Fellow designers, please do not join contests like this, we deserve healthy wages and respect! Don't be tricked by promises of "Exposure", because I'm sure you can't pay bills with "Exposure".
Thing is that if we don't join this contest, someone else will and they will receive the bounty.
In order for your idea to work, every single designer would have to agree not to join these contests.
I don't think that would happen, but I'd like to see it do.
I understand your reasoning behind this.
"If you don't get the table scraps someone will".
But you see, if people are aware of the situation, and walk away from this, then all that's left over are the designers who do not take this trade seriously. And when that happens, these sort of contests will start to dwindle. Because of the extreme poor quality of work that would be submitted.
It balances out eventually but it requires awareness of what joining these contests do to digital art work.
I don't expect you to walk away, but only want people to consider.. Is it really worth it? Fighting tooth and nail for $20 for a company to make tons of profit off of? To spend your time and effort to not be even guaranteed that small pittance of money.
Most of these contest hosts say that everyone wins; Exposure, Experience, Building portfolios
This is mostly adressing anyone who would justify participating in these contests, and not specifically to you SwingFirst
Exposure: You show that you don't respect your work enough to be paid a real wage or commission. That you're so desperate for money, that you're willing to work in conditions that any other self respecting artist would cringe at. These are good things to expose. They are very bad things, that real clients who respect digital art would turn away from in a heart beat.
Experience: The experience that is promised, is not healthy healthy is experience. The only experience that a designer could get from this, is the experience of being disrespected. Competing for table scraps. These extremely toxic experiences to have. The sort of experience that a designer should have, is the experience of drafting, client briefs, and healthy design principles. You will none of this, because you are literally trying to dump out as many submissions as you can. In what way is that healthy?
Building Portfolio: Building portfolio is extremely important, and any designer needs to do this if they want to find potential work. However, there are so many other ways to build up a portfolio. Other healthy ways. Rather than competing with others for a wage, why not offer a temporary reduced rate to a few clients, on your own terms? Or perhaps, build a portfolio up from taking courses, or donating to a non-profit organization? Any way that you can build a portfolio, without destroying the very trade that you're building up your portfolio to join in? It doesn't make sense.
And this is all under the guise of just one person will be getting compensated (poorly) out of everyone who joins.
If more and more designers become aware of what the consequences of joining these contests are, the more reluctant these designers will be for the next 0.1 BTC contest. If that happens, the less quality work will be submitted, and the less we'll see of these sort of contests.
In turn, we'll start seeing companies and startups approach designers with real commissions and real wages.
But one thing is for sure, it all starts in these threads, raising awareness and coming together as a community of designers, rather that viewing each other as enemies or rivals.
