2004 IGF Competition Entries Announced

Anon-E-Mouse writes "The Independent Games Festival has finally announced the entrants for the 2004 IGF Competition. It's worth mentioning that they have doubled the prizes this year, and opened up a new category for web/downloadable games."

Comments

Bah!

[BortQ]

Any prize like this that costs money to enter is stooopid (it cost $100 bucks). It effectively rules out all free games, and there are many excellent ones out there.

Re:Bah!

[torpor]

$100 is nothing, dude, if you're a programmer capable of making a videogame, you should be able to come up with $100 somewhere along the line.

Especially if you think your game is worth the effort of 'competing' in a globally organized (okay, westernized countries only) competition.

Consider the prestige of participating in this event with yoru peers. Consider the costs that the organizers must bear in order to provide a very nice platform for promotion of ones work.

$100 is not much of an investment, if you've invested time, already, in making a videogame, especially if you consider it a 'promotional expense', as you should be doing...

Re:Bah!

[neostorm]

For a well organized and widely recognized/publicized competition $100 is not much at all.

FYI, the Student Showcase which runs along side the IGF is free to enter for student participants.

Center of Great Idea's

[The Head Sage]

This is a good place to showcase a developers talents. It's also a good place for the major dev houses to go head hunting.

Re:Center of Great Idea's

[Emexies]

And why was the above modded down? I agree with him, this (aspecially the student side of the competition) is an excellent place for game studios to look for up and coming talent.

Well,

[EdMack]

I was part of a team that entered this, for the web/downloadable category, our entry is here: here

here if you take the time to goto the third floor, and a multiplayer version (not downloadable yet) is here. My point? It's fun and gives a lot of experience! The fee is little between a few people

Oooooh! double the prize!

[daVinci1980]

Lets see how my math skills are doing.

2 * $0 = $0

Yup, the prize still blows.

$100 is a bargain for the finalists

[Doctor Cat]

I entered this last year with Furcadia (and also the first year of the IGF, with DragonSpires). If you make it to the finals, the value of the free passes for several members of your team to get into the GDC is worth a lot more than the entry fee, at the prices they charge these days (hundreds of dollars per person). In addition to that, I was interviewed for two TV shows, by people from several different game magazines and gaming websites, and got to talk to people interested in acquiring foreign rights to games for markets like Korea, China, India, etc. Although we didn't win any of the prizes, just what we received as one of the ten finalists was more than worth the entry fee.

Of course the non-finalists don't get as much free publicity and such. But even so, they're all presented and linked to from the IGF website, and get some coverage elsewhere. (We got a really glowing review on Electric Playground's site before the finalists were even selected.) All in all I've had a good experience with the festival, and will probably enter our next game in it too. I also think it's good to encourage the development of the indie scene, so we can get some more variety in gaming and not just the safe-but-boring parade of sequels from the big conservative game companies.