Thoughts on the new Webtoon Contest?

[Nachi]

You have a point here. I have no idea about how they are going to judge that. Maybe I am just hoping I just wrote about what I read on the contest rules. Never there was mentioned the popularity that we can see on the app.
Another possibility, apart from what you've mentioned, would be them giving certain number of point lets say per 100, then per 1000 and per 10000 subs, so the numbers aren't linear. Or something like that for the likes. Although I agree it is not very likely. Then again, it is strange as some people took their already existing following, some were promoted, some were not. It may just not be taken into account and taken as a good luck of those people. Honestly, I have no idea.
But I still think it is not their purpose to let only the already famous authors win (and I suppose the most popular are basically already established authors on webtoon). I think it is not really what they want, either. Maybe they can substract some point from them, but how about the promoted ones? Really, no idea Maybe the audience engagement will be rather abstract, idk.
As for the criteria the judges will use - certain points for pacing, genre specific stuff etc. they were written quite clearly, which the audience engagement wasn't. Maybe the way of judging that wasn't even decided clearly fromt he beginning of the contest. I am just really curious how they go about it as it is no easy matter

[Nachi]

Or! If really audience "engagement" is going to be judged, points may be awarded for the number of comments and likes given on average per chapter relative to the number of subscribers There are many ways! And this one might actually be quite fair

[Edgmont]

It's Line, it's not gonna be fair xD. And everybody knows that since they started to pick contest entries to be promoted instead focusing just on non contest ones.

[Nachi]

It is true it is hard to achieve fairness in a contest where there are so many variables. There will always be something unfair, I guess. Ultimately it is LINE's contest so they will pick up what they like, probably, which is the way it should be So I still have faith! (not that I'd win or anything, but in the relative fairness of the contest)

Still, I can't wait to see who the winners will be!

EDIT: While it is true that promoting contest entries is unfair, if you take it as a part of the judging process - stating their preferences already, it doesn't seem that bad, since it battles a little against the re-uploaded series' popularity for example. The judging should have been after September 13th, true, but I would also prefer if the criteria was based on what the staff things instead of popularity, so I find this not that bad, if they really went through all the entries.
...relatively

[Emevsa]

In some ways I feel sorry for the judges. Even after all the comics who didn't qualify are removed that's still thousands of comics to go through. And they have such a short turn around time too! I imagine whatever metric they come up with for measuring engagement is intended to help them narrow down entries that they will them judge further.

I can understand their motivations for doing so but there may be some entries that are short changed purely due to lack of exposure if this is the approach they take.

[AllisonGal]

I don't know why anyone would think webtoon would take days to go through thousands of entries. if 40% of the score is the popularity, the choice of winners is automatically narrowed down to the top 5 entries in each category, then it's pretty obvious they'll look no further than page 1. They already know most of the winners anyway and to pick the rest wil only take them a few minutes. They' aren't having a hard long time going through everything. They're never gonna say the truth as it is, they might lie just to look fair and professional.

[CallMeMattheww]

Oh My God how did I not see that..., the numbers really do add up cuz the rest of the score (60%) comes from storytelling, art and pacing but since pretty much all of us who entered are amateurs we probably wont get anything past 20% but the other 40% doesn't actually rely on skill but more on traffic and so only the top 5 most popular in each category actually stand a chance of winning

Huff......now i really feel de-motivated like really what was the point of entering.........

[Nachi]

I don't think it would be like that. There are over 6000 different entries. Although there may not be many professionals, there are no doubt quite a few people with experience. And it could be something like the "soft selection" where the best piece gets something close to 100, the worst something around 0. What would be the point of setting a scale of 100 points if they were going to use no more than 30 for example?

Don't feel down about entering, you did a good job if you finished all the chapters needed! And it was clear from the start that the chances of winning will be reaaaally tiny.
I think it was an amazing experience and a push for me personally and definitely an opportunity to try and learn stuff. I finally started my own comic and I am going to continue it

Although the winners are probably already determined and should have been already contacted, I am looking forward to seeing the results! I can't wait. It was such a huge contest after all!

