If I were an artist capable of such work . My brother in-law is and does fantasy novels/comics etc but he does  not play video games. I would be very proud to have on my resume that my work could be viewed in this game

I think that would go a long way in any resume application. I believe this is worth something of value

As my brother in-law is a free lance artist who struggles to find a financial backer to his work.

I am no expert on this topic or how free lance artists should go about such struggles to display their work, but I just cannot help to think having your work displayed  in a very successful MMO would definitely put a feather  in their hat and  open doors they so desperately need  opened

Thats  my uneducated  opinion on matters I know very little of

I had actually considered this fact and asked 2 of my friends who do free-lance style work, one being a photographer, however, what they thought about it opening doors.

I'm unsure if the artists would even get recognition.  As someone who works for an institute that conducts research and develops medications, pretty much every member of the teams of creators gets little, to almost always no recognition.  Just the institution.

We were in agreeance that this is likely to happen with this case as well.  Furthermore, this still speaks to the volumes of people who don't "win", but are still going to have their content taken and used in further applications of character development.

Overall, not one of my friends who produces any sort of artistic work, including us poets and other various styles of wordsmiths, found that this contest was fair to its entrants. Rather, we found it as the title says.  Insulting at best.

There's a reason for the term 'starving artist.'  As a semi-professional nature photographer I've won hundreds of photography contests without ever recieving a dime, only recognition.  The contests that have paid a bit are gravy.

You have literally 100's of 1000's of artists trying to win a dozen or so prizes!

I don't know which side of the road you're standing on with this statement. However I do feel it's extremely supportive of what I'm saying, and it's not a good thing that it's so easily recognized or that people are so willing to sell themselves so short.

No way, Art, in no way could it be so under valued....

The point of this competition is literally a free get some rewards for helping, but I don't think that they'd take advantage of people.....

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say.

You can't depreciate art...