Sonic Hacking Contest 2015 Delayed To October

Deja vu has struck. And for the same reason.

Unfortunately the 2015 Sonic Hacking Contest has been delayed another month. The deadline to send in your submissions is now October 4th. The deadline to update them is October 11th. Contest Week, the period where all the streaming and showcasing happens along with winners being awarded, is now happening from October 19th to 25th.

The reason given is just as before: sorting out the website has been difficult with preoccupations with work getting in the way. The SHC staff explained why this has been causing the delay:

The whole point of this site (which Cinossu wanted to do) was to improve it over the last website, offer more functionality and also make it more reliable as there have been times when the site went down due to issues. From what I saw with the in-progress site, it’s looking really good and it’s certainly a lot better to work with than the last site, it’s just that the guy’s been busy with his own work where he does web development for a living. That I can understand, things can get in the way of things. It’s just unfortunate when there’s no progress updates at all, or any messages being left to say that there’s been an issue that’s going to delay the site again. I’m not mad at him, I can understand how things happen, it’s just when we’re two weeks away from the revised once-again deadline and there’s nothing then it just means we have to increase the deadline once again and make sure everything is done and ready to go. I want at least a month of the site being open to the deadlines concerned.

The problem with extending the deadlines are that we have the media side of things, we have these streamers and YouTube favourites who are willing to help out with the contest, but when the dates change and other shit is already going to happen, then that means we lose those vital people – one of the biggest changes and benefits over the contest years ago was the community interaction instead of it just being a closed shop environment plus the fact that everything was being done on time and people could trust the dates given for when they’d get the results. Now I think we’re just letting everyone down, from the people who submit to the normal players and even any staff member of the contest. Like I said, I’m not blaming Cinossu for anything, it’s just the obvious lack of communication here is causing things to be delayed even further. Obviously something has got in the way and to that, there’s not much that can be done at the moment. This is just a community event for fun, nobody’s getting paid to do this shit or anything.

It’s not something I want to do, but it’s certainly something that I just have to. Next year is going to be without all these issues, especially when this site is going to be built to last essentially. Obviously if you’re submitting or plan to, then certainly you’ll like the extra time, but there will be people who just want this to be over and done with so they can see if their hacks are worth it.

When the contest happens we’ll be providing you week-long coverage of the event. Until then if you’re going to enter the contest and have an entry you wish to submit, you have some more time.

This post was originally written by the author for TSSZ News.