Android game developers around the world seeking wider distribution and exposure for their games have two weeks remaining to enter their games in the "Get Discovered" Android development contest sponsored by Best Buy and Hooked Media Group. The contest provides developers a unique chance to win both wide scale distribution through Best Buy's App Discovery Center and seed funding from Trinity Ventures, a top Silicon Valley venture capital firm. The winner will also receive an online advertisement package from VentureBeat, one of the industry's most widely-read blogs.
"With hundreds of thousands of apps currently in the Android Marketplace, it can be difficult for game developers to break through the clutter and have their games seen by the public," said Prita Uppal, CEO of Hooked Media Group. "The 'Get Discovered' contest provides a tremendous opportunity for developers to raise exposure through Best Buy’s App Discovery Center and have their games played by new audiences."Sounds pretty cool, getting up off the ground is one of the most difficult things about publishing independently. With the current economic climate, this is just the ticket for a young (or old) budding dev looking to be seen in the public eye.
Full rules:
The Get Discovered! competition is open to all game developers, who will first submit their games by integrating with Hooked Media’s new discovery platform at http://www.hookedmediagroup.January 24th?!? What are you doing out there in reader land? Hop to it- that's less than two weeks!com/contest. During the first phase of the competition the platform will track metrics including user rating, play-time and installations based on recommendations. The metrics will be used to determine the finalists. The judges will analyze finalists that graduate from the online competition. The contest will feature two tracks – one for companies that have secured Series A financing and one for companies still seeking Series A financing.
Judging the final competition will be Bradley Horowitz, VP of Product, Google+; Gus Tai, General Partner at Trinity Ventures; Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat; and Margita Labhard, Director of Digital Business Models at Best Buy.
Every game entered into the contest will use Hooked Media Groups' SDK and be integrated into the recently launched Hooked App, which is available for free in the Android Marketplace. The app is a game recommendation and discovery platform that uses a proprietary algorithm to learn a users’ gaming preferences, game play statistics and social mapping to provide them with personalized game recommendations and advanced search features. The more games a user ranks, the more customized the recommendations will become, thus providing the users with introductions to games that they may have never been exposed to, including those from smaller developers whose games may have not received significant exposure.
Consumers can find the Hooked app in the Android Marketplace or at http://bit.ly/nrkqE0
Contest finalists will receive distribution from Best Buy, increased game downloads and plays, as well as recognition among top leaders in the game industry. Developers can submit their games between until January 24th, 2012.