RE: Write Lore, Win Packs: Rise of the Pixels Lore Contests

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I'm always a bit skeptical of community sourced content contests like this but on top of that, the prizes you're dangling to people who you're asking to write core content for your game are worth next to nothing. Top prize dev license, $8 value, and runner up a single 8-bit pack, $3 value. This is disappointing to see.

hive-167922
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Generally I agree with the ickiness of crowdsourcing creative. A few things are different in this case that makes me feel okay with this (and being the architect of it, frankly):

  1. This is far from 'core content.' I'm not even sure where or how the prose will appear in game. I'll be pushing for some sort of space for it, since I want to highlight the writing/concepts/authors that win.
  2. Given the above, the proportionality of effort here is somewhat reflected in the prize value. It's absolutely not fair market value for penning prose commercially, but the team members aren't earning anywhere near FMV for what they've built either. It's an indie project on a indie chain, so we're all taking a hit compared to FMV. By effort proportionality what I mean is this—this is some of the work I've done for the project. I'm paid as a % of sales, which currently is waaaaayyy under what I could make doing that sort of work commercially. The development work is even more skewed. So asking for a short story for some supplementary lore for some low $USD value prizes seems icky on the surface, but hopefully looks a little different when you consider that we're all kinda hobbyist entrepreneurs here.
  3. I can't ignore that I have an inherent bias since it was all my idea lol

Those arguments aside, your point is still worth considering. I've not fully done the math on the proportionality and since the team has "equity" one might argue apples and oranges (but are the prizes quasi-equity since they're assets and not cash? The plot thickens).

The easiest fix may be to consider healthier prizes. $100 worth per still ain't market value but it'd be substantial compared to most community-run prizes on Hive. BUT: our marketing budget is pretty teeny, and I'd argue that it might better spent on attracting new users to Hive via the game vs. ensuring very nice prizes for things like this.

Also wanna surface this to the other team members for candid discussion! ~ @asgarth @jarvie @yozen

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I think that the people who might not be able to justify expending the money to buy some packs but would be willing to write for you to earn them would probably write further and would have a potentially exponential value in terms of promotion. But not if they would likely pull a single common developer with their meager rewards.

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I fully support @jfuji and his vision on how to move forward on this.

A few considerations:

  • I'm totally open to increase the prize values
  • My understanding is that there will be multiple contests going forward and some authors can grab more than a single prize (compared to a single large contest with high prizes)
  • People still receive the Hive rewards for those posts and we can upvote or tip the best ones.
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(Edited)

I think it’s a great initiative that aim to involve users in the project and keep the community alive.
As for many contests in HIVE or even SL tournaments for example, in which I took part, often the amount of the reward itself does not seem to be enough to cover the effort/time spent, but there is perhaps the fun in participating in the contest that goes beyond the prize.

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