2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

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infiniteneslives
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by infiniteneslives »

I don't even know if it is feasible, but morals first: yay or boo? Also, let me know if you think ideas like these are a little too outside the scope of managing the compo economy.
To be honest making any NESmaker related/dependent plans is putting the cart before the horse at this point. It will be a several months before the majority of it's user base will be able to touch NESmaker. I wouldn't recommend anyone looking to learn 6502 assembly to pay for tutorials with all the high quality free resources already out there. Part of that is based on my feeling that it's more important to be motivated to learn assembly by actually doing it, than having a top notch tutorial. There's a significant difference between being motivated enough to pay something on the order of $50 to learn assembly, and being motivated enough to invest the time needed to learn it. There are lots of skills I would happily drop a couple grand to know like Spanish & Japanese, but none of that matters if I don't want devote the time to learning it. But if someone were to make a top notch tutorial which people valued it enough to pay for it, then more power to them. For something of this nature it probably makes more sense for the tutorial to prove it's value and effectiveness prior to investing in publication of it (especially when digital publication is near free).

NESmaker related projects aside, I'm always open to putting the compo funds to financing of projects which the community believes to be a worthwhile expense of the funds. In the end I don't feel my personal opinion carries much weight on it's own. What carries the weight is what the community wants to spend compo funds on. If there were a specific project in mind a way of getting this approval would probably be to list poll threads on nesdev & NA with the proposal specifics. I used this method in determining if we would be publishing action53 vol3 CIBs with traditional cardboard boxes, or bitboxes and it seemed to work out well.
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NESHomebrew
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by NESHomebrew »

infiniteneslives wrote:
What carries the weight is what the community wants to spend compo funds on.
On this topic, I think a donation to NA/NESDev to help with hosting was discussed at one time. Should we poll that, or is it a no-brainer?

Also, could someone with forum superpowers make a 2018 compo category. Time to start thinking about the future...
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Someone were to make a top notch tutorial which people valued it enough to pay for it, then more power to them. For something of this nature it probably makes more sense for the tutorial to prove it's value and effectiveness prior to investing in publication of it (especially when digital publication is near free).
More precisely, i didn't mean for it to publish as a physical release at all (i don't see it being worth it for the same reasons you gave) but rather have it as a pdf zine since that requires no other investment than "just" time. Price would more likely be in the range of 0.99 to 2.99 usd depending on contents per issue. Maybe first issue free. It'd also have a clear % of contents dedicated to code modification tips/how to make the most out of nesmaker, which i think is more in line with what this crowd would want. Then the gain (if any) could be an addition to the fund. But if it's too thematically detached, i'll let it rest.

--

Last idea i had in mind would be to do a custom-painted cartridge and let it go on auction each year. Not much of an addition to the funds in itself probably but still something. Attaching an example of a cartridge i painted for persosnal use. Choosing colours and theme for such a cartridge could be based on that years' winner, maybe.
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by infiniteneslives »

First off, I've sent out an email to cash prize placing entrants requesting payment info, so prize money will be going out soon.
NESHomebrew wrote:
infiniteneslives wrote:
What carries the weight is what the community wants to spend compo funds on.
On this topic, I think a donation to NA/NESDev to help with hosting was discussed at one time. Should we poll that, or is it a no-brainer?
From what I recall NA has an annual fund raiser for hosting fees, anyone know when that is? I've reached out to whoaman in the past, but it's worth doing again.

I'll put together another financial report ~month after action53 volume3 release. Not much has changed in earnings since the last report where we had ~$2k, only a few volume 2 cartridge sales since. We spent a close to $1k on printed materials for upcoming volume 3 release, and we're dropping ~$1k for cash prizes now. I purchased the sega/famicom bitboxes as well, but I won't count that as an upfront cost, I'll just bill it into the per cartridge earnings like I do with all other cart costs. So effectively at the moment we're probably pretty close to zero balance.

Moving forward I'm sure volume 3-4 and subsequent carts will bring in significantly more funds than volumes 1 & 2 did. To date vol 1&2 have funded the upfront publishing costs of vol 3, and prize cost of vol 4 which is pretty impressive IMO. We don't have a lot of spare funds at the moment, but that's due to the double whammy of not getting past volume released prior to next compo ending which falls on my delays in publishing. Not a big deal, that all will soon change with volume 3 release. I'm also going to be pushing harder to get vol 4 released prior to this holiday season.

