They accept donations via PayPal and pledges of physical prizes. Your donation can be anonymous, and you can be listed on the donor page (anonymously, or with or without a pseudonym - they will email and ask if or how youâd like to appear on their donor page.) Any little bit counts, and supports the creation of new and exciting Interactive Fiction every year.
If youâre inclined, check out the IFComp prize page for more details: IFComp - Prizes
If you cannot donate monetarily, you can also pledge physical or service prizes which in past years have been quite creative!
Prizes neednât necessarily be related to IF. People have donated used books that are hard to find (Iâve got an original copy of Aaron Reedâs Inform 7 book I consider parting with each year!) or your own physical art you create such as jewelry or crafts. You can also pledge a prize to be fulfilled by Amazon or any online retailer and direct-ship it to the winner. Others have provided physical classic games (if youâve got original feelies like a Wishbringer Stone taking up space in your garage someone will definitely treasure it!) or new games if an online digital service allows gifting to the winner.
NOTE: Steam no longer allows online gifting (youâve got to be âSteam friendsâ for some such - and there are limitations for gifting internationallyâŚsee discussion below.) Creators or publishers of Steam games may donate redeemable codes (a.k.a. âSteam keysâ) for their games as prizes. (This is likely do-able also on any game services that allow creator/publishers to distribute codes like itch.io.)
People have been quite crafty with service donations. In the past people have pledged prizes of professional services like an original artwork based on the winning game (or potentially for the winning authorâs next game), creating physical artifacts or an original feelie set for the winnerâs game, composing music or songs, coding assistance, or producing a short game set in the same universe of the authorâs at their direction.
In the past, donors could also specify requirements on separately pledged cash or prizes: You can specify your prize is for the âHighest placing Horror Game that involves zombies,â for example - which goes well if youâre donating a zombie-related prize or artwork.
If youâre interested, check out the IFComp Prizes page for more details about donating or pledging a prize of your choice.
Quick note, due to some changes in Steamâs policies itâs not possible to donate Steam games to the prize pool any more.
One thing we canât accept, much as weâd like to: gifts of Steam games. Due to Steamâs restrictions on purchasing games for other users, we canât offer them as part of our prize pool. Exception: Creators or publishers of Steam games may donate redeemable codes (a.k.a. âSteam keysâ) for their games as prizes.
Iâve seen this mentioned before, and itâs alluded to in the IFComp siteâs policies, but when itâs reduced to the line âSteam no longer allows online giftingâ, itâs not correct.
Forgetting IFComp for a moment, you can buy someone a gift on Steam. The requirement is that you be Steam friends with them first. What you canât do is transfer a game you own, and have played (EDIT - actually, stop at the phrase âyou ownâ - it doesnât matter whether youâve played it or not!) to anyone else.
I assume IFComp doesnât want anyone donating a Steam prize to be obligated to Steam-friend an entrant in order to be able to give them that prize, and that thatâs the reason for their policy: âDue to Steamâs restrictions on purchasing games for other users, we canât offer them as part of our prize pool.â
So in practice, in IFComp, the only Steam game you can donate is one you / your company has made.
I think the key is, it used to be possible to purchase a game as an item, keep it in your inventory, and then transfer it to someoneâs account (via the marketplace or whatever). And they got rid of that because people were using it to abuse currency exchange rates. Which is sad, because I liked grabbing a bunch of copies of my favorite games when they were on sale, then interacting with someone and saying âoh youâve never played [this game]? Here, have a copyâ.
Now you have to declare the recipient at the time when you buy the game, instead of getting it as an inventory item to transfer later, which makes it a right pain to donate a game for something like this.
(Since donors have to deal with the logistics of shipping physical items internationally, I donât think the friend list thing would be a deal breaker in and of itself. Adding someone then removing them again is a much easier task than that!)
I dunno, you just click âbuy for someone elseâ on the game, pay, and then click the steam friend. I think itâs easy. The only fiddle is getting the friend in the first place. I agree, you could friend and unfriend, and I thought maybe IFComp didnât want that. But youâre right that thatâs potentially no more or less personally inveigling than what you have to do if youâre sending a book or something.
In short, I donât know what IFComp are thinking, whether they donât understand Steamâs policy, or something else. So Iâm going to ask them. Really soon! First Iâll give them a chance to just teleport in here and handily explain it, which will be less work for me. EDIT - Iâve emailed @Jacqueline
Ha - thanks. You gave me less than 5 minutes between this post and the email, it looks like, though I got the notifications simultaneously. (I donât mean for that to sound passive agressive, Iâm just laughing about how the notifications came back to backâŚ)
This rule is, I believe, pre-Jacqueline. Let me talk to the crew and see what precipitated it. More soon!
One problem with Steam gifting in its current state is that it typically blocks you from gifting to friends in different regions due to pricing differences. There are ways around this but they involve buying keys from resellers, which can be pretty sketchy.
I think the âgift to friendâ option could certainly work (assuming people donât have an issue with those extra steps in the process), but in order to avoid nasty surprises at checkout you would probably need to make the prize unavailable to anyone outside of your country.
My experience (from someone living in Indonesia) is that thereâs a disparity much like passport strength. Friends in the USA can send games to me, but I cannot send games to others. I think itâs usually fine to gift games, but I prefer gift money if people are doing the Steam Wallet approach.
Hello again. Have not forgotten about this, but right now I need to focus on authors just before the deadline for them to turn in their entries. Weâre still accepting prizes after the competition opens, so once we have all of that kicked off, Iâll be back with an update. Thanks for your patience, folks.
For reference, if youâve got emails or notifications turned on, Itâs set for a five-minute delay before it notifies you in case the post gets immediately deleted or edited in that time. Your all-sides notification might not have been intended!
Iâm feeling excited about the end of IFComp to see what got first place and etc., so Iâm really pondering over what I should do as my second gift⌠(donât ask, I feel like doing it). I think I have an ideaâŚ
