Rules & Policies
Global Rules
These rules, and any others listed in other sections, are assumed to be enforced at all times and for all interactions with the site, including in any user-supplied information or links to external content. Penalties for breaking the rules are determined and enacted by Game Ventures staff. Penalty severity may vary according to the severity of the infraction and staff discretion.
- Above all else, be respectful and considerate in all interactions with Game Ventures staff and users.
- Submission of explicit, unrelated, or interrupted content, including video and audio, is prohibited.
- Derogatory, inflammatory, and bigoted language is prohibited in all text submission fields within Game Ventures.
- User handles that contain swear words, slurs, offensive terms, or other similar text are not permitted. This also includes for handles of related accounts used in the submission (such as a YouTube or Twitch account handle).
- Conspiracy to defraud Game Ventures or Game Ventures users is strictly prohibited.
- User accounts must correspond to exactly one individual user. Multiple users cannot share or be represented by a single Game Ventures account.
- External webpage links are prohibited in Venture specifications and Claim notes.
- Game Ventures is the final judge for all Ventures, Claims, and enforcement actions. Users may report evidence of suspicious, malicious, or objectionable behavior, which Game Ventures will take into consideration.
Venture Rules
A Venture is an award that is put up by a user for accomplishing a specific, difficult gaming task. A Venture encompasses the goal, rules, games, and other information necessary to complete the challenge.
Ventures get added to our Venture Board for public perusal, where other users can add additional funds to the award pool. When a skilled gamer accomplishes the Venture's feat, they submit a Claim , which goes through a public verification process. Users may submit reports to Game Ventures staff for any allegations of not meeting Venture specifications, violating rules, suspicious gameplay, or otherwise. If the Claim demonstrates sufficient evidence that it meets the goal within specifications and has not been submitted deceptively, and if no further Claims have been submitted that supersede its performance, then that Claim is considered to be the winner and will receive the award pool.
Ventures must meet certain standards to allow for fairness and proper verification.
- Ventures cannot be based predominantly on luck or random chance. Player skill must be the major factor in the end performance; luck can play a part but cannot be the primary source of score or time variation.
- Every Venture must be open to everybody. Do not include restrictions against individuals or groups. For example, specifications cannot prevent users from competing based on current placement on community leaderboards.
- Arbitrary requirements and restrictions are prohibited. "Arbitrary" in this case just means any specifications that don't provide a meaningful gameplay or challenge enhancement.
- Specifications that cannot be easily verified or cannot be applied evenly are prohibited.
- Specifications cannot promote breaking any laws. This includes encouraging players to find and download illegal game copies in order to compete.
- Specifications that would require breaking or modifying hardware in order to compete are prohibited.
Gameplay Performance Rules
Game Ventures requires that all Claims follow a standard set of gameplay rules in addition to any mentioned in the Venture specifications. All below rules are assumed to be in effect unless a Venture specifically waives them.
- No hardware manipulation or interference allowed. This includes "crooked carts," power cycle corruption, external support devices, clock rate adjustments, and hardware modification. Manufacturer-enabled options for console upgrades, such as swapping out a storage element, are allowed.
- In-game cheat and debug codes are not allowed. Cheat and debug codes are defined as developer-added processes or button sequences that create an advantage, enable a feature, or produce an effect that would otherwise not be available to the player.
- Input devices used must not provide unique functions not available in original hardware. Examples of such functions may include turbo button activation, pressing simultaneous opposing directions, or activating buttons that are not typically available.
- Unless otherwise specified, all performances must be performed live at normal game operating speed, and within a single session.
- Games played must be their original or specified versions and not modified.
- Games must start from a blank save (New Game), unless the Venture goal requires otherwise. Exceptions are also made for games where it is impractical to erase a save, such as persistent system saves not tied to an individual file.
- Performances on emulator, when allowed in the Venture specifications, must be performed on an emulator that supports replay recording functionality where available. BizHawk and Dolphin are recommended for console types that they support. Emulated performances must have their replay files submitted along with the video submission in a Claim. Exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis.
Claim Rules
Users hoping to claim an award for completing a Venture must make a Claim submission to the relevant Venture. This Claim submission consists of their user handle, a video recording of their performance, proposed time or score achieved from the performance, and any user-provided notes to add further context or details to the performance. If the performance occurred on an emulator platform with replay recording functionality, the user must also submit the replay recording file.
Bounties and Hunts require video evidence of a performance to submit a Claim. However, a Claim may be invalidated if the video is not accurate and complete enough to verify the achievement. Below are a few tips to help make sure that video recordings are sufficient to meet the burden of proof that a proper Claim requires.
- Users must submit a valid Claim in order to be eligible to win the Venture award. The Claim must at least consist of video evidence of a performance but may also contain an input recording file and player performance notes.
- To be eligible to submit Claims, users must have and link a Stripe account to receive payouts. Please note that currently only users based in the United States will be able to link Stripe accounts. We are investigating other means for users outside the United States to submit Claims, but none are currently ready. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have another solution available soon.
- Claims must include video and audio of the full performance that meets the Venture specifications. Videos in which significant elements of the performance are obscured, muted, or otherwise unclear may be rejected.
- Footage should be of sufficient quality to discern all elements of gameplay for the purposes of verification. A Claim may be invalidated if the gameplay footage resolution is too small to interpret, or if video encoding artifacts obscure critical elements of the performance.
- Claim submission videos must be available during the entirety of the review period. If the video becomes muted, blocked, broken, or otherwise unavailable at any point during the review period, it may be invalidated.
