Microsoft and Unity entice devs to port their games to the Windows Store with $100,000 Contest

In an effort to boost the number of apps in the Windows Store Microsoft and Unity are running a contest offering $100,000 as the grand prize to developers who bring their games to the UWP Windows Store.

The catch is that the prize is in advertising support, suggesting instead of giving developers money Microsoft will promote their game to the 400 million Windows 10 users (which presumably will still lead to improved earnings in some way).

As a consolation Microsoft will be giving the first 25 developers who take the challenge $5,000 in cash, but once again there is a catch. The contest is only open to developers who have an app with more than 10,000 downloads either on Google Play Store, Apple App Store or on Steam, and the same app needs to be ported. This proviso is probably a very good idea, and should prevent the worst crApps from taking advantage of the contest.

The prizes are as follows:

EARLY ENTRY
First 25 developers to submit to Step 2 will win $5,000 Cash Prize

TOP PRIZES
Create immediate success for your game on the Windows Store!
1st prize $100,000 Ad spend APP INSTALL CAMPAIGN
2nd prize $50,000 Ad spend APP INSTALL CAMPAIGN
3rd Prize $25,000 Ad spend APP INSTALL CAMPAIGN

SECONDARY PRIZES
10 Honorable mentions with be awarded one year Unity Pro subscription Licenses.

The contest runs from Nov 1st to Feb 28th with winners announced on May 15th, 2017. Read the rules of the challenge at Unity here.