I agree with Dark Coder. Also, what the judges see is gameplay, art, and so on. I've seen some compos (like Alenware) where the winning games weren't nearly as fun as some of the lower scored games, though media is criteria to jugde by, and it should be judged. Coding is important so that you can realize whatever game you want to make. If you're great at coding but can't think of good gameply, replay, story, or artwork, and can't get good music, no way should you win, you've done poorly in the most of the important areas of gaming. So stop complaining. This IS a forum, and you don't need a team to request artwork and models, there are plenty of artists here who seem happy to help someone in need.
I am never interested in competitions comparing coding skills, because I either don't care to learn how to code it (as in I'm learning something else at the moment), or know I code slowly and wouldn't be able to compete. I want to make something judged the way a game is judged, by how good the game is, and part of that is media. And there are ways of getting around needing good media, and Dark Coder is right to say that a retro compo is the least determined by media. The last retro compo (and puzzle compo also), were NOT determined by media, but by the best game. It was pretty clear the winners deserved to win. I can't say about the Nvidia compo, as I didn't get to play much more than the winning games. I can say they were very good though, and both had a ton of effort put into them.
As to retro, yeah, it's pretty outdated. But it works as a theme, especially if you can make a game in a retro style rather than remaking a game. Honestly I'd love to make a retro style game, using my own stuff. That would be fun and pretty original, I think. I could use just a few modern game devices to make it interesting...