- A Claim's video submission should contain just the portions where the performance occurred. Claims may be invalidated if the video submission contains excess content, including other attempts, advertisements, and extended discussion. Victory revelry is usually fine!
- Claims may be rejected if they contain any objectionable content, such as pornography, bigoted language, excessive swearing, unsportsmanlike conduct, and otherwise. Submission videos do not have to be family friendly, but we encourage players to make their submissions acceptable for a general audience.
- Game Ventures reserves the right to request or review other elements outside of the submitted Claim evidence in order to support verification efforts. These elements may include past performances, public posts and discussions, and subject matter expert opinions.
- All Claim submission videos must be original work performed by the user submitting the Claim. Nobody is permitted to submit a Claim on another's behalf. Similarly, claiming somebody else's work as your own is not tolerated and may lead to immediate disciplinary action.
- By submitting a Claim, you expressly consent to the publication and use of the video on Game Venture’s website, including the dissemination of any personal information that may be included in the video that you submitted.
- In order to reduce chargeback effects, payment of a Venture award occurs up to 30 days after verification of a Claim. Game Ventures may conduct additional verification steps and review during this period.
- Payout of Venture awards occurs via a Stripe transfer; payees are responsible for ensuring that their linked Stripe account meets all criteria for accepting Stripe transfers.
- If payout of Venture awards cannot proceed via a Stripe transfer, Game Ventures staff will attempt to communicate with the winner to resolve the issue. If the issue cannot be resolved or the winner is unresponsive after 30 days, the Venture will be closed and the award will be refunded to the contributors.
Emulator Policy
Emulators have become a prominent part of retro gaming, allowing players to enjoy backups of their retro console on a modern computing platform. However, there are many caveats to emulators that make them difficult to compare – overall accuracy relative to original hardware, alternative input schemes, advanced introspective tools, scripts, and memory modifications are often possible. Venture creators can elect not to allow Claim submissions performed on emulators to mitigate some of these comparison difficulties. But if a creator elects to allow emulators, Game Ventures provides the following policy on which emulators and aspects of emulation are valid for Venture creation and Claims.
First, a note about "official" emulators. Game Ventures considers official emulators to be any emulators that are endorsed or produced by a game's license holders. These can often include Collections – such as Mega Man Anniversary Collection – or ports to other platforms, such as official Wii Virtual Console releases. Official emulators are allowed, but it is up to the Venture creator to define which of these versions and ports are valid for their Venture. If a creator is not sure whether a version counts as an official emulator, they can ask a moderator after submitting the draft Venture for approval, or they can e-mail info@gameventures.org for an early ruling.
For all other emulators Game Ventures aims to ensure a fair and even playing field by prescribing specific emulators. These emulators need to be sufficiently accurate to compare with other players that might be on real hardware, and also provide enough assurance that a performance was performed in real-time and without tool assistance. For the latter point, Game Ventures requires that all Claim submissions that were performed on emulator also provide the complete replay file corresponding to the performance. Exceptions to this can be granted for systems that do not have emulators with replay recording ability.
For many of the most common retro systems, BizHawk is the preferred emulator, and supports replay ("movie") recording for most or all of its supported consoles. There are many versions of BizHawk, and some of the supported consoles have multiple emulation "cores" – different backend emulators that may have differing levels of accuracy and resource utilization. Game Ventures does not prescribe a particular BizHawk version or core, however the newest versions and most accurate cores are preferred. Claims may be invalidated if the performance occurred on an older version or inaccurate core such that there are significant demonstrable differences in gameplay.
Other emulators are acceptable on a case-by-case basis, up to final approval from Game Ventures moderators. These emulators and versions need to be specified in the platform notes during Venture creation. Such emulators may be for platforms not supported by BizHawk, or alternative emulators with accuracy and replay playback functionality on-par with BizHawk cores.
Additionally, there are several best practices that should be followed for the actual video recordings of emulated Claims:
- Frame count should always be displayed; this is typically a setting under “View” in the emulator menu
- Player inputs should always be displayed; also typically available in the “View” menu
- Where possible, such recordings should be performed and streamed live
- Where possible, video recordings of prior attempts or practice should also be available on the player’s Twitch or YouTube account
- It is not required to show the process of saving the movie file, but is encouraged where possible
- Save states should not be used at any time - even for quick resets from frame 0
While emulators are valid for some Ventures, note that Game Ventures does not promote piracy, copyright violations, or circumvention of security measures for Venture or Claim submissions. Players should ensure that they are following all applicable local laws when creating a performance.
Fee Schedule
Game Ventures takes on a number of responsibilities and obligations in its role as a marketplace and trusted intermediary. Payment processing fees, legal fees, operational costs, and funding for future development all need to be accounted for to provide the best products and service possible. No fees are assessed by Game Ventures on distributed awards to Venture winners, however in some cases the payment processor may require a small additional fee for payouts. The fee schedule is described below.
Bounty Creation | $2 + 8% of principal |
---|---|
Bounty Contribution | $2 + 8% of principal |
Bounty Continue | Greater of $2 or 2% of principal |
Hunt Creation | $2 + 8% of principal |
Hunt Contribution | $2 + 8% of principal |
Hunt Continue | Greater of $2 or 2% of principal |
Contributions ≥ $1000 | Contact sales@gameventures.org for special pricing |
Some payout scenarios may necessitate further fees taken directly by our payment processor. In particular, payouts to Venture winners may incur a 0.25% fee. Some payouts to winners outside of the United States may also incur currency conversion fees, which can be 1-2%. These types of fees are associated with financial transactions, and Game Ventures does not control or benefit from them.