The title is basically my question.
I've noticed there are heaps of game jams being hosted, but the majority of them seem to end up with only a small number of participants.
Is it just the time of year? Are people too busy to join smaller jams? Do people just prefer staying in their comfort zone and entering the same familiar events? Or is there some trend I'm completely missing?
I come across plenty of jams that genuinely spark my interest, yet they still seem relatively empty.
Then there are the giant jams on itch.io. They always seem to be marked as important, featured on the front page, and attract thousands of entries.
Is that because itch.io benefits from the traffic those jams bring? Are featured jams hand-picked by the site, or is there another system behind it?
What confuses me is that I've seen smaller jam pages with an incredible amount of effort put into them great presentation, clear rules, thoughtful themes yet they struggle to gain traction. Meanwhile, some of the bigger jams seem to throw up a single image, offer no prizes, and still receive thousands of submissions. ( Even though the themes are generic as hell, weather that is on a voting system in discord, a random selection of peoples suggested themes. They are boring and plain. )
I'm not complaining, I genuinely want to understand how it works. Is it purely reputation and momentum, is there a seasonal pattern to participation, or are there other factors that determine whether a jam succeeds?