Interest In A "art/design" Competition.

[ledow]

I'm posting to gauge the interest that there would be in a competition, run by me, to design pretty splashscreens, backgrounds etc. for my port of some puzzle games: STPPC2x.

I'm hopeless at art-y stuff, but wouldn't ask people to do lots of hard work on my behalf without at least having fun, or winning something. They'd probably be quite minor prize(s), but I haven't decided yet what it/they would be - I work in IT, so I have a lot of stuff lying about that might be useful for someone, although nothing GP2X-related that I would want to part with, but if I get a lot of interest I might make it a half-decent prize like a couple of new SD cards, or a TV-Out cable or something like that, maybe even a bit of money via Paypal if the entrant didn't live in the UK. Any "winners" would be able to negotiate on what their prize would be, though - and I was wondering if a small competition would get enough entries to make it worth my while.

I've drawn up a load of rules etc. but I want to see if enough people would "enter". If only two people enter, both with crappy entries, then I'd hate to feel obliged to use their designs or say "you've won but I'm not using your design".

It would be quite a simple task, with a lot of scope, and quite open to a lot of people - anything from "design a monochrome mouse cursor" to "design a 320x240x16bit splashscreen". All entries would be treated equally on the basis of the hard work that had gone into it and how much I liked it, so it's perfectly possible that a particularly cool cursor would beat a hundred crappy entries for the splashscreen.

Mostly the items open to designs would be static screens like splashscreens, menu backgrounds etc. but I'm also considering allowing "tinkly tonkly music" in too. Entries would of course have to be legitimate (i.e. not copies of someone else's files, or full of commercial clipart etc.) and I would have to be able to use any design within the game and to promote it on websites etc. Beware: I'm a bit paranoid on licensing because of my job, so I'll be scrutinising the final entry.

The competition would be open for quite a long time (a couple of months I should think) so that people have enough time to find a few spare moments to enter. There would be some small prize(s) (haven't quite decided what). And the winner (if enough people entered) would get full credit on the website, in the game documentation, their design used in the actual game, etc.

So, who would be interested? Who would definitely submit an entry, who would try to, who would like to but couldn't guarantee it would be any good? Examples of previous work would be handy if you're "good" and you're sure you'd enter etc.

 

[drodd]

To be honest, I don't think I would enter.

It's one thing to spend a great deal of time working on art that you *know* is going to be used someplace (albeit after possible revisions). It's another thing to put all that effort into something that looks nice, compete with other people who have equally-nice artwork, and lose simply because of a subjective opinion ("well, the three finalists were all great, but I could only pick one...").

And if you're not the winner, it's not likely the art you created could realistically be used anywhere else. It would pretty much just have to be tossed.

I think most artists would rather make a deal with a programmer upfront to do art for a game, rather than do it on spec.

 

[echidna]

count me in ^^

 

[saehn]

I'm interested.

 

[ledow]

Hmmm... what a mixed bag of comments/votes. I'm not sure what to make of it yet.

I'm assuming that anything I ran would be able to get on the frontpage of gp32x.de (and therefore all those sites which blatantly just post it's RSS feed to their frontpage as "articles"), which would increase the visibility, but I'm assuming the percentages of those who voted are approximately correct (i.e. up 5 out of 17 people could enter). I would assume that there are lot more people who don't vote at all but would vote "No", so call it one in five of people who were interested enough to click on this topic who would have a look at the thing and consider entering, which isn't *too* bad a ratio.

Making no judgements on the possible quality of said entries, it's inside the "worthwhile trying" category but outside the "I'll definitely get something that I'll like" category at the moment.

QUOTE
To be honest, I don't think I would enter.It's one thing to spend a great deal of time working on art that you *know* is going to be used someplace (albeit after possible revisions). It's another thing to put all that effort into something that looks nice, compete with other people who have equally-nice artwork, and lose simply because of a subjective opinion ("well, the three finalists were all great, but I could only pick one...").And if you're not the winner, it's not likely the art you created could realistically be used anywhere else. It would pretty much just have to be tossed.


Well, I was looking at a thread on this very forum about designing a splashscreen for a football game. It got two very good entries (far better than I could do) without any incentive whatsoever other than it would be used in the game. I was just looking for the same sort of enthusiasm (I don't expect people to spend hours on it but one or two might just for their own satisfaction, not that they believe the games are brilliant or anything) but with a lot more publicity and a bit more encouragement. I don't expect people to enter on the basis that the prize would recompense them for their time, because it won't.

QUOTE
I think most artists would rather make a deal with a programmer upfront to do art for a game, rather than do it on spec.


And (hypothetically) if I wanted to do a deal with a single artist, I would have to at least see which artists are out there, what they do, how good they are, what styles they use, etc. which would mean some sort of, I don't know, *competition* or something to solicit entries. And then I could approach them afterwards once I saw how they worked, used them for all games I wrote etc.

To be honest, I'm not after anything near as professional as "hiring" an artist, even for just a single project. I just thought that there'd be a couple of people who were good at artistic things, some of them might like to enter for fun and if I was able to "award a prize" for the best, rather than just steal it and use it everywhere, that'd make me feel good.

My thinking was: I like the MAME startup screen, I like the screens that got submitted for that football game. Something like that'd be cool for STPPC2x. Now, how could I get someone who can do that kind of thing to make something to *my* taste for a game I'm porting without having to spend lots of money, take advantage of a poor art student, or get disappointed when one person promises to do something and doesn't deliver?

 

[saehn]

To be frank, I think you're making this a wee bit overcomplicated. It can be an easier process, and you can still get your desired results: just continue on with the game, allow people to submit graphics, and make the game "skinnable". That way you can still have your contest with prizes, with the winner being the default graphic set. And moreover, no-one's graphics will be "wasted" since they'll all be included with the game (unless a set is too hideous). ;-)

 

[drodd]

Well, I was looking at a thread on this very forum about designing a splashscreen for a football game. It got two very good entries (far better than I could do) without any incentive whatsoever other than it would be used in the game.

I took a look at that thread too. Incidentally, one of the two entries was just taken from the website for Bakersfield College (scroll down and look at the bottom-left image):
http://www.bc.cc.ca.us/athletics/WomensSoccer/

FWIW, I'm not trying to convince you not to do this. Believe me, I completely understand what *you're* getting out of this! But I thought you might benefit from seeing this from the other side.

No one wants to put a great deal of work into something that may not be used. I think the submissions you'll receive will fall into one of three categories: 1) original art created without much time & effort; 2) art that is basically just taken from other artists; and 3) original art created with great love & care, by artists that *know* they are going to win, because they expect that they are the only ones who will put such effort into it.

The latter group will yield the best results, while leading to the hardest feelings if more than one person falls into that category. :unsure:

Anyway, it sounds like you've got some interested takers, so I wish you luck in your search! Please consider my post in the spirit in which it was written, simply letting you take a peek from a different perspective!