ideas stolen?

If you're really willing to keep money out of it. Then this site has all the tools you would need to have an open game project. You can simply post up any rules, images, ect. you have and encourage people to tweak and test and post their results. Then other people can choose which version they like best and tweak from there. It has the potential of producing not just one but several awesome games.

And what publisher wouldn't like a game that had no designer to pay?

And then with one of the authors goes to publish their own game, they will already have their name (along with others) on a published game.

It wouldn't be so much for the hardend pros, but it would be a good way for hobbist and upstarts to learn skills, multiply their toolbox of mechanics, and get a little name reconition in the industry.

(Plus I think it would be hilarious to have a major game design award go to "Various")

Yeah I'm with that! That sounds perfect for me.

I've played several dozen prototypes from "name" game designers and have never been asked to sign an NDA. Publishers won't even consider signing an NDA before looking at your game. Who has NDAs in this business?

The publishers absolutely have to protect themselves, and it makes perfect sense if you think about it. They receive hundreds of submissions a year, even thousands, and they may also be working on in-house designs. Then you want to send them your game for consideration, but require that it be completely protected by signing an NDA.

Let's imagine they do, and they get your game and it's a area-majority game about betting on NASCAR races. Oh crap, they've already bought an area-majority game about NASCAR races from someone and are planning to publish it next year, but now it's going to look like they stole your idea. You use your NDA and your submission as a basis for suing them. Wow, aren't they glad they signed your NDA?

Alternately, they make YOU sign a form that says that realistically they might already have a game like yours under consideration even though they've never seen your game, and that you can't sue them if they publish something similar down the line without buying yours. They're protected.

The trick of the whole thing is that very similar games are designed all the time. Games build on games, and themes build on themes. It's super-common for two people to design extremely similar games almost simultaneously if they're both avid game players and are paying attention to what's hot. It's just the reality of creativity (same thing happens in literature, film, tv, etc.).

But wait, what if they really didn't have something like that planned and use their contract to steal your idea? Well, then it would take that happening at most two times before no "big name" designer would ever send them a game again, and with the internet, the word would get around to potential buyers, too, seriously hampering their sales.

This system works fine in the hobby game design market, and games really aren't stolen.