There have been a lot of these contests popping up lately. Contests are a lot of fun and many have extremely tantalizing awards for the winners. If you have just made a great game (or plan on making one) you might be tempted to enter your game into a contest.

However, if one of your goals is to get a fair monetary value for your game, we would caution you to carefully look at the terms before entering.

Some contests have little or no ‘cost’ to enter. For example, entering your game into the weekly and monthly Kongregate competitions doesn’t limit you in any way. You don’t need to add any branding to your game. In fact, the only requirement is that you integrate their scoring API into your game, and upload your game to their site.

But then there are other contests that are not as lenient as Kongregate’s. These contests require you to give up your ’sponsorship’ in exchange for entering. They ask for exclusive branding and distribution of your game just for the ‘chance’ that you might win something. Personally we think this form of contest is a TERRIBLE idea from the viewpoint of the developer.

The reality of it being a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ idea is determined purely by the numbers.

If a contest is paying out $20,000 and 10 games enter… then it might not be so bad with the average price per game at $2000. And the odds of winning the contest are not too bad. Take that same contest and have 100 games enter… now the average price per game is $200. And even with a great game, the odds of winning are now greatly against you. Sure, there will be a few big winners but there will be a ton of great games that could have gotten a great sponsorship offer that then end up with NOTHING. We cringe when we read through the contest results and see a game that we know could have gotten $1000s in a sponsorship earn an incredible $0. And oftentimes the developer has completely lost all chances to make money off of the game since the contest also restricts the ability to sell non-exclusive licenses or use in-game advertising such as MochiAds.

With that said, we would like to point out some competitions that are currently going on that we feel are great choices for flash game developers. In contrast to the restrictive competitions listed above, these competitions have terms that are extremely reasonable, and if used in combination offer some potentially serious returns! And if that weren’t enough, if you play your cards right, you could also get your game sponsored on top of everything else.

First there is the Jay is Games competition. Really there is only one requirement to this competition that could prove detrimental, but we seriously think it is minor and wouldn’t mention it if we had anything else to pick on about the competition. The requirement is that you must include a movieclip on your main menu that links back to the JiG competition page. There are other requirements, like allowing JiG to host your game, not releasing your game until it is released by JiG, and putting MochiAds and MochiBot into your game, but these are actually beneficial to the developer in our opinion. They will have some effect on the ability to seek a sponsorship, but we will address this below. This is a very brief overview of the actual competition and we suggest you check out the official details at the site if interested.

Next we have the MochiAds competition. Like the JiG competition we really don’t see much to complain about. In fact, you don’t need any special branding or logos in your game to enter the contest. The requirements are simple: Get your game approved through MochiAds, implement the MochiAd leaderboard API, enable game distribution through their site and viola you’re done. The only potential downside we could see an argument for is having to use their leaderboard system, but it is very easy to implement and it gets the job done nicely. Unless you have some strange compulsion to make custom leaderboards we think it is another great tool to add to your “developer’s arsenal.” Of course, the effect on sponsorship opportunities again takes a hit from this competition. But now we will explain how it actually isn’t as bad as you may think. (And we suggest you check out MochiAd’s official competition site as well:

Some tips if you want to enter the MochiAds competition, JiG competition, and get a sponsorship.

State clearly to the sponsor that you are entering these competitions and that this means:

1) You must keep MochiAds in your game, and you will be using the MochiAds leaderboards in game. You can negotiate if you want to ALSO submit scores to the sponsor’s high score system.
2) You must be allowed to keep certain Jay is Game branding in the game. Specifically a movieclip on the main menu of your game that links back to the JiG competition page.
3) You must retain distribution rights to your game. Although, if the sponsor also wants to distribute your game that should be fine, and in fact helpful.
4) The sponsor cannot release the game until it is released on the Jay is Games website (probably March 4th). Also, you should not enable MochiAds distribution of your game until AFTER your game gets released on JiG. This is because the JiG competition requires that your game not be released until the competition has started (to make the viral award fair). This should work out well since the MochiAds competition deadline isn’t until April 1st, giving you almost a month of leeway. Just remember to enable MochiAds distribution once your game is released on Jay is Games, once you do this your game will automatically be submitted to the MochiAds contest (if you already have MochiAd leaderboards and approved MochiAds running in your game).

If you add your game to www.FlashGameLicense.com (which, of course, you should ;)) then you should state all of this info in your game info and long description fields on the FlashGameLicense website. Also, make sure you select the appropriate checkboxes when adding your game.

We will say that entering the competitions will limit the number of portals who will want to sponsor your game since you are restricting their options, but there are many good portals out there that would be willing to sponsor your games under these terms. And having MochiAds in your game will always ensure that you will get paid for every gameplay it gets, so this is an option we always advise trying to negotiate with a sponsor, even when you are not entering your game into a competition. Another option is to list your game as available for non-exclusive ONLY. This basically states that you do not want a sponsor, but you are willing to sell site-locked versions of your game to anyone interested. And we always suggest you change your game to this on the FlashGameLicense site once it is sponsored IF your sponsor allows you to sell non-exclusive licenses… it gives you yet another way to make money!

Also, and this is important, make sure you do not distribute your game until you have gotten a sponsor! The sponsor will want to have their branding in all distributed versions of the game on the web (barring any non-exclusively licensed games if they allow it), so make sure you leave them that option. And this should be true ANYTIME you are seeking a sponsorship. So, for Mochiads you’ll want to implement the ads and the leaderboards but do not turn on distribution until you have made a deal with a sponsor and the game has been released on the Jay is Games website. And for JiG, you’ll want to wait to submit your game until you have a sponsor because JiG may put the game up on their site when they receive your game. So you may also want to state to potential sponsors:

5) Must make a deal by [insert date here that leaves you enough time to enter competition]

We want to reiterate that last comment. DO NOT distribute your game until you have gotten a sponsor, finalized a deal, and gotten their permission to release the game. If you do not want a sponsorship, or want to sell non-exclusive licenses ONLY, then feel free to do what you like, but otherwise your first step should be to get your game sponsored. And be sure to tell any potential sponsors that games entered into these contests are specifically being pushed to be distributed as widely as possible. That is a huge plus for gaming portals.

We also want to go back to what we were saying before about Kongregate. They also have a great system of contests, and they occur every week and every month, so you can actually enter all three contests and - if you have a REALLY good game - potentially make $11,750!! And this would be on TOP of whatever you were to get from your sponsorship! And not including all the great prizes like iPods, Tshirts, free software etc…! We think that is definitely deserving of three sentences with exclamation points in a row.

So, to summarize:

• Make sure that you know all of the details of a competition before you enter.
• Never agree to give away exclusive rights to your game.
• Seek a sponsorship before entering a competition (and be open with potential sponsors about what you intend to do with your game).

If you follow these guidelines you will keep the options to monetize your game open, so even if you don’t end up in the competition’s first place spot, you’ll ensure that your game remains a winner.

We hope you found this information helpful. Happy competing!

Chris Hughes and Adam Schroeder
www.flashgamelicense.com