CoolmathGames.com Game Jam running until March 4th with $3,500 in prizes

[JohnnyJohstneft]

Learn more here: https://www.coolmathgames.com/game-jam

I work on CoolmathGames.com, and we're running our first-ever game jam through March 4th for HTML5 webgames, with $3,500 in total prizes. I thought the HTML5 game devs community might be interested. The theme of the jam is "Use Your Head". It's only open to US entrants (sorry, this restriction was imposed by our lawyers, as running a contest with cash prizes is apparently legally very restrictive).

At the end of the jam, we'll select the five best games as finalists, who will each receive $500. We'll display the finalists on the site and give our audience the ability to vote for their favorite. After the voting period, we'll announce a winner, who will receive an additional $1,000.

Rules

• The contest is open to U.S. residents only, ages 13 and up.

• Your submission must be an HTML5 game.

• Your game does not have to involve math.

• Your game must be 800x600 pixels or smaller.

• Your game must be your original work, and can’t be published anywhere else.

• To submit a game, you have to host it yourself and provide a link to play it.

• Games will be evaluated on fun factor; use of the theme; game environment (how the visual and audio elements, if any, contribute to the gameplay); usability (bugs or performance issues); and public voting.

• Your game must be appropriate for a general audience and must not contain graphic violence or profanity.

• You can work in a team, but only one person should submit the game on behalf of the team.

• NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

• Coolmath.com LLC is the official contest sponsor.

• For more information, please see the complete Contest Rules.

Happy to answer any questions you all have.

[dimumurray]

I advise all entrants to review the Contest Rules. Win or lose you relinquish all rights to your submissions and they become the sole property of the contest sponsor.

[JohnnyJohstneft]

That is not the case - now that I read the rules with your interpretation, I see why you could think that. The intention of this phrase was to indicate that the entry itself (your name and information, etc.) becomes ours and we have the right to access and play the game. Additionally, if you are selected as a finalist, we would also have the right to display the game on our site. It was not intended to mean that the game itself would become our property.

This means that you retain the full rights to your game and when the contest period is over you are free to do with it whatever you like. Additionally, at no point do we ever have any claim to or control of the game's IP (your characters and story). Those are always yours and are not affected by the agreement at all.

The rules are drafted by our lawyers and while we worked with them to make the agreement reflect the spirit of the competition (believe me, we spent hours on the phone with them), this was one area that we did not clarify sufficiently. We've stricken this line from the agreement so that it's totally clear we don't own your game.

Thank you for bringing this section to our attention, and apologies for the confusion.

[odiusfly]

Hi, why this contest is open to U.S . residents only ?

[atkman]

I read the specifics of this contest here: 

https://www.coolmathgames.com/game-jam-contest-rules

... one part says " Finalists must also provide the source code to Sponsor within three (3) business days of notification being sent. Failure of a Finalist to provide the Prize Documentation or source code within said time period, or any Prize notification that is returned as undeliverable, will result in said Finalist’s disqualification, the forfeiture of his or her interest in the Prize, and the selection of a substitute Finalist to be selected based on the criteria above from all remaining eligible entries. "

why do I have to provide source code of my game if I win?

That sounds a bit odd....

Please advise?

 

 

[JohnnyJohstneft]

Running contest like this seems like it should be very simple, but the legal reality is that there are so many laws governing skill-based contests with prizes - it would have been a huge expense and additional effort required to make sure we complied with every countries laws regarding this type of contest. 

[atkman]

well according to this page: https://www.coolmathgames.com/game-jam

it says: The contest is open to U.S. residents only, ages 13 and up.

so what other country are you referring to if it is only open to U.S residents?

 

[JohnnyJohstneft]

4 minutes ago, atkman said:

well according to this page: https://www.coolmathgames.com/game-jam

it says: The contest is open to U.S. residents only, ages 13 and up.

so what other country are you referring to if it is only open to U.S residents?

 

I was responding to odiousfly's message about why it's only open to US residents. I think that you replied to the thread between the time that I started typing my response to him and the time that I posted it.

