sponsors and publicity, meaning that more people would get to see the result of all the hard work involved in making a game.

And the entrants would put more work into their games and more people would enter because of that... Yeah.

For me, prizes imply a long, serious contest. I feel a little intimidated by them, because I know for sure that I cannot make a game that would be able to compete in such a contest. Contests without prizes seem to me to be more just for fun, so I'd rather enter them than the big official ones.

I like entering the contests just to enter and give me a little motivation to actually work on a game. Prizes are a nice side benefit but I don't really care THAT much...though I suppose if the prize were something crazy like a new mac tower or laptop or 30" screen or something that might give me some additional motivation. :-) But I'd still enter the same contest with absolutely no prize.

For me personally, my favorite type of "realistic" prize would be something like game programming/design books. Though I have quite a few now, I don't have all of them I'd like. hehe I'm particularly fond of the new riders series lately:
http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/browse...42256&rl=1

I voted slightly, as it is a good motivator, but I like the informalness of the 24 hour contests and 4 hour contests we've started in the irc channel.

Alex

Informal contests are an entirely different beast. They're really short - no one would expect to get a prize there.

OTOH, I guess it would be fair to mention that some of these entries have attracted the eyes of publishers. Its valuable in and of itself just for the experience.

Things like prizes, industry judges and entry fees raise the stakes of the contest, which is a big motivator for me.

It's not the only factor- publicity, a finished game, and whether or not I get inspired with an idea also motivate me to take part. That said, as the stakes of the contest go up it's more likely for there to be more publicity, a bigger, better game, and more inspiration.

What the prizes are has an impact.

If it is a prize I would really like to win then that would have an impact on choice of entry.
If the prizes are not something that interest me (no offense but some of the prizes are not relevant to certain levels of developer) then I would be more likely to try a more 'risky' entry.

Of course if the prize was software I really wanted I would have to work out if the amount of time spent trying to win it was worth it or not. Spending three weeks to maybe win £1000 worth of software is not very cost effective. It would be simpler to just buy it and spend the three weeks on something more cost effective.

Of course the prizes money cannot buy are the ones which would attract most attention.

>Of course the prizes money cannot buy are the ones which would attract most attention

Hehe, nice