I'm putting it here because I feel like this is where I'll get the least amount of reach, and I'd prefer that. Wanna stay away from the cryptobros. I also don't place any blame on itch, I've already contacted their support (which is probably swamped.) This company did the same thing last year, and itch support confirmed with me they would have removed the feature if they were informed sooner. I informed them about a month ago - no response. This is my second attempt.
This is itch.io's jam page. It's where you can see all the current and upcoming jams. Look at the last one - Gamedev.js Jam 2024. We're gonna be talking about this one. By golly, are we gonna be talking about it. Let's go over and see what the jam is all about.
Hm. Not bad. Make web games, win prizes. Fair enough. Neat idea. Love promoting web development. There's partners, challenges, and prizes. Unfortunately, the challenges and prizes are still to be announced. I wonder why! (Foreshadowing~!) Okay, well, no matter. Let's look at their partners. Their silver sponsor is yet to be announced. Their gold partner is GitHub. Makes sense. Their platinum partner is... OP Games? Who? Let's look at their website.
The... the future of... Web3 gaming... not a good sign. But okay. Benefit of the doubt. Let's say they're just doing some experimental stuff. No biggie. Let's scroll do- oh no.
OH GOD. NO. The dreaded three letters... NFTs. My worst enemies! Sigh. Okay. So the platinum sponsor is a Web3 games platform that turns games into NFTs. Not... inspiring, to say the least. Okay. Ahem. You know what? Let's go back to the company hosting this jam - Enclave Games. They have some bronze partners listed. Not good enough to be on the jam page itself. Whatever. We have... JS13K Games; they say they're owned by Enclave. Sure. We also have... Web3 Gamedev School. Empty website, says to follow their Twitter. Sure. Who are they following, by the way?
It's... it's all Enclave Games...? No. Don't tell me. Is Web3 Gamedev School also owned by Enclave!? So that would mean... Enclave is running a jam that has a platinum sponsor of a company that turns games into NFTs and promotes other Web3 technologies, and Enclave also owns a company titled "Web3 Gamedev School"? Oh. Okay. So. This jam is definitely gonna be Web3 shit. Fuck!
The best part? They pulled this shit last year, too. Gamedev.JS 2023 came around and had challenges and prizes full of crypto and NFTs. As stated before, itch had informed me they would have removed the feature from the jam if they were aware of it. Enclave did not show any of their crypto challenges or prizes before the jam launched - because they knew itch would have never allowed it. Well, all signs point to them doing the same this year.
Itch's support is busy, I get that. But the jam starts in a little over a month. The least I can do is make others aware of the shitstorm this jam is trying to do, so they don't fall for the same trap I did and sign up for it. And it looks like they'll be doing the same. Every. Year.
EDIT: I've been encouraged to put a call-to-action here, so put it I shall. I encourage anyone with any sort of reach outside of cohost to share this, if you're willing to. I do ask that you block out my name if you do, though. This is something I feel more people should know about, but I do not have enough reach anywhere else to justify possible harassment from cryptobros.