So once I put out the post vol3 release financial report we can evaluate diverting some of those funds to hosting fees and such.
Also, could someone with forum superpowers make a 2018 compo category. Time to start thinking about the future...
What do you mean exactly? Do you mean coming up with a 'special title' for volume 4?
More precisely, i didn't mean for it to publish as a physical release at all (i don't see it being worth it for the same reasons you gave) but rather have it as a pdf zine since that requires no other investment than "just" time. Price would more likely be in the range of 0.99 to 2.99 usd depending on contents per issue. Maybe first issue free. It'd also have a clear % of contents dedicated to code modification tips/how to make the most out of nesmaker, which i think is more in line with what this crowd would want. Then the gain (if any) could be an addition to the fund. But if it's too thematically detached, i'll let it rest.
I don't mean to diminish ideas like this but I guess I'm having a hard time seeing how some publication like this would tie in with the compo & carts. I guess part of it is, personally I'm not really looking for more ways to earn funds as the action53 cartridges earn plenty of money to fund the compo. If a project of that (or any) nature were in need of funding and the community wanted to divert action53 funds towards a separate project I'm perfectly fine with that. But I'd rather not have money coming back into the action53 funds as that would now be a whole separate business activity I need to account for and manage taxes etc.

Last idea i had in mind would be to do a custom-painted cartridge and let it go on auction each year. Not much of an addition to the funds in itself probably but still something. Attaching an example of a cartridge i painted for persosnal use. Choosing colours and theme for such a cartridge could be based on that years' winner, maybe.
I like the idea of the custom painted cartridge, but there are mixed feelings on auctions for limited edition homebrew releases. If we were to do an auction like this I would prefer the auction proceeds go to charity. The compo funds could cover the material costs and then donate the items being auctioned so 100% of earnings would be going towards the charity. I feel the action53 sales are more than strong enough to support follow on compos. I'm expecting we'll have excess funds that we'll need to figure out how to invest back into the compo and community as a whole.
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by calima »

Moving forward I'm sure volume 3-4 and subsequent carts will bring in significantly more funds than volumes 1 & 2 did.
Is this based on just the scene being larger, or?
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by tepples »

Volume 3 has what amount to demos of a bunch of platformers that also had a full cartridge release. It also has the 240p Test Suite, which some people would buy to calibrate their TV or scaler even without much interest in the games.
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by NESHomebrew »

infiniteneslives wrote:
Also, could someone with forum superpowers make a 2018 compo category. Time to start thinking about the future...
What do you mean exactly? Do you mean coming up with a 'special title' for volume 4?
Nope, I meant this. My wish has been fulfilled.
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by infiniteneslives »

calima wrote:
Moving forward I'm sure volume 3-4 and subsequent carts will bring in significantly more funds than volumes 1 & 2 did.
Is this based on just the scene being larger, or?
It's safe to say quality and quantity of games being coming from the compo each year, and being included in the cartridge has taken significant leaps forward. My projections could be wrong on this, but it's a pretty safe bet volume 3 and beyond will earn us more than volume 1-2.

volume1 was limited in it's earning potential due to the fact it was limited to 150 loose cart copies alone.

I believe volume 2 was limited in earnings because we opted to exclude a limited edition version making the clear copies available to contributors alone. That paired with the high cost of printed materials that was just barely recouped. On top of this it took a couple years from compo to publishing as we didn't have enough entries from the 2nd compo to fill the cart. This overly long delay didn't help sales IMO. Sales for volume 2 seemed rather low IMO, but I'm not too surprised all things considered.

Volume 3 is larger than both previous versions, and we'll be having 100 limited edition clear cartridges being sold to help offset the cost of printed materials. I expect we'll recoup printed material costs within an hour of release compared to ~1year after the fact with volume 2.

Volume 4 is on track to be 1MByte in size again, and the level of polish and depth of the games from the recent compo is much greater than we've ever seen IMO. We're finally getting into the annual rhythm we were after from the start and I'm expecting we will be able to publish this year's entries before year's end.

One idea I did have based on the assumption that volume 3 will easily outsell volume 2 would be to offer a discount for purchase of volume 2+3 bundled together. But I'm also not sure if this may conflict with intentions of releasing a compilation cartridge of all volume's titles now that we've hit the 53 mark. I may create a poll thread to gauge thoughts on this idea. I think it's safe to say people will be coming to buy volume 3 who don't own volume 2, and a bundled discount might be appreciated. Something like offering the CIB at loose cart pricing might be nice as we have a much more volume 2 boxes than we'll likely ever use.
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by FrankenGraphics »

. I feel the action53 sales are more than strong enough to support follow on compos. I'm expecting we'll have excess funds that we'll need to figure out how to invest back into the compo and community as a whole.
Oh, i see. I completely misunderstood your call for ideas then. Basically i thought:
-if prizes need to increase to reflect higher scores/the increased level of quality over years, more funds must go in.
-for more funds to go in, more voluntary work needs to be done, or
-sales need to be increased or distribution costs cut somehow, ergo more work.

It didn't even occur to me that a53 might already sell more than before, haha.
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Re: 2017 NESDev Compo - Rules/Guidelines

Post by infiniteneslives »

FrankenGraphics wrote:It didn't even occur to me that a53 might already sell more than before, haha.
Ahh yeah sorry about that I know realize how I overly assumed everyone else expected volume 3 sales and on would exceed past volumes like I do. Time will tell of course, but that's my current expectation. :)

One other item is we're publishing on 60pin famicom cartridge form for the first time with volume 3. This will be the first famicom cartridge release on my site, so I largely don't know what to expect from that. But will be interesting to see.
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