The Sgt. Conker ‘Absolutely Fine’ XNA Tutorial Contest!
Hey everyone,
It's time for more details on the contest we're going to host here at Sgt. Conker.
The goal of the contest is to encourage you, our dear readers, to write the best tutorials for XNA that you can, and share it with the world! In exchange, we'll give some prizes to the authors of the best tutorials.
Our full list of prizes is still in construction, but it will include the following:
One SunBurn Community License
SunBurn is a Lighting and Rendering engine built on top of our beloved XNA Framework. As the guys at Synapse Gaming say, "combining the latest lighting and rendering technology with a flexible and easy to use framework, SunBurn performs the heavy-lifting, letting you focus on your games." For a full list of features included in the SunBurn Engine, visit their site. The license we're giving out as a prize is provided by the kind people and Synapse Gaming.
Toon Boom Studio
Toon Boom Studio is a great product for 2D animations, allowing you to use a wide range of techniques for your work, including: stop-motion animation, traditional digital animation, traditional paper animation, cut-out animation and rotoscoping. I found the product very easy to use, and it will be a great addition to the arsenal of your development tools. Toon Boom Animation Inc. are the kind sponsors that bring this to our prize pool.
Update: This is 1 copy for each of the first three places.
4-Month XNA Creator's Club Premium Subscriptions
Other stuff we can't name yet 
As I said above, the list is still in construction, and we're hoping it grows until the end of the contest (by the way, if anyone in the audience is interested in sponsorship, let us know )
Now that you've seen some of the prizes, it's time for some rules:
- All entries will consist of written tutorials related to the XNA Framework.
- If source code is provided, it must work with either XNA Game Studio 3.1, or XNA Game Studio 4.0
- All entries must be submitted by email to contest@sgtconker.com
- The last day of submission is August 31 2010, 23:59 GMT
- All entries must be in english
- We do not ask for exclusivity, but by submitting the article in the contest, you agree to allow us to publish the tutorial on this site ( sgtconker.com ).
- The entries submitted must be your own creation, and the assets used in the accompanying sample code must either be your creation, or obtained with permission (ex: MSPL or MIT licenses). This might also interest you.
- We reserve the right to reject/remove any article with no explanations.
- Entries containing illegal or indecent content will be disqualified, and will not be published.
- The entries will be judged by a panel of judges, and three winners will be selected.
- Residents of the world are invited to enter the contest, provided your local laws allow you to enter such contests.
- This contest is void where prohibited.
Those are the rules for now. Remember, these are subject to change in order to protect ourselves from legal trouble. Please remember we are doing this for the good of the community and would like to continue to do so.
With all being said, I wish all of you good luck, and I hope we see some awesome tutorials!
July 19th, 2010 - 20:21
Be prepared to pay the IRS a nice fat check if you accept the VS2010 prize!
July 19th, 2010 - 20:40
The VS2010 prize was removed from the prize pool, because of concerns related to taxes.
July 19th, 2010 - 21:02
That’s too bad, any idea what the replacement might be?
On another note, I guess tutorial series (concerning a single subject or as part of a larger subject) are allowed as an entry?
July 19th, 2010 - 21:05
No, there won’t be any replacement. The prize pool just got smaller. We’re still gathering sponsors, so whatever shows up will be added.
Yes, tutorial series are allowed as an entry, though we’d prefer the series to be something new, not something going on for a while now.
July 19th, 2010 - 21:18
Yes, they will be new
Currently going over all the options, there is a lot to write about you know 
July 19th, 2010 - 21:19
I can’t wait to see it all
July 20th, 2010 - 01:17
>>All entries must be submitted by email to contest@sgtconker.com
Would it be ok to email a link to a posted online tutorial, or do you require the content in the email? I ask because I’ve been itching to make another one that will embed several videos in it.
July 20th, 2010 - 06:49
I’m not from the US, what was the problem with Visual Studio 2010 and IRS?
