MindTrek Indie Games Awards 2011 Rules

1. Purpose

The competition is looking for the best Finnish independent games or game demos.

2. Organizers

MindTrek Indie Games Awards is one of the competition series of MindTrek Conference 2011. It is organized in co-operation with Neogames and Mediatonic. The award is provided by Mediatonic and Neogames.

3. Eligibility criteria

The competition is open to all Finnish unpublished games which IPs are owned by developer company. The product can be targeted to any commonly used digital game plaform: mobile, web, PC, IPTV or console. Participating product can be game or a demo. Game concepts that can not be evaluated by playing are not eligible for the competition.

The game can be either online or off-line, single- or multiplayer. If the game can be installed and played with a commonly used device (e.g. PC/MAC, some mobile platforms) the organizer will provide them for the use of the jury. If the installing of the game to the target platform is complicated or impossible, the company submitting the competition entry will have to provide the device with the game installed or PC/MAC compatible game demo.

Platforms, game engines, software solutions, game services, forums or portals can not participate in the competition. The jury holds the right to reject a competition submission that does not meet the competition criteria; in which case, the entry submitter will be notified.

4. Submissions

Registration opens in May 9, 2011 and ends in August 26, 2011. The entries must all be made by filling out an online form on the MindTrek website. If the product is in a form of physical copy, three copies of the game product must be sent to the MindTrek office and be received by August 26, 2011.

Address
MindTrek Association (Indie Games Awards)
Hermiankatu 1
33720 Tampere

Game product or demo can also be submitted using Download link marked to the online form as "download link".

The jury holds the right to reject entries submitted after these deadlines. The finalists will be published September 16, 2011.

5. Prizes

The main prize of the competition is a trip for two to San Francisco to Game Developer’s Conference in March 2012 (approximately 5000 euros in value). The winner will also have a chance to participate in negotiations for Mediatonic Funding of 30 000 - 500 000 euros. You can read more information about the Mediatonic investment model on www.mediatonic.fi.

6. Evaluating criteria and jury

The competition submissions are evaluated by a professional jury of seven members. The jury will be defined by Neogames and Mediatonic. The finalist can be invited to present their product to the jury.

The competition entries will be evaluated with the following criteria

Innovation value
Originality
Entertainment value
Playability
General usability
Technical functionality
Visual implementation
AudioMarketing potential
General quality of the product

Jury selects short list of 5 products and the winner of the competition will be selected amongst them.

7. Publicity

The organizers hold the right to present the winning product in their marketing and communications material following copyright guidelines.

8. Award Ceremony

The award ceremony will take place in the MindTrek Conference in September 29-30, 2011, in Tampere, Finland. The winners will be notified prior to the event.

9. Other issues

The company submitting the product has responsibility to ensure, that the submitted product don´t violate any immaterial property rights of third party. IPR´s of submitted game will remain to be the property of the developer company. The organizer of the competition has no claims according to the IPR´s based on submission.