[beta1042]

well results are out!

https://www.webtoons.com/en/contest2018

Screen shot for the lazy

[akiocha]

ok I know this comment is gonna piss people off but:

I laugh at all the people who kept complaining about webtoons ONLY choosing via popularity. (in good nature though, i'm laughing at the irony of the situation not at you guys)

cause like this feels like an "in your face" from webtoons XD

[fleohr]

That's what I called a plot twist o__O

[beta1042]

I definitely thought there would be "underdogs" but I didn't think majority would be XD

[Zushi]

Actually I am not too surprised by the outcome and here is why.
This outcome massively benefits Line from a financial business standpoint. By choosing only one extremely popular series to be a winner and the rest as not very well known, they have made a pool of featured creators where if they do accept the offer, they will not have to pay them any more than they want to. The creator they will most likely pay the most is for Lalin's curse as it is popular in discover, but since it's a supernatural genre, it won't be as expensive as the romance series which tend to get more traffic in general.
If you notice, most of the other popular contenders are in honorable mention. I believe this is intentional as by doing so ( not only to slightly calm the rage from fans who believe their comic should have won) but also because they will increase traffic in discover and earn money from their ad revenue. They will not have to pay these artists a 2k baseline + bonuses. All they need to do is give them 50% of the ad revenue they generated and a little bonus extra from the ad revenue fund. In short, these popular discover comics are much better off in the discover section for Line so they can make money off of them.
Think of it this way, if Line were to feature 8 hugely popular series, they are looking upwards to a cost of paying $50,000 each a year(I estimated this was quim's earnings around 1.5 years ago as she told me she quit her job as a nurse and it makes just as much as a nurse would or more) That would be an extra spending of upwards 400k a year. That is a lot of money to pay to creators considering they are already planning to give away 100k.
In conclusion for those of you who said the contest was meant to be a huge business boost and anchor for Webtoon's ad program, you are most likely right. But anyways, congrats to the winners!.

[seru]

You are spot on. That's what I was thinking when I saw the results.

@Haku congrats!

[akiocha]

totally agree with you @zushi and I definitely agree with your conclusions.

also, congrats to @Haku !!

However, I also hope that.... certain people... won't just twist this into another, "webtoons sucks because "this", "this" and "that". Since I sometimes feel like no matter what webtoons does on this forum, there's something wrong XD (but i agree that there are major problems tho, pls don't bring out the pitch forks ;-; , i'm just trying to be balanced)

I can't help feeling like this whole thread had a lot of negativity in it and i'm hoping this is a good sign that contests in the future are going to be more fair

[jelly]

"This behavior is natural in dogs. They cover up their "waste" so that an enemy does not find them, from the scent of the poop or pee. It is an instinct handed down from wolves, who hid their scent by covering up their feces in leaves, sticks, soil, or other nearby natural materials".

I read this while googling about dogs and it reminded of LW. I know they made a mess but trying to cover it up by excluding PH in the winners list is ridiculous.

[scythe]

Yes I too have been chuckling along as everyone was SO SURE that the results were already decided before the contest began. Congrats to the finalists, I hope this means big things for them moving forward.

[AllisonGal]

I'm not surprised at all by the results. I knew they were going to pull something like this to hide their hypocrisy. No offense to the authors on the winning list but the ones they really wanted on the list was Lalin's curse and cape of spirits, the rest is just to cover up and save their face. Purple Hyacinth will probably get featured in months to come because that's the comic they really wanted but couldn't make the winner because of all the critics from everyone.

The most feels winners? No offense to the winners but if 40% was popularity how did they even beat the top 6 in the category? Webtoon rant a lot about strong plot and strong characters but these 2 winners' plot aren't extraordinary but pretty average, How did they get enough points in strong plot and strong characters that can beat the rest to the top? there was lots of other comics with bigger popularity and more intriguing plot and stronger characters. But I guess all the numbers and score webtoon were suppose to use to judge this contest were only bullshit as none of it made sense.

Webtoon thought they did: IN YOUR FACE to everyone with this winner list but I think this ridicules them even more, it only shows how dumb this contest really was that webtoon can't even abide by their own criteria, This whole contest and the judging looks like it's done by 5 years old with no criteria or base for judging. Total bullshit.

[soapcahtoa]

[seru]

@akiocha Yeah, people will complain about anything and everything.

@jelly Yeah 40% audience engagement was a joke.

@AllisonGal That's capitalism for you. @Zushi pretty much summarized my own conclusion about this. The contest is nothing more than a cheap marketing ploy of Webtoons to drive traffic to their site and to pay less to creators.

@sohcahtoa I really like your comic entry!