

GamePro burns developers on $5000 programming contest - tengkahwee
http://jhherren.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/gamepro-burns-developers-on-5000-programming-contest/

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iamdanw
I've had similar problems with other API contests in the past, either being
canceled or the rules being changed post-deadline.

Generally this happens when the contest is run by marketing people as opposed
to those from a developer background.

You've just got to build something you'll enjoy making and using regardless of
the chance of winning.

~~~
tibbon
I'm a marketer and also a developer, so I get both sides of this.

From a marketing perspective, you hope to get a lot of cool stuff written for
your API (and blog posts, discussion, etc) around your API. You think you can
probably get 10 applicants, so you ask your boss for the ability to give a
prize out for a contest to make it happen. Yet, then the only code that is
submitted ends up being not far from a "Hello World" program even though 20
people said they wanted to enter. Now you look stupid to your boss that's
wondering why no one entered and why they are paying $5000 for a Hello World
program. You also look stupid when you post the Hello World program as the
winner. Finally you look like an asshole when you close the contest instead.

As a developer you think, "Hey this is cool! I wonder how many other people
are entering? My chances are probably pretty good." You get together some
code, but hit some documentation issues with the API and you get distracted by
your dayjob a bit. You end up being the 'winner' even though you only sketched
out a small amount of code, but you feel totally screwed when they just cancel
it.

Its easy to blame the product and marketer here, but I happen to know of one
media center software company that was running an API contest. When I talked
to their CEO I got the sense that they were dying for people to enter. It was
well publicized, a good product and had good stuff to win. Yet, I personally
got the sense that few were entering. It comes down to the fact that API
contests are really hard to run!

Oftentimes as the marketer you're being pushed to do one (or pushing to do
one), but don't have the full support of your development team to make it easy
for people to enter. Maybe the devs release an API, but its only documented in
LISP and its not a RESTful API (maybe for a piece of desktop software). LISP
and its variants are awesome, but seriously few people who have spare time and
are using your software can write well in it. Regardless of interest, few
people enter. If you had gotten them to make a RESTful API, or documented it
in Python, C, PHP, Ruby and Perl (with API wrappers), then more people would
have entered. Yet you're the marketing guy and telling the dev team what to do
is nearly impossible.

I think the key to entering contests is to have no expectations of winning as
iamdanw says. Just build it because you want to use it and if you win that's
awesome.

If people made some cool stuff for this contest I think they should be
awarded, but I can also totally understand if there was a single entry that
wasn't good too.

~~~
mcherm
Yes, but the correct thing to do in this situation is to pay the $5,000 for
the Hello World program, NOT post it (you never promised to publicize the
results), and tell your boss "mea culpa... I tried the programming contest
thing and it didn't work out". It wouldn't be the first time that a marketing
program spent $5,000 to produce essentially no results... marketing is a very
hit-and-miss business at the best of times, so your boss may be annoyed, but
should take it in stride.

What you DON'T do is to advertise that you're offering a contest, then fail to
pay out the prizes. That's not just sleazy, it's illegal.

~~~
xiaoma
>Yes, but the correct thing to do in this situation is to pay the $5,000 for
the Hello World program, NOT post it (you never promised to publicize the
results)

Just to play the devil's advocate, what's stopping unscrupulous companies from
canceling the prize and _saying_ they did the above?

They say, "I'm sorry, you weren't the winner" to any contestant who asked, and
without a public announcement of who the winner was, they could get away
without paying the prize money to anyone.

~~~
jerf
I couldn't google up any examples, but if you read the fine print of contests
given by large organizations, the fine print always includes a clause to the
effect of "If you'd like to know the full list of winners of this contest,
send a self-addressed stamped envelope to $ADDRESS and you'll receive it by
XXX date." I would imagine that clause is to block exactly this attack.

Contest law is fairly well-hammered out, and surprisingly subtle; a few months
back HN had a story about the legal dangers of doing a contest like this. If
this story is accurate, it seems very likely GamePro is in violation of the
law, if they are a US company. I don't know for sure as I am neither lawyer
nor totally aware of the contest in question, but it's very easy to be in
violation of these laws.

~~~
prakash
jerf, is there an email id via which I can get in touch with you? Or you can
send me an email? thanks!

