[CANCELLED] Win amazing publishing offer sponsored by Canadian company

Contest is cancelled based on community rules and regulations not allowing it to run here

Comments

  • I've thought of approaching you, but I'm honestly not convinced it's worth it. Maybe I'm not your target audience, but I do have a mobile game that has a somewhat proven audience and is looking at a release later this year, so it seems like I would be.

    Maybe some questions would help: Do you have links to anything you've published so far? If not, how do you plan to achieve the goals you indicate, like an audience of millions and seemingly-guaranteed players in the thousands? I get a 404 error from your website http://uptopworld.com/ which does not instil me with a great impression. Is there any online presence you can refer us to? Do you offer any financial support? What do you want in return? Revenue share? You say the game must be free, so where does this "great revenue" come from? I'm assuming you mean F2P. What about premium games?

    I hope this doesn't come across as aggressive, I'm just asking for more information from my perspective so that I might consider it. I guess it boils down to: at the moment I'm not sold, and I would hope a potential publisher would be very good at conveying their message to others.
    Thanked by 2Zaphire dammit
  • Admin voice:

    Please note that, as this is not an MGSA-sanctioned or sponsored competition, you may not run it on this forum. That means that you may post about it here (for the moment) but that you can't field entries or do the judging here. Please set up a website for the competition and simply link to it for the rules and rewards rather than posting them all here.

    Think along the lines of simply posting about a competition that people could join if interested, rather than running and organising the competition using MGSA's infrastructure and community.

    It's worth pointing out that this is a preliminary finding and that what is acceptable and what isn't may still change. The fact that this is an obviously external competition posted by an account only set up to do so by a non-South African is an issue. If this starts a trend of random competitions being spammed on this board, things will change fast. Also note that this is not a judgement of the merits of the competition itself - while the rewards are suspicious (you could literally just approach games you like and would want to partner with) this is mostly to do with the spam/using MGSA infrastructure angle.
  • I've thought of approaching you, but I'm honestly not convinced it's worth it. Maybe I'm not your target audience, but I do have a mobile game that has a somewhat proven audience and is looking at a release later this year, so it seems like I would be.

    Maybe some questions would help: Do you have links to anything you've published so far? If not, how do you plan to achieve the goals you indicate, like an audience of millions and seemingly-guaranteed players in the thousands? I get a 404 error from your website http://uptopworld.com/ which does not instil me with a great impression. Is there any online presence you can refer us to? Do you offer any financial support? What do you want in return? Revenue share? You say the game must be free, so where does this "great revenue" come from? I'm assuming you mean F2P. What about premium games?

    I hope this doesn't come across as aggressive, I'm just asking for more information from my perspective so that I might consider it. I guess it boils down to: at the moment I'm not sold, and I would hope a potential publisher would be very good at conveying their message to others.
    Thank you very much for your feedback - we really appreciate any communication from development community on the questions and points of concern.

    First of all, the website is really not available, you’re right. At the current stage of our business development strategy, website is not the highest priority item. While I understand you might not agree, it was an analyzed decision and I apologize for inconvenience.

    Secondly, you’re asking some very good questions, but I cannot afford discussing those directly in the forum. The answers to all of these questions will vary depending on each game, developer and finite publishing agreement that we reach if the game is accepted. However, unless I see the actual game, I cannot offer anything beyond the standard set of benefits our publishing deal would have, since the detailed process, revenue model, funding, consulting on how free game can make significant revenue, sharing how do we reach the audience/downloads — are all part of our domain expertise and cannot be shared freely to everyone. We gotta have our “secret recipe” to drive the business, don’t you think? :)

    Last but not least, if the amount of insight provided does not convince you, I’m sorry to hear that, but if you feel that you have a great game to showcase, I’ll be glad to have a look and share more details in personal conversation.
  • dislekcia said:
    Admin voice:

    Please note that, as this is not an MGSA-sanctioned or sponsored competition, you may not run it on this forum. That means that you may post about it here (for the moment) but that you can't field entries or do the judging here. Please set up a website for the competition and simply link to it for the rules and rewards rather than posting them all here.

    Think along the lines of simply posting about a competition that people could join if interested, rather than running and organising the competition using MGSA's infrastructure and community.

    It's worth pointing out that this is a preliminary finding and that what is acceptable and what isn't may still change. The fact that this is an obviously external competition posted by an account only set up to do so by a non-South African is an issue. If this starts a trend of random competitions being spammed on this board, things will change fast. Also note that this is not a judgement of the merits of the competition itself - while the rewards are suspicious (you could literally just approach games you like and would want to partner with) this is mostly to do with the spam/using MGSA infrastructure angle.
    Thank you for providing feedback from admins — I couldn’t find any rules or regulations on running a contest on the forum, which led to a pretty free format one, using the example of other contests here in the community.

    I can assure you that this is not an external contest. My team and I decided to try our this publishing deal contest model on the forum and we have not created anything similar anywhere online. The account was just setup after reviewing the forum and agreeing that it will be the place to run the competition, which explains my lack of activity prior to that. I can guarantee that I will neither be creating any new competitions on this forum nor will I spam.

