For those who are interested in making games / apps, check out Humble Bundle...

[namida]

You can currently (for the next 5 days or so) get Clickteam Fusion 2.5 Developer Edition, plus almost all the exporters for various platforms, for just $15... usually that'd cost well over $1000, and that's without taking into account the games in the bundle.

https://www.humblebundle.com/clickteam-fusion-bundle

If you've heard of The Games Factory, Click & Create or Multimedia Fusion, this is basically the latest iteration. It shares some similarities to Game Maker, but in my opinion is much easier to use - I was able to learn to use Click & Create when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. Of course, it isn't a wizard that just makes your game appear with no work, but I get the feeling there are people on this board who would love to have a piece of software like this, so thought I'd draw attention to it.

I might also consider, depending on how exactly Humble Bundle gifting works, grabbing an extra copy of this to give away as a prize in a future level design contest...
(Just to be clear, I wouldn't make it a late addition to the current one.)

[mobius]

thanks for letting us know!!!

[namida]

Okay, seems like the idea of this as a contest prize isn't too popular (though if even one or two people who tend to enter contests show interest, I might still grab one to offer it later - after all, those who don't want it can simply choose another prize)...

But on that note, perhaps Humble Bundles in general are a good idea to offer as prizes? In particular, it might be something a bit more useful to those who'd like a prize outside of forum-related stuff but don't want to handle receiving money via Paypal; and even with premium options they're generally cheap enough to be realistic offers.

[Simon]

The downside of programming tools is that you'd enforce an entire hobby on the winner.

The bundle is more interesting, even if I might not want it. A pizza would be best, but that's hard to deliver over the net.

-- Simon

[mobius]

Okay, seems like the idea of this as a contest prize isn't too popular (though if even one or two people who tend to enter contests show interest, I might still grab one to offer it later - after all, those who don't want it can simply choose another prize)...

But on that note, perhaps Humble Bundles in general are a good idea to offer as prizes? In particular, it might be something a bit more useful to those who'd like a prize outside of forum-related stuff but don't want to handle receiving money via Paypal; and even with premium options they're generally cheap enough to be realistic offers.

don't be too quick to make a decision

I like the idea a lot actually. Up till now, tbh I haven't really been very interested in the prizes. I mean, of course I'm not doing a contest for the prize in the first place but... for a strict monetary prize; I don't really like that at all unless it's something substantial like a thousand dollars or something
The other prizes like "name displayed in banner" personally I think that ought to happen regardless of their prize chosen.

Steam offers all kinds of deals and stuff like this all the time. A gift game or bundle or something on steam actually sounds like a nice gift prize to me. People have wishlists on steam that could come in handy for this. Granted; like Simon said it's still limited but it's better than nothing.

I still have the game Steve gifted me which I've barely played

[namida]

The other prizes like "name displayed in banner" personally I think that ought to happen regardless of their prize chosen.

Name displayed in the banner isn't a prize; in the past I always announced the winners here, but recently with how quickly the next contest is starting I don't (except for Level of the Year contests). You might be confusing it with the advertising prize, which lets people draw attention to one of their projects via the banner.


Anyway, I grabbed a couple of spare copies of this bundle; so one I'll put aside to use as a future prize. (The other one was a late birthday present for a family member.)

[Simon]

Now your poll results are worthless without extra info.

You started asking for the programming tools, calling them "this bundle" in the poll. This gathered 0 yes-votes, 3 no-votes. Then you proposed the humble bundle, and kept the wording "this bundle" in the poll. This has gathered 3 yes-votes.

-- Simon

[mobius]

It's a free gift so who cares if the winner ends up either not liking it or not using it? Like I said before; I do it for the fun not for the prize, and I honestly can't think of any prize I would really prefer in this contest scenario but a free steam gift sounds like the most feasible idea to me (so far) and one I'd prefer.

I would keep voting up loonger; though, give people more time to see polls and stuff. I've been missing a lot of stuff on the forum lately because everything is moving so fast. There's been a few polls I missed voting on because I didn't see it in just a few days or a weeks time. Since the forum's so busy right now I think we need more time to consider these things.

[ccexplore]

To be honest, under most other circumstances it would make far more sense to wait until the winner is determined, and then ask the actual winner what they'd like.  You can specify the maximum monetary value of the prize beforehand.  You can also come up with a small set of choices (eg. steam gift card, or the next humble bundle, or <blah>, ...) beforehand in case the winner doesn't have a strong preference but doesn't want to completely opt out of the prize.  With any luck, maybe the actual winner is someone like mobius and then you even save yourself the $15 or whatever the maximum is since the preferred prize would happen to cost $0.

Regarding the current humble bundle situation, if there's a decent chance you think you can resell it in future for equal or higher prize than the $15 or so you paid for, I suppose you can buy it now and hold on to it for some (not too long) period of time, in case someone who has expressed interest in it becomes the winner in the next or future contest.

[namida]

Regarding the current humble bundle situation, if there's a decent chance you think you can resell it in future for equal or higher prize than the $15 or so you paid for, I suppose you can buy it now and hold on to it for some (not too long) period of time, in case someone who has expressed interest in it becomes the winner in the next or future contest.

Most likely, if it doesn't get interest as a contest prize, I'll just find someone I know personally to give it away to.