This year we got a LOT of recycled steam nextfest demos submitted. Not by any means the majority of submissions but it was a large enough proportion that it was very noticable. I think my initial reaction was somewhat "this feels kind of wasteful, most demos are too short to really feel like it's justified giving them an award" but I've come around a little in two specific directions:
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For people hoping to submit the full game next year, it's actually a pretty good way to build anticipation among judges. I saw a LOT of "I can't wait to see how the full game is" in judging comments. That's kind of a good thing, honestly. Having a bunch of people who want to rush over and play your game next igf can totally cause an otherwise-overlooked game to become very, very noticed.
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In a few cases, I went out of my way to ask the developers for a longer build and in most cases they were completely willing to provide. Obviously this is an extra step and can introduce some risks, but it's nice that people are being flexible with this - it's genuinely the kind of thing that can turn a game from "not this year" into a serious contender.
So maybe it'll turn out okay after all? The one big risk here is that people will submit a demo one year, not win, and then assume the effort was wasted and not resubmit the next year. You'd be shocked how often resubmitting can genuinely give you another chance on games that were too early or were simply unfortunately overlooked. So... fingers crossed people take advantage of that quiet momentum they're building!
the IGF rule is; you can keep entering over and over until you get a nomination, honorable mention or a win. That's it. That's it. There are games like Endlight that have been submitting to IGF every single year for a decade. No one really minds, though I think after 2-3 years your chances of winning anything drop and you instead become "hey, it's that igf perennial again! nice to see you"
