Interest in a 1-hour pixel art contest?

[Lendrick]

Greets!

This is Bart from OpenGameArt.org.  I've run a couple of pixel art contests in the past, and had limited interest because the prize money we're able to offer (generally a total of $150 or less) is understandably not particularly tempting considering the time investment required.  Also, there's little motivation to create a small, quick submission due to the fact that you're likely going up against other people who have put a large amount of effort into their work.

Anyway, barring a massive increase in site donations, our budget is what it is, and there's not much getting around it.  On the other hand, I thought maybe I could limit the amount of time spent on contest submissions by planning a contest time in advance (perhaps with some general description of what the contest will be about), but then only announcing the actual subject of the contest one hour before the entries are due, thus limiting everyone to a single hour of work.  The usual OGA contest rules would apply -- you would retain ownership of your art, but in order to enter it, you would have to agree to release it under a Free license.

So my question is this:  If we were to post such a contest, would be people be interested in participating?  Please let me know, and if you have other ideas, I'm all ears.

Thanks!
Bart
http://opengameart.org

[EyeCraft]

Sounds pretty good to me! I think the time frame you set will be key in determining which people enter. Generally the more experienced people are going to sit well with 1 hour for coming up with something, but perhaps less experienced people are going to feel it's not enough time. I think it's something you could trial and error, tweak. 2 hours in my head seems more open.

1 hour seems like a good starting point to trial, though. I'd give it a go.  

[Mathias]

What's the point of the extreme time window? That would never work with my schedule. And if world-wide, what about countries that are asleep during that critical finite time?