Hey folks, we’re new on itch and planning a small game jam.
We’d love your straight talk:
Which would make you more likely to enter?
One bigger prize (e.g., $500).
Several smaller prizes (e.g., $300 / $150 / $50 + a few category awards).
Non-cash perks (feature/publishing consideration, deep-dive feedback, showcase stream).
Also: any payout/eligibility preferences we should know (PayPal/bank, timing, regions)?
View the jam here
I'm not a fan of cash prizes, for two reasons:
Then again, I'm not a regular participant in game jams in the first place, so feel free to ignore me.
I've seen that response before! We were thinking of doing a cashless jam, but figured more would participate if we used cash. Really we're just looking for good games we can reuse for an arcade platform we're building. Looking for games that people don't want to stop playing. If the top games make it onto our platform, you'll get 10% for every play. In the long run that's going to make you more anyway.....
Cash prizes actively put me off because the best thing about a good, well-run game jam is the vibes. People of all experience levels cheering each other on and helping each other out and celebrating the small wins.
When cash enters the chat, you tend to find a lot more kids joining and spamming up the place, and a much less friendly environment overall. Plus, cash jams can grow so quickly that the organisers / moderators are overwhelmed and can’t enforce their own rules.
More participants is not always better.
Several smaller cash prizes is always a safe way to go. I would assume most of us hobbyists on here have jobs, or otherwise are handling the bills in some way other than what we do on itch. One big prize lowers the chances of any of us getting anything. Several small prizes just increases the chances of getting "recognized" and maybe getting a few bucks to throw towards something to enhance future game dev projects, or whatever else.
My favorite game jam I have participated in so far offered a free course on a game dev education site, for everyone who participated. Mind you, the host of the jam owned that site, so it wasn't necessarily a ton of lost profit, if anything it probably brought more people to their site, who may have bought other courses.
I'm definitely more likely to join jams that offer some sort of a prize, but jams that offer courses, vouchers for software, free games, etc. I always thought these were cool ideas. I think one of the jams I submitted a project to was giving away steam gift cards for the top three winners or something like that.
