What do you think would make the best contest ever? All of our current and future games are being hooked up with OpenFeint for online leaderboards and our goal is to hold contests based on the high scores of the players? Choose from the poll which you think would be the most tempting contest and feel free to give us some additional ideas.
That seems to be popular. If you guys haven't checked out Champion Archer, you should do so, since it will be the first to have the contest!
Go with more smaller prizes than one big one. iTunes gift cards rock - you can buy them, scratch off the silver stuff, and email/PM the winners the codes!
Dont think this is going to help much in driving your sales up as I`m already convinced that I wont be able to get the top score even before buying it as every one is telling how hard and almost impossible it is. I`d rather go with something like the one below as it`ll get more people picking up the game IMO... Keep the contest a week long 1st Place- 50$ 20$ each for 2 random winners from top ten scorers. 3 random winners from anyone who posted something like 100+(easy enough to get but still takes some time) during the period of the contest.
But then it would be more like a job than a game, so you could dedicate more time to it. If it took you 2 hours to get #1, then it would be equivalent to $50 an hour, which is not bad money at all. And it is not about the sales with the contest, it is about rewarding dedicated players with a prize rather than just recognition/pride.
I went with the first option. I guess it just depends on if you are holding the contest to promote your game or reward your players. If the answer is reward your players, you need to figure out which group of players you want to reward....the hardcore players who top the charts, or someone selected randomly, etc. I plan on having a couple of contests for my game as well, so I'm definitely interested in what people have to say about this.
I think multiple prizes would be more fit as if its only one prize fewer people would try as they think they would have a slim chance