

ESA 2015 will be open from the afternoon of June 26th until noon July 7th 2015. Click here to visit the master thread!

The Game submission and scheduling team are flicky, bangerra and joka. We will also reach out to individuals and game communities regarding runs, rules and so on to help us make our decisions.

Game Submissions are over!

View completed submissions here (temporary)

This year Game Submissions will be using a form that will be linked here, do not suggest games in a post!

Submissions this year will once again include second-stream content including talks.

Not complying with the rules will cause your submission to be ignored.

This thread is for listing the rules and is open for game discussion!

Game submissions will open on Monday the 9th of February and close on Sunday the 22nd of March at 23:59 CET.

Our Philosophy

When deciding whether a suggested game will fit into the final schedule, we will consider the following: Length, entertainment value and commentary quality. We will be looking at these three qualities over others such as game popularity.

For example, long games (4 hours or more) are harder to put in the schedule due to how many games could be put in their place. Long games can and still will make it in, but have a disadvantage compared to shorter games.

Additionally, the entertainment value of runners, games and commentary is taken into consideration. if you're running a game that was only released in Guam, but is incredibly entertaining or has fantastic commentary, your game is still likely to get in.

Rules for Submissions

This year, we are setting a limit of 5 different games for submission. You can submit multiple categories for a single game, but no more than 5 different games can be listed. Non-complete game categories will be allowed provided they are accepted by the individual communities. Any additional games over the five will be ignored.

Submitted games must adhere to [Twitch's streaming policy](http://en-gb.twitch.tv/p/rules-of-conduct). Pitching games that you have not yet learnt or mastered is OK. But you need to show steady (weekly) progress after the point that your suggestion passes the first cut.

When you submit your game, you should provide a short blurb about the game and video link such as those seen here as well information about your progress in the game. We suggest adding your times to the speedrun.com leaderboards for your game (or making your own!) so we can more easily keep track of times. If your community uses other leaderboards, please link them in your comments!

If you are submitting races, relays, co-op games or anything else with multiple people, all involved runners must submit a form including a list of the other participants.

Games should be submitted with a reasonable estimate not including setup time. The estimate should consider everything that can go wrong as well as any additional content that you may wish to show off. Remember that you may have been awake for forty hours having fun before your run!

We will be having a second stream once again, but our exact balance of speedrunning to additional content has not been decided on. Content will be slightly shifted in favour of the first stream while attempting to balance runners. Content on the first stream will be speedruns only. The second stream will complement the first stream and include live talks, tas:ing, backseat runs, backstage interview and genres like rhythm games, arcade games, shmups etc. We are also aiming to capture the feeling of the event more accurately here with more backstage cameras and tournaments on stream.

There will be three rounds of selections:

The first will pick out all the games we're interested in, regardless of current skill of the runners.

The second round will be done nearer the event after we have gauged the run quality.

The third round will be the final selection to work to within our time limit before being fit into the schedule.

Due to a large number of drop-outs last year, runners that get accepted into the final round will be required to pay a €5 deposit to discourage suggestions from those who don't intend to come. This €5 will be taken off your entry fee. Those who have not paid the deposit will be contacted about resolving any problems. If we cannot sort it out, the runner will risk having their run(s) replaced. This rule was agreed upon unanimously in a vote held for attendees last ESA. Due to this, the deadline for dropping out will be one week before the final games are decided. More information about the deposit and how to pay will be available after the first round of cuts. Kept deposits will go towards funding the marathon itself (as the money would have if the person was an attendee)