The Web Monetization Challenge 2020

The Defold Foundation is inviting web game developers across the world to join the month long Web Monetization game jam.

November 1st 2020 to December 1st 2020

The Defold Foundation is hereby cordially inviting you and your fellow web game developers across the world to join the month long Web Monetization game jam. Developers will be challenged to create a themed web game showing their creative and developer skills as well as a good use of Web Monetization in their games. The proud winner and runner-ups will receive cash prizes, swag and bragging rights!

Theme: Secrets

The theme for the game jam is "Secrets". You must incorporate some aspect of the theme in your game. Perhaps some of the game mechanics are secret and has to be discovered while playing? Or there's a secret weaved into the story, waiting to be uncovered as the game is played? Or maybe the player will find secret treasures? Or something completely different. It is all up to you!

Rules

You must create an original game for the game jam and you must develop it during the game jam. ⍟
You are allowed to use existing tools, frameworks and libraries when creating the game.
You are free to use any game engine or framework when creating the game.

You must incorporate some aspect of the theme in the game.
You must integrate and use Web Monetization in the game.
You can create the game on your own or as part of a team.

⍟ = You are allowed to submit the same game to multiple game jams as long as the game was developed during the period of this game jam (a prime example of this is to use the same game for the GitHub GameOff jam and the Web Monetization Challenge jam).

Web Monetization

Web Monetization is an open technology that allows someone viewing a webpage or playing a web game to stream very small payments (micropayments) to the creator in real time. It is an exciting new and non-intrusive way for game developers to monetize their web games while at the same time offering premium content to their paying players.

Web Monetization is being proposed as a W3C standard. It is based on the Interledger protocol which is an open, neutral protocol for transferring money of any currency, including digital currencies such as Bitcoin.

Prizes

1st place - $1500
2nd place - $750
3rd place - $500
4th-10th place - $100/each

Payment will be made through bank transfer or PayPal. The winner is responsible for paying taxes on the winnings. Bank transfer fees will be paid by the winner.

Judging

The submitted games will be judged by a panel of judges. The games will be judged based on three criteria:

Fun - Is the game fun?
Web Monetization - How well does the game integrate and use Web Monetization?
Theme - How well does the game incorporate and interpret the theme?

The winners will be announced two weeks after the game jam has ended. The announcement will be made here, on itch.io and on Twitter.

Submissions

Submissions to this jam should be made using the standard itch.io HTML5 game upload process.

Meet our judges

Andrzej Mazur

HTML5 Game Developer and Technical Evangelist, Enclave Games indie studio founder, js13kGames competition creator, Gamedev.js community firestarter and Gamedev.js Weekly newsletter publisher. Excited about cutting-edge Web technologies like WebXR, Progressive Web Apps, and Web Monetization API. Likes eating sushi and playing Neuroshima Hex.

@end3r | end3r.com

Jupiter Hadley

YouTuber & writer of Indie Games, lover of Game Jams, Co-host of IndieGameJams.com. Aiming to be the Queen of Indie Games. Also enjoys going outside from time to time and taking pictures.

@Jupiter_Hadley | jupiterhadley.com

Joep Van Duinen

Joep leads the developer support team at Poki, the number #1 platform for play on web. Poki is on a mission to create the ultimate online playground: a place where kids of all ages and game developers come together to play and create. Here's more information about how developers can get their html5 games featured on Poki. Sucker for anything 90s.

@joepvduinen | poki.com

Linda Kiby Zetterman

Linda started her career as a level designer at Avalanche Studios in 2006 before moving on to Paradox Interactive in 2009 where she worked for 7 years as a producer and in various other roles. She is now co-founder/CEO of Warpzone Studios, getting ready to release the dwarf colony management game Hammerting on October 27!

MobyGames Portfolio | @lindakiby

Nathan Lie

Nathan is a Software Engineer at Coil who considers himself a gamer first and an engineer second. He's been working with and on applications using Web Monetization for the past year, and is eager to see the intersections between Web Monetization and game design this year!

coil.com | @feraltc

Jana Palm

Jana helped create Stugan, a games accelerator in the middle of the Swedish woods, and organised all four editions of it bringing together more than 50 game dev teams from all over the world. She also worked with the games ecosystem in Stockholm, including supporting gaming startups, organizing meetups for game developers, and connecting game companies with investors. Jana has also been speaking at conferences, making angel investments and is a regular judge of games competitions such as IMGA, IGF and SGA. She is a board member and advisor for Resolution Games.

LinkedIn

Noël Meudec

Partner Engineer at Facebook since 2017, working mainly on the Instant Games platform. Noël is a movie and video game addict, secretly dreaming of becoming a movie director. He has joined and co-organized quite a few game jams (Global Game Jam in Singapore in 2018, 2019 and 2020, etc.). Noël is always excited to see how talented developers manage to make gems from constraints.

Instant Games

Hosted on itch.io

The game jam will be hosted on the popular game jam and indie games website itch.io. Join the jam through the official game jam page on itch.io.

JOIN THE JAM!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get started with Web Monetization?

General information about the Web Monetization standard can be found on the official homepage. Setup guide and project template for Defold available from the Defold manual on Web Monetization. Setup guides and project templates for other engines also exist: Godot, Phaser and Unity.

How many games can I submit?

As many as you want! But we recommend that you focus on quality over quantity!

Is this game jam restricted to Defold developers?

Not at all! The ability to monetize web games concerns all developers, regardless of the technology used to create the games. We want as many developers as possible to get a chance to explore how to monetize their creations in new ways.

How do I host my playable game so that it is available for anyone to play?

You have many different options. You can host the game on your own site and domain to give you full control, but you could also use GitHub Pages or simmer.io (for Unity games).