    And yes, you are correct, we can approach developers directly and find a new partner within a couple of days. However, as I’ve mentioned before, we decided to stir things up a bit and try our this contest model for a change to do something good for the development community.

    I would kindly ask for directions from admins whether they want me to take down the contest completely now or if it can stay for a while, provided there will be no spam.

    I don’t have goal or capacity to run a separate website contest now and if the idea of running contest here was flawed and has failed, I’ll revert back to our regular business flows having learned the lesson.
  • Thank you for providing feedback from admins — I couldn’t find any rules or regulations on running a contest on the forum, which led to a pretty free format one, using the example of other contests here in the community.
    Those contests are run by existing members of this community and are sanctioned actions of the community.
    I can assure you that this is not an external contest. My team and I decided to try our this publishing deal contest model on the forum and we have not created anything similar anywhere online. The account was just setup after reviewing the forum and agreeing that it will be the place to run the competition, which explains my lack of activity prior to that. I can guarantee that I will neither be creating any new competitions on this forum nor will I spam.
    This is an external contest: MGSA didn't organise it, thus it's not an MGSA contest and cannot be run here using MGSA's infrastructure. You will need to supply your own website and infrastructure to run this competition - the only things you're allowed to post here are general information and a call to enter.

    Unfortunately it's not spam from you that's the concern, it's spam from other companies seeing this community as a ready place to overrun with their own competitions. This isn't a competition hosting site, it's a knowledge community dedicated to supporting a local industry with some relatively unique problems.
    And yes, you are correct, we can approach developers directly and find a new partner within a couple of days. However, as I’ve mentioned before, we decided to stir things up a bit and try our this contest model for a change to do something good for the development community.
    While your desire to do something good for the South African game development community is welcome, please consider simply sponsoring local-run contests for the good of the entire community and not just a few creators (and your own company) in future.
    I would kindly ask for directions from admins whether they want me to take down the contest completely now or if it can stay for a while, provided there will be no spam.
    Your original post is welcome to stay up, maybe minus the long rules (which should be on your competition site).
    I don’t have goal or capacity to run a separate website contest now and if the idea of running contest here was flawed and has failed, I’ll revert back to our regular business flows having learned the lesson.
    As I said before, you can't run a competition using MGSA's infrastructure and systems without first approaching the MGSA. There are many reasons for this, including the MGSA competition schedule and the inability of MGSA to guarantee favorable business outcomes for externally organised competitions. The competitions that are run here aren't things that just anyone with a business case that needs content can appropriate, sorry. There are perhaps ways that your company could sponsor MGSA competitions going forward, but if you want to run your own contest, it's going to have be via your own site and system.
  • edited
    Secondly, you’re asking some very good questions, but I cannot afford discussing those directly in the forum. The answers to all of these questions will vary depending on each game, developer and finite publishing agreement that we reach if the game is accepted. However, unless I see the actual game, I cannot offer anything beyond the standard set of benefits our publishing deal would have, since the detailed process, revenue model, funding, consulting on how free game can make significant revenue, sharing how do we reach the audience/downloads — are all part of our domain expertise and cannot be shared freely to everyone. We gotta have our “secret recipe” to drive the business, don’t you think? :)
    So, as a business owner and not an admin: Nope.

    Nope nope nope. You're pitching to me. You want, sans any kind of agreement, my work to evaluate. I know this seems like I'm pitching you, but that's only the case when I'm convinced that what you're offering is a valuable addition to my marketing.

    I can fully appreciate that you might not be able to articulate an exact plan for a specific game, as all games are different, yes. But you do need to outline your process in more detail than you've currently made available. Right now I'm not even sure if you're offering a revenue maximisation consulting service to developers that we're supposed to pay for, or if you're partnering as a distribution and marketing entity with a slice of the back-end. With marketing services, a developer always has to get what's going to happen in writing, up front and understandable, with contingencies covered. Anything less is asking for a kick in the teeth.

    What would really help are examples of what you've done with games in the past. And I can understand how this might seem hostile, but we honestly get pitched services like this every week. It's not your fault that most businesses in your chosen sphere are, to put it mildly, dodgy as fuck, but you do have to be aware of that and work to differentiate yourself from the common perception.
  • Dear community members,

    Based on the feedback received above and in personal messages, as well as taking into account the community rules shared, my team made a decision to close the contest not to bring any inconvenience.

    While the feedback in the thread was given by only two community members, it shows that this approach is not appreciated (possibly, the approach itself could have been improved). Unfortunately, I don't have time or goal to do rollout of full website competition or trying to "sell our business case" and argue here :) We're in no urgent need of partners and this was just an alternative approach attempt to see if people would be interested, which didn't prove to be very well received. I sincerely hope that means that community is saturated and developers already have successfully running businesses.

    We'll still review the game submissions received in emails so far and provide feedback whether we would consider making an offer. However, it will be done beyond the forum.

    Thanks for the discussion! Good luck to everyone in your endeavours.
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