pouët.net

hey i didnt know they had belgian beers at nvision! :)))

een duvel nog wel :)

ok back to topic... did some clicking about and found a speech about the project on some iphone site:



last sentence reads "that could only be done on iphone"

an example... here

that thing won a macbookpro... (omfg)

but apparently it has nothing to do with demoscene.

I got a reply from ng:labs this morning, and here is the mail in it's entirety:

The things I on first read-through have made a note of:

• They appear to be primarily looking for "demos" with some kind of interactivity
  
• It is indeed $10.000 per entry
  
• How will the demo proposal be handled? (i.e. all right still remain with the author?)
  
• What constitutes a "simple agreement"? :)
  
• You have 2 months to finish the demo (excluding QA)
  
• You need to include their library code and their logo on run
  
• You need to be a registerred iPhone Developer to enter
  
• They are indeed looking to distribute through the App Store, which begs this question..
  
• How will people get the last 40% of the grant if Apple denies the request to include the demo in the App Store? This is something they have done more and more frequently (often on the grounds of "Limited Utility", which I guess is the very definition of a demoscene demo :)

I have already mailed them to bring some clarity to those issues, but so far I still think this looks like a very exciting thing to work on, if you're into the iPhone or just want to try new things. If nothing else, having a few demosceners moving to OSX is a win in my book :)

out of scope.... but gloom, did you get my email? :)

gloom: thanks for the update. Sounds pretty interesting indeed.

To me, this is now sitting in a really nice place between 'demomaking' and 'work'... with the exception of the flash screen (no big deal I think as you're getting paid to put it there) and including their framework (wonder what this does anyway?) you're basically being paid to make your own demo. Only catch is that they want it more interactive than maybe we would.. although you could do some fun stuff with say interactive effects in a normal demo structure.

You'd need to keep your code tidy I suppose as they would keep the source.. again, not really an issue to me if they're paying for it.

The 'limited utility' thing could be an issue, but I think it depends more on the subject matter than the actual usefulness - the (one and only I believe) app that was refused was one that does nothing but make fart noises. Another was allowed before and then removed before because it did nothing but show a pic of a knife. Take a look at the top apps, and you'll see the koi pond one (which was the top seller for ages) that just shows a pond with fish in it, an app that plays back various environmental sounds, loads of 'useless' apps like that.

So I reckon a demo should be fine so long as it's got 'acceptable' contect.. like no anal zoomers ;)

from what i see in the description, that's not a demo - at least not in the general term. i'm fine with it, but it's not a demo.

a third party splash screen, nice. apparently you have to give away the source code, nice. you're handing over your rights for at least 3 months, nice. you have to follow QA restrictions, nice. the app is interactive, nice. it will be sold (app store), nice. you can express yourself, beeing only bound to _some_ limitations... nice. you will get money for it? even better.

but hey, stop, it's definitely sounding like a good freelance contract. not a demo. so don't call it one. thats 100% totally different. having such constraints in doing something like a demo is always painful, believe me.

just demosceners hired in a short term job, bringing in ther experience and style to create something unique... great. selling your group name... bad.

a professional project with contractual constraints - and (compared to other jobs) bad payment. (what about taxes? :) a challenge where you can earn some additional money? great.

so, i think everyone has to make the tradeoff on his own... and i'm pretty interested what ppl will squeeze out of this mobile device :)

just my opinion.

A splash screen is nothing really considering that they're paying you $10k - remember the intel compo the year before last required that the demos advertise quad core within the demo more or less. The splash screen at least doesn't interfere at all with the demo.



This is basically what they're paying for - they get some advertising, and some nice tech for their library. It's not really 'giving away' when you get paid to write it :)



No, they have the right to distribute it for at least 3 months, after which you can have it removed from public access if you want. This is less restrictive than the average demo party - they insist that your demo is uploaded to scene.org and available forever.



That's the case for any iphone demo anyway, if you want to get it out to people. You could go through the unofficial app stores for jailbroken phones of course, but then most people with an iphone won't ever see it.



Demos were interactive back in the old days with menus and stuff.. no reason not to have a bit of interactivity. It's not like they're asking for a game, and they're not forcing it to be interactive.. they'd just prefer it.



They don't mention selling it anywhere, and I doubt they would do that. Most likely it'll be freely distributed via the appstore.



To me the 'library' you have to include is the big issue (depending on what's in it and what it does).. the splash screen is a minor thing, and the rest is actually nothing to complain about (or at least nothing more than you'd have to do anyway if you wanted to do a serious iphone demo and use the app store for distribution).

everything tagged as nice is meant as nice, as for a job you're getting paid for.

pro: To psonice' defence, I also thought you were being sarcastic. :) But yeah, I agree with most things being said - it sounds like a nice freelance project for someone already into making real demos (as in, DEMOSCENE!!111oneone :), but it does also mean that people would need to have a Mac AND be an accredited iPhone developer as well.. which a lot of people can become I guess, but it does take time to go through the process.

I'm kinda keen on seeing what might come out of this, and I already have a few ideas in my head for possible things to make, so if any teams want to start working on something, feel free to get in touch.

Oh, and yes, sorry -- pro, I _did_ get your mail, and it just got forgotten in the heat of NVScene. I'll get back to you asap :)

Ah right, thought you were being sarcastic :D

Anyway, I think those rules aren't bad at all, if you did an iphone demo on your own you'd have to live with most of them.

pro: in the worst case you can just release it at Buenzli instead ;P

Gargaj: Damn! you destroyed my plans for next year. :(

while im not going to go all emo about the scene being bought or something, heres my personal opinion on corporate involvement (as someone who has been down the road a couple of times now)..

