From the Unite09 rules:
“Games must have been completed or published after September 1st, 2008.”
What does this mean? I guess the year is wrong, but what does it actually mean, even if the date would be correct?
Does this mean you need to have the game completely finished before entering Unite09?
I guess it means, you can’t join the competition with an older game, it must be 1 year old at most.
The date isn’t wrong. It’s stating that you can’t submit a game you finished prior to Unity08.
The timeline on the Unity09 Awards page states:
September 21st - Last day to submit/post a beta build
October 5th - Last day to submit your final build
Like most game competitions, you’re not submitting a half-done product. A completed game would be that ‘final build’.
Aaaahh… sorry my bad, I read it as “before” instead of “after”.
Of course you don’t enter a half-done game as the final build, but I suspect most of the entrants will polish/develop/QA their games up to the final build date.
Thanks.
So we can’t submit an early version of the game? Last year’s winner “Feist” wasn’t finished was it?
Well, I don’t want to make assumptions. There isn’t anything which says you have to submit a finished game. There are two submissions, one is a beta (optional) and one is the final (on which you will be judged).
Feist maybe wasn’t finished, but maybe it was complete enough.
So, you could submit an almost-complete game, as long as you think it’ll be stable-enough to be played/evaluated.
(A) Showcase is a forum section to showcase content you’re making, not to ask procedural questions about the Unity Awards nor to ask general questions about Unite, etc. This is Gossip material so I’m going to move this thread when done posting my reply. If you want to ask questions about the Unity Awards then perhaps you might consider replying in the announcement thread where folks generally look for Q&A, follow-up information, etc.?
Announcing the 2009 Unity Awards
Thanks for understanding as this helps keep the forums running smoothly and keeps information in one place where folks can easily find it. 
(B) The date, Sept. 1, 2008, is not wrong. The contest is for games made/published in the last year or so. That date coincides with last year’s final build submission date. So essentially your game cannot have been published more than a year ago, if it was then it’s not eligible for the '09 Unity Awards. Think of this like the Academy Awards, it’s about honoring the last year’s great works, not works from ages ago.
(C) Nothing says your game must be 100% final and done. If it’s not complete then you have to understand that the “incompleteness” may count against you. Of course if the positives outweigh the negatives (like Feist) then you may still win!