Today is a special day, it's the first day I officially talk about Steem Jam. You may have already seen me talking about it in some of my posts or even in the comments of related posts, well there it is ! Hold on, it isn't really there yet. Before the Steem Jam project is launched, I will have to work on the various technical aspects that such a project implies. That's why I've decided on updating you every once in a while about the project progress. Those update posts will not be regular but will come whenever I feel like a part of the project worth talking about has been done. This will make it easier for me to get good advice and to collect new ideas from you but also to be set back on the right path from you as I will probably sooner or later make a decision that makes no sense at all (I count on you to be as honest as possible !). This post is somewhat particular as nothing has been programmed yet, because of that it seems like a good moment to explain in details what a game jam is, what will the Steem Jam be and my current ideas to reward participants. I will try my best to explain the most understandably what a game jam is for people who have never heard of it, so if you already know what a game jam is you may be shocked by my simplification of some aspects when explaining. If that's the case, don't worry, all aspects will eventually be talked about in detail in my future posts.
What is a game jam ?
This is probably a burning question you have after seeing me talk vaguely about my project. A game jam in its most comprehensive definition is a game making competition in a short period. They can be local or online and usually last from 2 to 3 days, even though some of them can last for weeks. People from all around the world get together to make games alone, with friends or with total strangers. A game jam commonly has a particular theme that is not too restrictive but that still requires participants to use twice as much imagination. A game jam is also the perfect opportunity for game makers to innovate on every aspect of a game; gameplay, graphics, story-telling... anything can happen with a bit of imagination ! If you happen to have a lot of indie games, chances are that one of them comes from a game jam project. Successful games like Gods Will Be Watching (Ludum Dare 26), SUPERHOT (7 Day First Person Shooter Game Jam) and Surgeon Simulator 2013 (Global Game Jam 2013) all came from a game jam idea. To learn more about what it feels like to participate in a game jam, I recommend watching this video made by Pixel Prophecy which is a post mortem of Headroom, a game made for the Ludum Dare 38.
Answers to the following question are not yet fully considered, there is a big possibility that the final project will not be the same as the one presented here in many aspects.
How long will each Steem Jam last and what will their frequency be ?
There are supposed to be 6 Steem Jam's organized a year, which is more than most popular game jams. The majority of them will take place during vacation in order to comply as much as possible with game makers schedules. Half of the game jams will last 48 hours (2 days) while the other half will last 72 hours (3 days). The longest ones will mainly take place during vacation. The theme will be announced at the very beginning of each game jam. The community will decide the theme by suggesting different ideas in a period of one week before the start, one out of the 10 most voted themes will then be randomly selected to be the Steem Jam's theme. Following the game creation period, participants will have 2 hours to upload their games on the website, but uploading will in reality be available from the beginning of the second day. Finally, two weeks of voting will follow in which the community will vote for their favorite games. Once the voting is over, the final ranking will be put online and rewards distributed. For an overview of the timeline, check the picture below, you can also click on it to view it in full size as it is barely readable on Steemit.
What about the rewards ?
You may already know that some game jams have a little plus: the rewards. Steem Jam will obviously do its best to distribute rewards to participants but not in the same fashion as most game jams. Instead of having a fixed reward percentage depending on the ranking, each participant will see his reward percentage vary depending on his percentage of the total votes on all games. This system will be in place to avoid situations of two users having a very similar number of votes and yet getting very different rewards. Rewards will come from two main sources: posts published by 
and donations. The entirety of SBD raised with the posts will be split between users according to the above system while the Steem Power raised will be delegated to users for a period of 6 months, after which will stop the delegation and be able to do whatever it wants with the Steem Power. However, this rule doesn't apply to winners announcement posts for which all the payouts (SBD and Steem Power) will be split between participants thanks to the Steem Whales payouts sharing tool. Donations will also be split between participants without Steem Jam taking a single dime of it. Don't forget that besides money, game jams reward you by making you acquire new knowledge and meet unique people you wouldn't have met otherwise. The following graphs are meant to give you an overview of the reward system, click on them if you wish to see a bigger version of them. They don't take the winners announcement post into account. The example shown in these graphs is the following (random donations value):
and donations. The entirety of SBD raised with the posts will be split between users according to the above system while the Steem Power raised will be delegated to users for a period of 6 months, after which will stop the delegation and be able to do whatever it wants with the Steem Power. However, this rule doesn't apply to winners announcement posts for which all the payouts (SBD and Steem Power) will be split between participants thanks to the Steem Whales payouts sharing tool. Donations will also be split between participants without Steem Jam taking a single dime of it. Don't forget that besides money, game jams reward you by making you acquire new knowledge and meet unique people you wouldn't have met otherwise. The following graphs are meant to give you an overview of the reward system, click on them if you wish to see a bigger version of them. They don't take the winners announcement post into account. The example shown in these graphs is the following (random donations value):| Ranking | Vote percentage (40 votes) |
|---|---|
| First | 35% (14 votes) |
| Second | 25% (10 votes) |
| Third | 17,5% (7 votes) |
| Fourth | 12,5% (5 votes) |
| Fifth | 10% (4 votes) |
What about uploading games and the ranking system ?
Games created for the Steem Jam will be uploadable from the second day to 2 hours after the game making period. Participants will then have the rest of the day to complete their game's page without having the possibility of updating their download link anymore, which means the game must be uploaded before then. The game's page will be composed of a video (optional), screenshots, genre tags, a description and a comment section. All these elements will be put together in a post uploaded on the participant's account in the same fashion as what DTube does with its videos. If the game is made by a team, it will be uploaded on the leader's account and the rewards of this post will be set to be split equally between all the team members. Once the page creation day is over, all users, whether they participated or not, will be able to vote for their favorite games. No voting limit exists and you will be able to vote for your game, it will just not get counted in the total votes. Each user will be able to love one game, this will give it 2 points instead of the regular 1 point an upvote gives. However, in order to avoid anyone abusing the system, loving a game will be available only if you already voted for 5 games. Participants will have to vote for at least 5 games (theirs excluded) if they want votes on their game to be recorded. This constraint is in place in hope of implicating the game makers in the voting process. Flagging a game won't have any effect on its total votes, since it's useless it won't be integrated to the Steem Jam website. You will however be able to send a ticket to the support explaining why you wanted to flag a game, the support will then look closer into the participation and disqualify it if it doesn't obey the Steem Jam rules. Some automatic voting accounts (paying or not) will be ignored, I included a non-exhaustive list of accounts at the end of the post. If an account isn't on the list, please inform me about it in the comments down below. I would appreciate it very much !
Non-exhaustive list of accounts whose votes will be ignored
If you liked this post and you want to see more, don't forget to upvote, follow and resteem !