Statement on the recent removal request and rule compliance in GBCompo events

This statement follows:

0. gbdev.io, Homebrew Hub and gbcompo events

gbdev.io is a non-profit initiative that maintains, develops, and promotes open-source tools, documentation, and digital preservation projects for the Game Boy platform. Since 2021 we also host the "gbcompo" events.

Homebrew Hub is gbdev.io's institutional repository for Game Boy homebrew, dedicated to long-term digital preservation. We use it to archive and mirror all GBCompo submissions, so that the versions entered into the competition remain available and accessible over time.

GBCompo events (2021, 2023, 2025) are game development competitions organised by gbdev.io, focused on creating new free Game Boy homebrew games. Developers submit games that are judged, showcased, and actively promoted during and after each edition. Some entries later go on to have commercial success, including paid digital releases and physical editions; while we are happy about this and actively showcase it, we do not profit from it, and this is not the focus of the competition.

GBCompo events are run on a non-profit basis under a clear, shared framework. The prize pool is funded entirely by community donations and sponsors, with organisers and judges putting in around six months of unpaid work around and during each edition. No profit is made: donated and sponsored funds are redistributed to winners, with only a small portion going back into gbdev.io’s common funds to help support future events (for example, gbcompo25's first $500 in the prize pool were contributed by gbdev.io).

All the financial statements are public on our Open Collective pages.

The competition is centred on the creation and release of free Game Boy homebrew games, with open-source releases encouraged but not required.

This information is available upfront and partecipants are reminded to read about the ruleset when they are submitting.

1. Removal of Games from Homebrew Hub

At the explicit request of 'allalonegamez' we have begun removing their games from Homebrew Hub. All copies of the relevant entries hosted on Homebrew Hub are being taken offline (subject only to delays such as DNS propagation, rebuilds, and caching). We are fully complying with their request to remove the content from our platform.

We were requested to take down a game for which the copy on Homebrew Hub was the last available online, for free. This game participated in the 'gbcompo23' competition and was awarded monetary prizes and promotion through gbdev.io channels.

2. Competition Rules and Availability of Jam Versions

Rule 20 of 'gbcompo23', the event where 'allalonegamez' game was submitted and won prizes says:

The submission must be available for free for the public (and not only the judges). Submission will be published and kept online for free on the competition website, while you are free to keep working on it (and eventually charge for it/make commercial usage).

(emphasis added)

We publish the jam submitted ROMs and keep them online for free on on gbdev's Homebrew Hub, after the competition window ends. Additional ZIP compilations are also prepared. kept online for free clearly means that the submitted jam version must remain publicly accessible after the competition, and not be taken down, delisted, or paywalled at a later date.

In practise though, we don't enforce a specific 'competition website'; any stable, accessible online location is acceptable to be considered in compliance with Rule 20. A request to take down the default mirror to satisfy the rule in other ways/places was acceptable.

We did not want to host a creator's work against their will, even if they had accepted their entry being kept online by submitting to our event, so we accepted a withdrawal scenario where 'allalonegamez' had removed every free copy of the jam version and we complied by removing ours.

The gbcompo23 entry in question was put offline by the author sometime between March and June 2024. This is a perfectly legitimate approach, as long as the jam-submitted versions of the games are kept online and available for free, somewhere, as per rules of the event they were submitted to.

3. Disqualification and Prize Eligibility

Since the author did not entertain the idea of keeping the copy anywhere else online for free, the entry is in violation of Rule 20.

Because the entry no longer complies to the event rules, they'll be disqualified from the competition. Disqualified entries are not eligible for prizes nor leaderboards.

In order to be fair to all other participants who are respecting the rules and keeping their jam-versions available, any prizes or awards previously assigned to these entries should be reassigned to eligible participants. Any mention of a refund of prizes was made solely in this context of fairness and proper redistribution.

4. No Legal action is being taken

We want to clarify that we have no intention of taking legal action or attempting to enforce a prize refund by any means. Our reference to an 'expectation of a refund' was intended purely as a matter of fairness to all parties involved in the event, not as a threat or condition, and we recognize that our wording may have come across more harshly than intended. At no point was legal action discussed or considered, and we did not withhold or delay any part of the removal requested by 'allalonegamez'.

'allalonegamez' is now offering to refund the prize and donate it to a charity. We appreciate the offer, however we are not and have never been interested in pursuing the financial matter further so we do not have a say on that. No further action will be taken in that regard. We are in any case ready to reinstate the entry in its earned position at any time, if and when it becomes compliant with the rules again.

5. Fairness to all parties involved in events

The GBCompo prize pool is funded by people who donate money under specific premises: free games will be released in the framework of the ruleset of the event. Participants also agree to abide by these rules as a condition for qualifying for prizes and promotion.

In this context, it would be unfair to continue to award exposure, promotion, and prizes to a participant who is not abiding by the rules, receiving prizes, exposure and promotion only to pull their entry offline and make them paid-only, while many other submitters – including those who did not win – continue to respect them and keep their jam-versions available.

Disqualification in such a case is necessary to uphold the expectations of all the other actors in the event, including donors, organisers and other participants.

6. Next steps

We plan to revise the wording of the rules to make this expectation clearer, explicitly indicating where entries will be kept online and using more precise language about the long-term, effectively perpetual availability of the submitted jam versions.