Alright all, please forgive me if this has been brought up on NA in the past..

I was sitting in my ancient Japanese history class today bored out of my mind because my professor is a moron.. and all of a sudden, the thought came to me.. Wouldn't it be fun to create a NA contest where we select a different NES title every month (maybe via a poll of ten choices) to stir up some friendly competition? I haven't thought this through all the way, but it seems like a fun idea..

Basic rules:

1. Game chosen must be a fairly common title, nothing too outrageously difficult for people to get their hands on in order to give everyone a shot at the title. Rules for each game must be laid out in a straight forward manner so there is no misunderstanding or confusion.

2. Screen shots of high scores must be posted in a designated thread where a top list of the current month's high scores will be displayed and maintained for the entire month.

3. No cheating! I like to think (maybe I am naive) that people in the NA community are honest and fair individuals (hell with the kinda money/ hardware being traded around here one would sure hope)! Therefore, if someone is caught cheating or altering their score in any way, they are banned from future game of the month contests.

4. At the end of the month a prize is awarded to the winner. This could be in the form of a Paypal gift certificate, NES hardware, a custom signature banner etc.. you get the picture. I am not sure how we could establish a monthly prize unless certain people are feeling generous. I myself wouldn't mind offering up a game or two or a little cash to fuel the fire. Heck, maybe we could even charge a small entry fee that people would send to a paypal account and at the end of the month the money is sent to the winner.

This is just a very rough sketch of an idea I have, maybe it will work, maybe not. However, if any of you are interested in furthering the discussion I would love to hear your input. Thanks!

8-bit -

I like this idea a whole lot!! Would give us reason to pull out those games we rarely play and throw down with a sweet contest.

Flesh out the details - I'd be glad to help - and let's get this baby moving along!!

Be well -

MLN

This was done over at NESworld, I always found it a lot fun....but I don't think many people visit that site anymore with NA taking off so well. I'd be up for the contest!

I'd play too, I have meager S/NES collections (10-12 games each). Over at AtariAge we do this too, but screenshots arent mandatory, & it's just for bragging rights. But I do like the prize idea.

Me and Nes-a-holic were in charge of it over at NESworld. The first month or 2 had great participation then it dropped off big time. We had great prizes lined up but the participation was almost nil after the first few months. People lose interest in this type of thing pretty quickly. Someone is free to do it if they want to round up some prizes though.
~~NGD

Haha that would be awsome. To bad there isn't a www.zbattle.net... for like, Nestopia, like there is for zsnes. Then we could bust out the multiplayer games

There is a way to play online NES multiplayers games, but I forget the website.
~~NGD

I'm down.
I just hope we can be somewhat "loose" with this requirement.  A big part of the reason I don't/didn't participate in the older competitions here is because I felt it was just way too much work. 
Write 'figgler'on a sheet of paper, tape it to the TV, get the camera, snap the pic of the screen, snap a pic of the system incase you think I cheated, upload the pic to the computer, resize it, upload to NA. 
I'm all up for playing games and a little competition is always fun.  But I am thinking unless we are awarding NIB Power Gloves and Maxi-15s as prizes, perhaps we can lighten the scrutiny vs. past competitions to encourage as many people to play along as possible.

do roms count?

if we dont want to donate games you could do a 5.00 contest fee before each month and winner take all.

Hell no, beotch -- get off yer lazy ass and go buy some NES goodness

But yeah, I'd imagine ROMs would be fine, but that's up to the contest starter's rules.

No digicam

seriously, i hate emulators, buy the damn games, you should be able to work up some money, I only understand if its a rare or prototype)

I don't mind setting up the contest and rules, as well as distributing the prize money. However, I am going to say no on the ROM usage. None of the games in the contests will be way hard to find, expensive carts. so there is really no justification for a ROM alternative. Heck, if anything you can use the contest as an excuse to add a game to your NES library

I like the idea of submitting $5 to a designated paypal account as an entry fee for each player, at the end of the contest the money will be transferred to the winner, or maybe divide the money up so second place gets a small percentage of the overall cash prize as well. This would allow the winner to do as they please with their winnings (why you would spend them on anything non-NES related is far beyond me )

As for the screen shot thing, I just included that to keep everyone as honest as possible. I want this to be fun, competitive, and honest. I don't want people calling bullshit on anyone's score when the individual has no evidence to back it up. Not that that would happen, but when money and prizes are involved anything is possible. I want to insure that these contests stay enjoyable. I'll do my damnedest to get this thing fleshed out by the end of the month so the contest can start in November. I am glad to see that many of you are interested! Keep the constructive criticism coming! Thanks.

