Is it my imagination or are all the mapping and modding competitions missing Single Player maps? Valve have recently run their Deathmatch Map Contest with a $5,000 first prize. And of course there was the Make Something Unreal contest, but that didn’t feature a special SP section.

I accept that Single Player maps and mods generally take longer than a simple DM map but that shouldn’t mean there are no competitions. I would love to run a competition here at PP but giving a worthwhile prize costs money, something I simply don’t have at the moment. It should not be fan sites that have to do these things, the publishers and developers should do it.

You could argue that map makers shouldn’t need a competition as motivation and I would agree with you but competition creates a different kind of motivation. It has different pressures from a normal creative process, there are time pressures for example. Another point you could argue is that CTF and Domination maps don’t get a separate competitions, but I would counter that with the idea that Single Player maps are completely different genre and often have a separate player base.

So I respectfully request call on Valve Software and Epic Games to create a special Single Player Map and Mod competition for the benefit of the gaming community.