Does Paizo hold contests, with a publication as a prize?

[JiCi]

"Hey, we're holding a contest! Please submit your best creations as we are looking for the most creative PC race, aberration, outsider, dragon, ooze, undead, magical beast or construct! The winner will have his or her own creation drawn by [this artist] and published in our upcoming Bestiary or Adventure Path!"

Y'know these kinds of contest.

1) Is it something that Paizo could do?

2) Does it sound like a good idea ^_^ ?

I don't know, you guys at Paizo could hold an annual contest or something.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Look up a little thing called RPG Superstar ;-)

[Chris Self]

No need to look it up, it's right here: http://paizo.com/rpgsuperstar.

[JiCi]

I see... sounds more complicated than I thought...

To win, you have to make an item, then an archetype, then a monster, then an encounter, and finally a module... Yikes, talk about extra work. Sure I could enter such a contest, but I would need to polish all of those aspects to the extreme.

[Kajehase]

I think that's the idea.

[Marc Radle]

That's kind of the point ...

There is also this going on right now
Monarch of the Monsters 4: Enter the Arena!

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

Yeah, the point of Superstar is less to get some cool fansourced content, and more to cultivate writing talent Paizo can draw on in an official capacity in the future.

The real prize isn't writing a module, its getting into Paizo's pool of go-to freelancers.

[Mudfoot]

Which kinda means that unless you need a job, you need to consider carefully whether you want to win it. It struck me that for the last couple of rounds you couldn't expect to win if you already had a job (any job) because you simply wouldn't have time to write the stuff, regardless of the quality of your ideas.

[Cheapy]

The last two don't really change. Start working on your ideas now!

[JiCi]

@ everyone with the "that's the idea" statement

I'm not very familiar with the contest... at all. I just thought it was a regular contest with you submitting something and boom you win, not an actual competition.

[Adam Daigle]

Mudfoot wrote:

Which kinda means that unless you need a job, you need to consider carefully whether you want to win it. It struck me that for the last couple of rounds you couldn't expect to win if you already had a job (any job) because you simply wouldn't have time to write the stuff, regardless of the quality of your ideas.

That's not entirely true. I'm pretty sure each of the previous winners had day jobs at the time. Heck, almost 90% of the freelancers writing material for Pathfinder have day jobs. There's plenty of time to do the writing, but you certainly have to make a commitment. Writing game material is fun, mostly rewarding, AND a lot of work.

[Here4daFreeSwag]

You could kinda think of it as a contest, but with a learning curve plus audience participation too...