Poll: the value of community contests, events, etc.

[Perihelion]

The last couple times I ran a make something month event, no one really participated, so I'm wondering if the problem is with my methodology (e.g. not providing enough notice) or if people just aren't interested in these kinds of events.

I have the following questions for the community:
1. Do you participate in contests or events, and if not, would you be interested in doing so in the future?
2. What kind of events would you like to see in the future? What events in the past have been your favorite? Do you prefer open-ended events like game development month, where you work on your current project, or contests where you make something new and submit it for judging? (Note that contests with big prize pools like the Construct contest aren't possible to do very often, but feel free to talk about it anyway if you like.)
3. What frequency of contests do you like?
4. Do contests help you as a developer, or do you only participate for the prizes?

 

[Ellie]

If I wasn't staff I would be entering them all the time - but it's a little awkward as a staff member. I do find them useful in a productive sense (or used to when I could enter them), it's good to have a deadline and a focus that you didn't set yourself.

 

[Injury]

I think it would be nice to have some notice of a contest, obviously not the guidelines so people would make their project ahead of time. I notice most the contests far to late to start something.

I'm also intimidated to enter...I honestly have made contest projects I haven't submitted because I don't think they are worthy compared to some entries.

I'd like to try my hand at one...so long as its a creative contest idea...

 

[coyotecraft]

Well I already struggle with my own projects.
Plus I could argue the semantics of contests, challenges, and competitions even though they could all mean the same thing. I see challenges as "Test your might", you're basically up against yourself. While a contest is Mortal Combat :box: , you're competing against other people. So in a contest you don't need to do your best, you just need to be better than everyone else. And a competition has multiple events.

The thing that bugs me the most about these events is no one takes it seriously. "Just for fun" attitudes. Everyone says they'll enter but they don't care enough to finish or they enter some kind of joke/ half ass entry at the last second.

The other problem is that these thing happen out of the blue. Like barely a week's notice. Give people a chance to clear their calendars and schedules. You can't really blame people for dropping out because something came up. The holiday season use to be a good time for these kinds of events because 4 or 5 years ago the majority of the members were probably under 18, out of school and didn't have any other obligations or responsibilities. It's pretty much the same for everyone I know, if you want time off you need to file it a month in advance, and during the holidays you're guaranteed to be called in to work on your days off anyways.