Update: The competition deadline date is September 25, from which point we will judge the entries. Winners will be announced shortly after.

To celebrate the growing popularity of our dual-purpose GamerCards, we’re launching a competition in which community members can submit their own card skins for a shot at inclusion on the site. And did we mention prizes?

We’ll choose three skins from the pool of submissions. In addition to having their design featured on eXophase, each winner will be awarded three games of their choosing from the list below. First dibs will be given to the grand prize winner, followed by second and third place.

BioShock 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, Left 4 Dead 2, Shatter, Half Life 2, Half Life 2: EP1 Indigo Prophecy, Thief, Team Fortress 2

Designs used that aren’t ranked in the top three can opt for having their site’s URL or Twitter feed displayed in our skin selection dropdown box.

All of the aforementioned titles are playable via Steam on PC. We’ve also drafted up a set of guidelines to simplify the process of creating a compatible card. Following these are a requirement  to win. Additionally, please submit designs on our forums in the official competition thread. Hit the break for the full lowdown on rules.

* Each service must be able to fit on both sides of your card.

* You must place the text “eXophase.com GamerCard” somewhere on the image.
* Any font is allowed
* Avatars can have a max size of 60×60
* You can use a max of 5 recent games images for Xbox Live and PSN, max of 3 for Steam.
* Game images can be resized whatever way you want (try to stay as close to the original aspect ratio as possible) but _cannot_ be cropped.

Here are a few sample images that show the game image size for each service:

Live 64×64
http://i.imgur.com/xdYqv.jpg

PSN 320×176 (almost always have transparent backgrounds)
http://i.imgur.com/Ft5eN.png

Steam: 184×69
http://i.imgur.com/KzXWm.jpg

The rep images for live should be given in two images, one where all the stars are empty and another where all of them are full:
http://i.imgur.com/O7e3z.png
http://i.imgur.com/FbOc7.png

All the information that can be included for each service is shown in these two gamercards:

Live:
http://gamercards.exophase.com/4796.png

PSN:
http://gamercards.exophase.com/4795.png

Steam:
http://gamercards.exophase.com/4794.png

The text preceding information (Zone:, Level:, etc.) can be changed to whatever you want

Here are the PSN trophy images if needed:
http://i.imgur.com/cc9Bal.png
http://i.imgur.com/zL5M0.png
http://i.imgur.com/4zJuQ.png
http://i.imgur.com/RN019.png

Two categories:

Normal
__________
Max size: 475×160
Must contain at least 3 recent game images for Live/PSN and 2 for Steam.

Compact
__________
Max size: 200×140
Must contain at least 1 recent game image

Good luck!