Hi folks,
I also noted some time ago that MAGS had suffered a bit of a slow down in terms of participants for each months contest. I remember posting a few suggestions in some or other MAGS thread about this last year. My suggestion was simply to have MAGS run every 2 months however at the time I think people frowned upon the idea somewhat for various reasons of which I can understand.
However much as a radical change it is, I would like to mention it again since I just spotted this thread now and thought to give my thoughts on it.
I think there are a number of benefits to running the MAGS every other month, on the surface of the suggestion you might automatically think well, its only 6 mags a year compared to 12 and how could that possibly result in more participants per year?
Well here is the theory, shaky as it may be
1. I honestly feel that you might find more people enter who have already entered into a previous contest because there is a chance that directly after a MAGS participants will be tired, perhaps stressed, lost a bit of enthusiasm, in particular since its a jam we are talking about after all so there is that all hands on deck, full steam ahead activity which in my opinion takes time to recharge when its all over with.
Getting people to enter into another MAGS directly after is a lot to ask especially if they have worked to the bone on any previous contest. Said person/teams might be more likely to enter after a good few weeks have passed.
2. Having the MAGS run every two months gives the opportunity to add an extra week (or perhaps more) onto the time period so development can run over 5 weeks rather then 4. this extra week can come out of the month that a MAGS isn't being run.
3. Running every two months also gives the opportunity to add an extra week (or more) to the period where people get to play the games then vote, which may lead to more people getting time to play more games and squeezing out as many votes as possible with a slightly longer voting time.
4. Running it every 2 months with extra time added on may also result in better quality of games with more time for individuals or teams to polish out last Min bugs. (an extra week or more makes all the difference with contests like theses)
5. MAGS every 2 months give more time to promote the next mags before the theme is actually announced. Any extra time to get the word around is a good thing and will catch more peoples attention.
6. MAGS every 2 months might give people that regularly enter into the MAGS more time in between each MAGS to enter into one of the other smaller contests the forum runs, so this suggestion might end up benefiting participant numbers with smaller contests too.
I think at worst running this every 2 months could result in the same number of over all yearly participants as current projections are (based on the slow down).... at best you might end up getting more bumper MAGS (such as the one last June (i think?) where many people entered... So basically getting on average 8 people or so to enter every 2 months might end up being better then having 12 individual months of MAGS where only 1 or 2 or 3 enter.
OK now the "8" is wild guess, and I will admit doing this every 2 months idea might indeed make things worse, but I think if promoted right it could work.
And the only other bad aspect to this that I can see (apart from the potential to make the bad situation worse) is you would have to call the contest something else.
So in short I think you may end up getting more activity and also more people playing the entries and more people voting.
Oh also come MAGGIES people I feel might be more likely to play 6 games rather then 12 to make a fairer determination on who to vote for which may mean you might get more people voting on the whole in MAGGIES.
Asides from the suggestion to run it every 2 months here are some other thoughts.
I am not so sure about the suggestion some are making about making it OK to use assets previously made, which for me sort of defeats one of the main challenges for a game JAM. I think Jams in general are ideal for people to think outside the box and improvise and innovate with limited time or ability. However my thoughts on this might be somewhat biased in the sense my main thing is Graphics so I do have to also recognize that other participants might not have the same experience with Graphics so struggle to produce a certain quality in a certain amount of time, but I think every or individual has advantages and disadvantage compared to other participants and the great thing about game JAMS is the resulting variety of styles, ideas, mechanics.. etc that all ultimately pivot around the challenge of working around limitations / strengths and weaknesses that each participant has, and I think letting people use pre-made assets is diminishing the challenge and perhaps fun of the whole experience. But sure someone's fun is another's hell and vise versa so I dunno, there is my thoughts on it anyhoo.
This might sound a bit spammy, but have you thought of setting up a script on the forum to PM or Email every user on the forum with periodic announcements of which anyone can opt out of receiving. This is one way MAGS could be brought to the attention of people who have otherwise got their eyes off the forum and might have actually liked to try entering if they had known about it.
I think a certain MAGS theme might instantly appeal to a potential participant if they just knew about it before hand. A few mentioned about having a forum banner change to reflect up-coming MAGS this is a good idea. Anything to promote within the community is a good think because thinking about promoting MAGS outside of the community is going to be tough for a variety of reasons.
Perhaps rather then automatically offer the next theme suggestion to the winner of each MAGS, have the winner, + 2nd and 3rd place participants suggest theme, and have the community vote on the next theme via a forum poll this will raise the chance that more people will enter into next MAGS because its a theme they actually think they can work with.
Offer trophies or some sort of mark of achievement to winners or and perhaps runner-ups, the same way other contests do. OK sure there is a limited space in the signature area, but still a little badge, or icon, something for participants to aspire to. Perhaps like little star icons in the area to the side of the forum post.. er not sure what that area is called, the area where people's name/avatar are, just under there. I dunno... anyhoo .. I know its such a minor profile cosmetic, but well you know what the net is like, people like to collect achievements and show them off, and rightly so, with the work put in on each project.
Might I suggest an actual Prize for the outright winner of MAGGIES, now this is a bit of a wild suggestion because who is going to fund a prize and then why are no prizes offered for other categories during the AGS Awards, but I just though to mention this anyway, even if its just a small price like oh I dunno a book token or perhaps even a AGS T-shirt.. something.. you know.. something other then the win to aspire to might end up tempting more folks to enter.
There are a bunch of other ideas that could be done to help Mags and some have already suggested some sound ideas here also, I just hope things start to pick up eventually and I wish it the very best of luck.
I myself am striving to try enter into a MAGS this year at some point so you can hopefully count me in for at least one MAGS.