Since Indies VS PewDiePie was announced, a few people have voiced concerns that there will be cheaters. Some are worried that others will start making their games before the 72 hour jam period actually begins, which is against the rules.
How do we enforce this rule? What happens if we can’t? Let’s look at our options.
What If We Add More Rules?
It has been suggested that one way we could keep people from cheating would be to announce a more specific jam theme when the jam starts. Maybe we could throw in a couple of randomizers that have to be in your game.
One problem with this is that the jam will probably end up with a lot of similar games. Say we announce that all jam games have to have a clown in them. Do we really want a bunch of games about clowns (or any other single thing)?
There are going to be a lot of games made for Indies VS PewDiePie, and we want there to be as large a variety as possible. We’re really excited to see how different people interpret the theme, and we don’t want to impose further restrictions.
The other problem with using a randomizer or additional theme is that it won’t stop anyone from cheating. If someone is dead set on it, they can still make a game before the jam and just shove a clown (or whatever) in at the last minute. It’s not a big deal, because doing this will rarely improve a game. And it’s certainly not going to make a bad game any better.
In our experience, cheaters tend to be cheating because they’re not very good at making games.
What Can We Do?
There are some measures we can take. One thing we can do is inspect files and see their creation dates, though the determined cheater could scrub them. If someone uses a purchased (or freely available) asset in their game, there’s a good chance another jam participant or an organizer will notice. But they might not.
We encourage everyone who enters the jam to livestream development and post regular progress updates on their Game Jolt developer blogs and on social media. This not only keeps everyone involved and inspires an atmosphere of “we’re all in this jam together”, it also acts as documentation of the amazing feat of making a game in only 72 hours.
But we can’t require this. And once again, the determined cheater could find a way to fake it, anyway.
An enthusiastic, creative developer can take 72 hours and deliver gold.
Why It Doesn’t Matter
At GameJolt, we’ve put on quite a few game jams and we’ve pretty much seen it all. Honestly, nothing can really stop someone from starting their game early. We’ve seen people adapt games that they’ve already been working on and just shoehorn some graphics or mechanics in to match the theme after it’s announced. We’ve seen games that were already released tagged and entered into a jam because it happened to line up with the theme.
The worry is that starting your game early would give you an unfair advantage, right?
Well, here’s the thing. In our experience, cheaters tend to be cheating because they’re not very good at making games. And they tend not to win jams. Give a bad developer 2 weeks to make a game, and give a skilled, talented devloper 3 days; who do you think will make the better game?
In most cases, we could give the kind of person who’d cheat at a game jam 2 months to make a game, using all the borrowed or stolen assets they wanted, and they’d still come up with a turd. An enthusiastic, creative developer can take 72 hours and deliver gold.
The Other Thing
A cheater could theoretically make it to the top ten and have their game played by PewDiePie. We’ve explained above why it’s highly unlikely, but suppose one gets through anyway.
Well, they might get some publicity, but they will never get the real prize, the prize all of you who make a game in 72 hours will earn: the experience of really participating in a game jam and the euphoria of self-satisfaction that comes with having made a complete game that you can be proud of.
So don’t worry about potential cheaters. Concentrate on your game and have fun.
Keep calm and jam on.
Image by @liamtwose 
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