[JohnnyJohstneft]

12 minutes ago, atkman said:

I read the specifics of this contest here: 

https://www.coolmathgames.com/game-jam-contest-rules

... one part says " Finalists must also provide the source code to Sponsor within three (3) business days of notification being sent. Failure of a Finalist to provide the Prize Documentation or source code within said time period, or any Prize notification that is returned as undeliverable, will result in said Finalist’s disqualification, the forfeiture of his or her interest in the Prize, and the selection of a substitute Finalist to be selected based on the criteria above from all remaining eligible entries. "

why do I have to provide source code of my game if I win?

That sounds a bit odd....

Please advise?

 

 

You have to provide the code of your game to us if you are selected as a finalist because we are going to run the game off our servers during the voting period when the users can play and vote on their favorite games (I wouldn't want to make you pay for our traffic, nor would I want one of our finalist games go down in the middle of the voting).

It's less important to me that the game is the actual source but since we're talking about HTML5 games the game is basically the source. I'm fine with the game files being minified/obfuscated, that's not an issue at all. Rather than get into all the details we just asked for the source so it would be totally clear that at some point we need the game files for the finalists so we can host the games ourselves during the voting phase.

[atkman]

that makes sense having it only in US with all the international laws.

 

 

[atkman]

Why would there be a clause like this for a contest?  Is this why you want the source code? (it is highlighted in bold and red):

3. LICENSE:  Each entrant represents and warrants that it is the author and owner of the Submission and has all rights in the Submission, and that Sponsor’s use of the Submission as contemplated in these Official Rules requires no additional permissions, including without limitation those relating to the copyright, patent, trademark/trade dress, rights of publicity or moral rights in the Submission. Submitting a Submission constitutes entrant’s consent to give Sponsor Entities a royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, create derivative works from, and display such Submission in whole or in part, on a worldwide basis, and to incorporate it into other works, in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, for promotional or marketing purposes, including but not limited to making the Submission available for game play. If requested, entrant will sign any documentation that may be required for Sponsor or its designees to make use of the non-exclusive rights entrant is granting to use the Submission. Each entrant also irrevocably waives any and all so-called moral rights they may have in the Submission. Each entrant further agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Sponsor Entities from and against any claims, lawsuits, liabilities or expenses (including attorney’s fees) arising out of or related to that entrant’s Submission or violation by entrant of these Official Rules.

[JohnnyJohstneft]

It took me longer to respond to this post because I had to talk to our lawyer and ask her about these sections and what exactly they mean.

In the first statement, the key phrase is "for promotional or marketing purposes". So if we want to make a video of the game to promote the game jam or to recap the game jam, we can. We can even make a little snippet of the game playable if we want to in order to advertise, say, the next game jam we run. To make this clearer, we're bolding the phrase in our agreement.

The "moral rights" are getting at the idea that you can't object to us showing a 5 second snippet of your game in an ad, that we don't have to credit you in the ad just because we're using a screenshot or character from your game, etc. That was the intent of the inclusion given that it's right after the clause about how we can use your game for promotional or marketing purposes, but given that we understand why this sounds like a very broad claim, we will remove it from the contract.

 

Since I think there's a greater issue of trust here, I think it's worth mentioning that over the past 15-20 years, we've hand-picked and individually licensed over 1,200 flash and HTML5 games for our site (all paid, none for free), many from developers who showcase their games on these forums. I am confident we have a good reputation among them and so I'd encourage you to ask webgame developers you know about who we are and whether they've been treated fairly by us. 

[atkman]

If I offended anyone, I didn't mean to and I don't have an issue with trust, I was just basing my questions on what the specifics of the contest legalese says. 

[charlie_says]

I'm often reluctant to weigh into these kind of arguments. and, in reality developers need to work out for themselves whether or not they feel that entering a competition (or working with any kind of publisher) is right for them.

But, I've worked with CoolMath on several occasions and have nothing negative to say about the experience. (In fact, the opposite is true, it has been very positive!)