Given the struggle it can be, in this day and age, to be noticed in the mobile market, whether it be the App Store or Google Play, Google’s latest effort to assist aspiring indie developers is pretty darn neat. There are a few caveats, though: you must have published a game on Google Play this year, have 15 or fewer full-time employees, and… Europe. But even so, still a very groovy initiative.
Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK (excl. Northern Ireland). Yup. Gotta be in one of those countries (hence, ‘Europe’) to be eligible. I’m sure Google will do something similar for the U.S. – or, you know, the rest of the world – at some point, but for now, this is it.
Oh, and you only have until December 31st to enter the contest. A contest featuring some rather useful promotion-y awards, including having your game showcased at the Saatchi Gallery in London (16th February 2017) and premium placements on Google Play. Tickets to Google I/O 2017 and Google Cloud credits are also up for grabs, if, for some reason, free promotion for your project isn’t appealing enough. Some very odd reasons.
Finalists – twenty in total – will be picked based on “level of innovation, fun, design excellence, and technical & production quality”. That number will then be trimmed to ten by a mix of Saatchi Gallery attendees and the Google Play team; a solid choice, and one that should help provide a proper mix of opinions, really. We’ll see. Oh, and following that, it’s time for said ten to pitch their creation to a jury consisting of so-called industry experts. Best of luck to all participants.
(Source)