Wow, I didn't expect the results to be up so soon today! Congrats to all the winners!
But seriously guys, it seems some of you won't get content no matter what. It wasn't only the popular entries that won, which would be bad, and this is apparently bad, too? So you try to think up some bad intentions Webtoon had from the start? And be borderline rude about the underdog winners you basically originally wished would have gotten a chance? What the heck? I honestly hoped for more support between the authors. I think Webtoon did just what they stated. They read through the entries, picked their favs and judged the audience engagement in a way that wasn't clearly specified from the beginning. This is the result I thought we'd get and hoped we'd get. There is no point in being angry and so on now, it won't help anything. If you hate webtoon that much, don't post there.
And just as I thought, the popularity scale wasn't the same as audience engagement I am quite happy about that, too. (Hahaha, I told you so!)
I think the problem right now, is you have a lot of people who put a lot of time, energy, sweat into making updates and self promotion, thinking they knew the judging criterion, and then the results show that perhaps the criteria for judging was not correct. You also have people who gave up because they thought that popularity played a large role.
Honestly, everyone participating put a lot of work into updates and the self-promotion definitely helped. If someone thought being the most popular is automatic win, they didn't read the rules properly... And even so, those who did achieve a good audience base can continue and monetize their comic through patreon, the ads or whatever.
Those who give up, well, they gave up, their decision. I don't think there is a problem with LINE, but that they didn't have enough confidence and interpreted the rules in a wrong way or counted the chances of winning were really small.
Personally, I am happy for the winners, I was prepared I would not win and I expected it, so I am not really surprised or depressed about it, since I don't depend on it to make a living. I already started setting up my Patreon page and will try to continue my comic since I feel good about it still