I have to agree with Figler, posting pics is a major pain.  The steps he posted are exactly what I go through.  Perhaps at the end of the game, whoever said they had the hightest scores have to post their pics to prove it.  If they can't prove it then they lose credibility.  I don't mind having the camera ready to take the photo, I just don't want to have to post it unless I need to prove I won.  How about everyone post what their score is, but just post the proof at the end of the contest.

Also, I would prefer to play for carts, manuals, and boxes etc. as opposed to cash.  Just my thoughts though, I may be in the minority here. 

I think that TN has a great idea. It should be stated before hand that in order to win the monthly contest a contestant who achieves the high score must be able to provide necessary proof to validate their claim.

As for actual hardware prizes, the only problem is that someone must be willing to donate a prize to the contest. As I aforementioned in an earlier post, I don't mind offering up a few items for prizes, but it might be difficult to collect free contributions. Hey, if people are willing, then that is great. I realize that a cash prize isn't exactly as fun as a specific item, but it is more reliable and safe in the sense that I can guarantee the money will materialize once a winner is declared.

If you play for money you can then buy the game or games you need its alot easier then people shipping to one person.

No one's gonna be honest when there is a prize involved

If someone wants to step up and does this they will quickly realize that all the coordination involved gets old quick. Finding donors, letting them know where to ship, making sure it ships, making sure it arrives, be the middle man if it doesn't, all that plus dealing with all the submissions you have coming in to keep straight. Not as easy as it sounds I promise. Plus you have to design different contests each month to mix it up a bit.

Not trying to discourage this, cause I LOVE contests but I want people to know that whomever does it has to invest the time to make it happen each month. I think cash would be SOOOOO much easier for all parties involved. Even if you just charged 3 per person the winner could walk away with a decent chunk of change.

I think pics are a must though. I can already see the winner saying "I didn't think I would win so I didn't take any pics" then if you bypass them to the next person they get pissed and yadda yadda yadda. Plus posting pics promotes more competition as well and makes other player work harder to do better.
~~NGD

Screw making it official. Just make a "Challenge" forum where people can post challenges. "I got 50000000000 in such and such. If you can beat it I'll send you such and such." or like, "I beat such and such in so many hours. No one can beat that!". That would keep it safer and not the fualt of the site or the owners if someone doesn't get their reward

Edit: Plus people could make their own rules when it comes to the challenge

We had a whole forum section like that, hardly had any use at all. So we combined it into Gamer Gauntlet about a month ago. Anyone is free to start up there own random little contest anytime they want.

By the sounds of this thread people wanted something like an offiical month contest, which we can do if someone who has been around a while, and has had lots of transaction is willing to step up and run the show.
~~NGD

Prize contests are best IMO as "silent entry" affairs where people submit scores/achievements secretly. Also they should be VERY short durations and use obscure games.

f.ex.

Tetris contests (and other common simple games) just reward those who have already mastered it.

The NWC contest just rewarded the person who remembered the pattern and had hours upon hours to lather/rinse/repeat

Contests where people post incremental achievements over a span of time will mean fewer entrants (after seeing a seemingly insurmountable score) and fewer $ in prizes. Also cultivates a need to "snipe" scores at last minute, eliminating any buildup the duration of the contest grew.
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The best contest I can think of would use some dumb, hard-to-find or "unplayable" game, be a duration of no more than 24 hours, and people pay at the time they submit their score screenshot. This way also nobody knows the jackpot until winners are announced - but at the very least they get their money back if they're the only submitter

I say screw the rewards period. Whoever has the highest score, less time, etc. can have bragging rights. LoL it's gonna be that way anyways. LoL did anyone here attend the Nintendo Power Fest back in like 1992? They had a "Wizard" style competition going on. I say screw the prizes. Skill should be reward enough

Jason's point was that everyone loses interest after a few short months if there's nothing really on the line.

With a jackpot that grows with participation though and few big winners the contest will snowball. With bragging rights, First winner of first contest gets due accolates. But the person who wins the second contest might be first place, but is still #2. Second Winner = kinda-sorta-first-place. Not as alluring. And so on.

I don't mind taking the time to set up some rules and get the ball rolling, I am going to consider all that has been said thus far and do my best to get everything as fair and fun as possible, after all this is what it is about. If it doesn't work out then oh well, but i at least want to try and set something up. Check back in this section in a few days for the info.

note: for now I am gonna stick with just cash prizes so I can make sure people get what is being offered up. Maybe in the near future if all is successful, there will be some hardware prizes involved.