Hey guys, this is no marketing and I'll not mention the title.

I’m a solo game developer and I will soon release my first game after a few years of development in my free time. The game is a roguelike top down shooter with twitch gameplay, precise player input and requires a lot of skill to master. I love watching speed runs, so I’ve implemented a lot of features to support this kind of endeavor.

The game will release soon and I’m thinking about doing a promotion with a speed running contest. My marketing guy tells me not to do that, due to the legal implications of giving any kind of price money or gifts for the winners.

Regardless, I would like to know from you, what incentive would you need, in order to participate in a speed running contest considering the game would interest you? In general do you find such stuff appealing or does it seem sleazy to you? If you ever participated in such a contest before, do you have any recommendations on how to pull that off and through which platform?

Thanks!