The International isn’t the only thing shifting dates in the Dota 2 world this year, with the TI10 Short Film Contest entries now extended until September 12th. But not everyone is happy about the new submission deadline.
The TI10 Dota 2 Short Film Contest was set to close its doors to entries on July 25th. However, a last minute (or after the last minute in this case) change will mean that entries will be able to be submitted for an additional month and a half. The change in schedule was confirmed on the official Dota 2 Twitter, and with accompanying blog post.
The change in deadline, announced three days after the original deadline for the film contest of July 25th. The official explanation for extension of the deadline relates to the postponement of TI10.
In the linked blogpost, Valve explains that “With The International moving to October in Bucharest, there is more time available than originally expected, so we've decided to re-open submissions for the Short Film Contest until September 12th. Creators can continue to perfect their current submissions or even submit new ones.”
Unfair to Short Film Creators?
To some, the extension will come as a relief. However, news of the deadline change is a slap in the face to creators who toiled to get their entries in ontime. What’s more, many speculate that the reasons behind the extension have nothing to do with the TI rescheduling. Instead, some point to a relatively small number of entries. There were just 43 in total at the close of the original deadline, less than in previous years.
Additionally, issues with voting for submitted films have plagued current entries. Users have complained of an inability to vote for videos on browsers outside of the Steam application. There's also a level of difficulty in simply finding videos on Steam itself. It is also very hard to navigate and view all the entries outside of a compiled reddit thread, which also has had difficulty finding each entry's voting link.
These factors, combined with the extension, has led to unrest in the filmmaking and wider community.
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Maxime “MaxOfS2D” Lebled, winner of the TI7 Short Film contest, and multiple time entrant and finalist, shared his opinion. He weighed in on the situation in a now deleted tweet. “Can't help but feel that it's a little... inconsiderate to extend a deadline by a month, 3 days after it has already passed by” he wrote. He echoed this sentiment in a later post on Reddit. His entry for this year, Carried Away, was submitted ready for the original deadline.
Much of the sentiment around the extension to the short film contest is that it’s ‘par for the course.’ However, issues like these continue to contribute to a wider disappointment within the Dota 2 community.
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