Could someone please explain in few words what is actually battle royale, and who can qualify...and rules of course 
I tried to read all these things few times, but I couldn't really understand all.

Thanks Averil I get it now.
It would be interesting to try, but honestly, I'm not so creative.

The istock Steel Cage is a forum that allows two people to compete in a Photoshopping contest (photo compositing). It's just a fun thing, and most contestants are designers who love the chance to hone their skills and get away from the humdrum for a while. Each battle is 5 rounds. One person starts with a composite image (can't be a single photo), and the psd passes between contestants. Each has to create a new composite image while retaining some element from the previous one. See this for example. The winner gets some free credits from istock (about 40).

The annual Battle Royale is a knock out competition with prizes attached. It starts differently. Seed images are provided (a lightbox this year) and would-be contestants have to create a design from those images and upload it (by 5 Sept). There's a link to the upload site on the page I linked to. The offerings are judged and the top 32 go into the knock out tournament. Each battle in this is much shorter than the regular steel cage, only two rounds I think. 32 seed challenges 1 seed, 31 challenges 2, etc. The person who is challenged decides who goes first. There is a time limit for each round of a battle. Failure to meet the deadline results in disqualification (and loss, obviously).

Any member of istock is eligible to enter (except for residents of a few localities which have laws against that kind of thing). There are links to the conditions and rules on this page.

My feeling is that votes(ratings) are very subjective (votes from friends from social networks who never see or know for what they are voting for) and somehow stinky for exclusives or Im wrong (e.g. battle between exclusives and designers)?
More disturbing thing is that image sizes from this battle are 800x600 without any watermark which is more than useful for wannabe bloggers or other wnb others.
If this battle royalle thing what is about lunatic perspective view of iStock reviewers for blaming you/me for nonsence lets say between flat dull and over fitered sht?!
Or any kind of reviewers are not in this lets say game?!
Any how I can get in? Can you just challenge me or what???

what
Upload your finished jpeg before the end of Sunday September 5 at www.istockbattleroyale.com.
Please note that clicking this link will take you to away from iStockphoto.com. We are using a third-party site called Strutta.com to host the Qualifying round. You will be asked to register � all this requires is a name and email address.
Haw haw
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Execution: The technical meat & potatoes of your blow: the isolation work, lighting, layering, and use of effects.

Poor: You used the magic wand tool, didn't you?

Needs Work: Edges are jagged or fuzzy where they shouldn't be. Effects aren't uniformly applied and we can see where the layers meet. You need to take more time on the details and work on your Photoshop skills.

Average: There may be inconsistencies in where the light comes from. Isolation and masking work could be better. The use of transparencies and layer effects is a little obvious and could be better integrated. But all in all, not bad.

Very Good: You've attempted some difficult isolation and effects, and for the most part made them work. Any complaints are minor � well done.

Perfect: A photo-realistic, seamless effort. The viewer has no idea how you pulled this off.
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In my experience from iStock they reject my isolations are mostly under "Needs Work" as nonexclusive while beardless kids from school grabbing money from them in explanation how site is horizontal and "will be priceless better (for they pocket) if it will bee vertical"

Anyhow I dont want play this iStock peewee game... ad that is 1/4 reasons why.
I just cant imagine sadomazohistic combination of rejections which are mentioned below
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Composition: The artistic strength of your blow: your use of space within the confines of the image dimensions, the unity of your colors, lines and shapes, and the immediate visual impact of the blow.

Poor: Sorry, but did you look at this before uploading it?

Needs Work: There's nothing visually exciting or distinctive about this blow. Your layout, your color choices, your tone, all need more time and care.

Average: You've used the canvas well. Things are well laid out but not necessarily striking.

Very Good: This is a good-looking blow. Nice design choices, strong color, and a really clear visual identity.

Perfect: A work of art. Whether it's the intricacy of the elements, or the sheer boldness of the design, it's a thing of beauty.
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Use of Elements: How well did you incorporate the existing elements from the previous blow?

Poor: A complete wipe. No effort to use any previous elements.

Needs Work: We can recognize elements from the previous blow, but things might be a bit clumsy, or poorly integrated.

Average: Visible elements are well-integrated, but nothing really stands out in the way you've used them.

Very Good: Not only are the elements there, but you've established some continuity with what happened before: we've got a narrative now between the two.

Perfect: You've not only cleverly manipulated the main elements into a completely new concept, you've created some narrative continuity and found neat ways to work in radical alterations as well as minor details
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Originality & Creativity: Did you re-hash a haggard old cage concept, or are you showing us something we've never seen before?

Poor: You took the original blow and put it in a picture frame. Boo.

Needs Work: You've moved the elements around but without any real sense of why. None of the elements add up to something new or innovative.

Average: Your science-fiction space battle is pretty good, but we get a lot of science-fiction space battles around here.

Very Good: ... We get relatively few science-fiction Prom-dances though. Nice work on the martian spiking the punch.

Perfect: We thought we'd seen it all, then we saw this. Outstanding.
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from many aspects of view it is just PITA

I would rather Istock put their time and money into getting a decent website sorted out ;-)

I think we all would. All this fantasy nonsense makes me puke __ there isn't any 'steel' or 'cages' or 'battles'. It's just a bunch of sycophantic time-wasters massaging each other's egos.

there is a price $5000 and you are complaining?