- they dont want to pay "market value". i'm talking here about things like this iphone project - it's not a competition with some benefits in return for entering like intel or nvscene, it's a clear attempt to get something to stick their logo on and show off their stuff - and it has clear restrictions. that goes out of the bounds of what we'd call "doing it just for fun" - where you do whatever you want, with no external pressure and flexible deadlines. it crosses into the realms of "work", and has to be renumerated as such. :)
i think the corporate world still sees the scene as "a bunch of reasonably talented 16 year olds" who can be bought on the cheap - much cheaper than paying a company to do the same job, anyway. thats partly because it used to actually be the case, and partly because too many sceners dont mind being treated like that.
however, if you wanted to "hire" us to make a serious, big demo for your product, you need to pay competitive rates. that means youre getting a team of 5 or so highly trained, experienced, professional people (who already have relatively interesting jobs in creative industries, or even their own companies) who know their own market value, working for a month or two, and im afraid thats not going to be much cheaper than paying an agency. 10k$ (with the exchange rate, then split 5 ways, and taxed) is not "market value" for what work is required.
getting the scene to make a demo for you is not a cheap replacement for hiring pros. these days, if you're getting the good groups to do it you usually _are_ hiring pros. and they dont come cheap. :)
on the flip side, if youre only willing to pay peanuts, expect to get monkies. (or a quick knockoff demo in 2 days. :) )

- about these competitions run by companies where they offer something in return for entering.. its a nice perk. but the problem is when people dont weigh it up properly.
assuming you are a professional with a decent job, you already know that the time you spend on a demo is not financially viable - you spend in hours many times more than you could possibly earn in prizes. when people see "a free demobox" or "a free pc" or "a free xbox360" for making a demo, sometimes they think "great, i get a free thing for something that i am doing anyway - win win!". but the reality is by accepting this you tie yourself into doing something for that event, and we start crossing over into the "work" zone. it means that you have pressure to complete something on time and maybe with certain restrictions - you cant really slip to the next party. you are morally obliged to do it, if not contractually. and that will probably mean you save your work for that in case you dont have anything done for it. of course its still "making a demo" which is fun - but it has that added "work" feel which can subtract from the overall enjoyment of the demo making process - which is after all your hobby, and supposed to be fun. on top of that, entering e.g. the intel compo or nvision means that (unless youre one of the lucky few who got to go to nvision) you wont get the rest of the "releasing" experience. you dont get to go to the party, watch your demo on the big screen with your friends (and enemies) around you, have a beer afterwards and so on.
my point is - fine, if you're poor and need the hw it's a nice bonus and can facilitate your demo making experience. or maybe doing sponsored events doesnt affect your enjoyment. but if it does, is the few hundred euros of free kit worth it, or would you rather spend your own money on that and keep making demos for you - something you do for fun?

in summary:
- if someone is willing to pay _market value_ money for a demo, i'd jump at it. of course making demos for a living is living the dream. :) but the keyword there is _market value_.
- when it comes to sponsored compos with free hw involved - it has to offer something interesting. if the hw is something im interested in playing with, for example. if its simply a case of "here's a pc if you make a demo for this", id carefully weigh it up against the downsides, and there are some. will it feel like work? do you get the rest of the experience you get from making a demo and releasing it at a party (small or large)?

There are options if you don't want the app store restrictions (which would disqualify you from asking for $10k of course):

- Using a jailbroken phone. You can distribute stuff through installer.app or cydia, which work a lot like the app store but without the restrictions. You can do whatever you want that way, but it'll only work on jailbroken iphones

- Using the official SDK, there's an option to create private apps that you can distribute yourself. Not too sure on the specifics of this, but I think you can only distribute it to something like 100 phones without some kind of enterprise developer account. I guess you could provide the xcode project file and let people compile it themselves to get around that, but you'd be giving out your source code and it'd be a real pain in the arse to watch (1gb+ download for the sdk for a start, and you'd have to have a mac..)

good points, Smash.

Smash: word.

Broken down on the manpower ordinarily involved in such a project (and hell...with these terms it simply isn't a demo and they should remove the demoscene relation from their offer website) and calculated with usual payments of the market this is just a attempt to get cheap manpower.

Nothing more...nothing less.

I really would have a good laugh at a client thinking he will get top notch stuff for only $10k payment for a project like this with a whole team of multimedia experts. Some may say: "This is demo stuff and not business". But hey...wake up...this offer IS business.

Nothing more...nothing less.

we sure didnt. :)

out of curiousity though, what would happen if one of the groups in the Intel compo wouldn't deliver?

:-)

chumby? :D

required and delivered are different things :)

I agree with what you said there pretty much too, although it depends on how you'd go about the project and how you view it a lot.

For a big/serious demo, yeah you'll need a team and a lot of work. You could do more experimental stuff though, that needs less art (mfx style say), in which case £5k might look like good wages.

Also, if you're already thinking of doing something like this anyway and it fits your plans, then it becomes £5k to make their deadline. I've been thinking of doing an iphone demo for a while, and actually submitting it to this wouldn't involve much change. Just a pity I have some other work already taking all my spare hours and I've not looked at the iphone sdk at all so far, so there's no chance I could get anything done soon :/

Oh btw, just on a side note - the games company i work for doesnt allow us to work on anything commercial outside of work, and it was particularily noted that we are'nt allowed to work on anything for iphone! :| That said though, I agree totally that its just not worth it, pros of doing such a thing in your spare time really doesnt outweigh the cons. pound for pound you are being totally swindled.

psonice: jesus dude, you saying mfx doesnt need to invest shitloads of time in their demos? its not just art assets that take the time to make, the music needs to fit, the direction needs to be spot on, bugs need to be fixed in tools blah blah.. its just not so clean cut. I guess you havent experienced this kind of development?