July 20th, 2010 - 07:58
Steve, because we need to format them to work on our site we would prefer it if you sent the contents in an email.
If you want to embed videos that’s fine, just send me the youtube links and i’ll put them in when formatting.
Thanks
July 20th, 2010 - 08:02
Remi: The problem is that according to some people, the winners would have to pay taxes for the prizes they receive. And since the retail value of the VS2010 is large, this means winners might have to pay taxes for that value.
So since we don’t have all the legal and tax-related facts, it’s safer to remove that prize from the competition than to reach a situation where our winners have to pay loads of money to they local tax office.
If we manage to get a clarification on this (from a lawyer), we’ll re-add it to the prize list.
July 23rd, 2010 - 15:56
Here’s something that may help get the VS2010 thrown back into the mix. According to the IRS, you can ‘gift’ up to $26,000 in property to a person in a single year, before the donor has to pay taxes (annual exclusion). So if you make it clear that you’re giving VS2010 as a gift to someone, it should be alright. But it absolutely has to be a gift, not a prize. Prizes are taxed as income.
Source: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=108139,00.html
July 23rd, 2010 - 16:50
I’d love to see you explain the coincidence of how the winner of the competition also happened to be the guy who got the $12,000 ‘gift’. You can’t just change what you call it to avoid taxes.
Plus there’s international tax rules here. Though with Catalin in Romania, Conker in the UK and Grumpy in Germany who knows which rules apply.
Now would they ever get caught? Who knows – its a low key competition. But given that someone in the US will have to find approx $3k in cash if they are its not worth the hassle. I’ve seen several folk turn these down at tech*ed because Microsoft ask you to sign a tax form.
July 23rd, 2010 - 17:27
Yeah, my though was also to give it as a “gift” to the winner afterwards, but that’s one big coincidence, as ZMan said and I can’t really announce “Hey guys, I’m giving this as a “gift” to the winner, so hop into the competition”….
I hope people will participate in the competition for the rest of the prizes (which are still awesome) or at least for the honor of winning the first Sgt. Conker competition.
So no, the VS2010 sub will probably not go back into the prize pool…
I’ll try to give it to someone worthy of it from the community, but I’m still looking at my options.
July 24th, 2010 - 16:22
If I were you I wouldn’t bother spending money on a lawyer, since any US lawyer familiar with tax matters will tell you that while the MSDN subscription as a pure gift from one person to another would have no federal tax implications since its value is just slightly under the current exclusion amount as far as the giftor is concerned and true gifts generally aren’t taxable to the giftee (though income from gifts that produce income is still taxable), the IRS can and would determine that a subsequent gift to a winner of a contest would be considered disguised income and the recipient would still be liable for taxes on it. To say nothing of the tax laws of individual states, which are usually more jerkish on such thing. But that lawyer wouldn’t be me since I’m retired and therefore not allowed to give legal advice unless I want to get in trouble with my state’s court system.
July 28th, 2010 - 02:42
Hi, I had a couple of questions about the contest —
1) Are we allowed to make multiple entries?
2) What are some general rules of thumb about how to write the tutorial (length, technical level, etc)?
3) Are there certain topics that are considered “better” to write about (beginner’s guides, platformers, shaders, etc) or are they all equally fair game?
Thanks for reading and for putting on the competition, it sounds like great fun!
July 29th, 2010 - 21:24
1. Yes, but each will be judged separately and independently of the others, and you can only get one of the three prizes.
2. No rule. You can write beginners tutorials, or intermediate or advanced. Whatever you wish. The length is your choice, but remember that tutorials that explain clearly how they work are usually better viewed. That being said, remember than length != quality, on the other hand
3. All topics are equally fair game. One can make a great tutorial on any topic.
Good luck, and we’re waiting for the entries
October 17th, 2010 - 14:58
THe UK XNA Group gave away a MSDN Ultimate Subscription as a prize:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsphone7series/thread/4ba918bc-12dc-4bb5-8dcd-516c42e08557
Might be because it was UK?