For tournament support, see: Official tournament support.
Beatmapping contests are eligible to receive support from the osu! team provided they meet certain criteria.
For other contests, email us at tournaments@ppy.sh. We'll try to work something out.
This article was last updated on April 9, 2024. For the full changelog, check out the beatmapping contest support updates thread. For any queries or clarifications, please consult the #tournaments channel in the osu! Discord server or send an email to the account support team via tournaments@ppy.sh.
Officially supported contests have access to certain benefits:
Progress towards Elite Mapper user title. See
contest points for more details.
Contests which abide by the following criteria are eligible for official support for profile badges:
The contest must meet either of these criteria:
The contest is organised and run by an experienced team of accomplished and reputable staff, as decided by the osu! team.
The contest has successfully run for one iteration without official support.
The contest must have a clearly defined set of rules.
The contest must accept submissions for only one game mode. Most users specialise in one game mode, so it is not reliable to evaluate mapping quality across multiple game modes.
For solo osu! contests, there should be at least 15 valid submissions.
For solo osu!taiko, osu!catch, or osu!mania contests, there should be at least 10 valid submissions.
For team contests, participation will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis depending on team sizes, creative requirements, and total valid submissions. As a rule of thumb, aim for at least 20 participants and 10 valid submissions.
The contest must have a clearly defined judging criteria based on mapping merit. These ensure a contest follows an understandable quality standard in line with other mapping contests.
The contest's results must be determined by valuing scores from all judges equally. Using standard deviation to determine final scores is preferred but not required.
The contest's results must be publicly displayed with judge scores/comments visible. The judges may be anonymised publicly, but the osu! team may ask for un-anonymised judge details if necessary.
The contest must have at least 4 judges. Contests with fewer judges allow each judge too much influence on overall results.
A user cannot participate in more than one submission to the contest.
Submissions to the contest should be anonymised. This limits judging bias removing name association between a mapper and their map. This rule may be ignored only if a contest has special circumstances that warrant removing anonymity.
The contest's organisers must not participate in the contest. This includes both submitting a map and judging/screening submissions. Anyone with access to judging/screening information or un-anonymised submissions is considered a "contest organiser".
In addition to the criteria above, contests which abide by these rules are eligible for official support for contest points to earn the Elite Mapper user title:
The contest must exclusively use songs listed in osu!'s Featured Artist library or other songs explicitly permitted for use in osu!.
The contest's initial announcement must be published on osu!'s front page news and the contest listing. For credibility of the
Elite Mapper title, a contest must have maximum visibility.
If your contest satisfies the eligibility criteria, you can make a request for support by sending an email to tournaments@ppy.sh with the following information:
A brief description of your contest, including any applicable dates, game modes, and any other appropriate features
A list of all organisers and staff involved in the contest and their respective roles
Any links to:
The contest's results
The forum thread for your contest.
Public Discord servers or any other off-site chatrooms used for the contest.
Previous iterations of the same contest series (if applicable).
Once we receive your request, the osu! team will send an approval or denial of your contest's official support status.
The osu! team may choose to deny official support to any contest that fits the eligibility criteria at their discretion. This ensures no foul play occurs by contest organisers taking advantage of criteria loopholes, so if you are running a contest without ill intent, you likely do not need to worry about this.
If approved, you will need to submit the following:
In exceptionally rare cases, a contest may be granted the privilege of awarding badges to its top three finalists. A contest that has received this distinction is recognised for attaining the highest level of production quality and organisation possible — this is given exclusively at the discretion of the osu! team. Hosts will be contacted directly if applicable.