Company Announces $30,000 Prize For Solving iPhone Game

dlpasco writes "Puzzllotto. The game, styled after titles such as Myst and Zork, will be available in the iPhone App Store later this week for $4.99. 10% of the sales revenue from the game will go to the Madagascar Fauna Group. At this point, only US citizens may participate in the contest but it has been stated that UL wishes to make future events world wide. 'Even though Puzzllotto represents a significant investment of engineering and legal resources, the company refuses to apply for patents on any invention. Instead, the company hopes to share its investment with other developers through its fundware.info site, while the company's ten employees hope Puzzllotto will raise enough money to capitalize bigger dreams.'" This could also be seen as a test for greed, since the prize money will only start at $1,000 and will grow by $1,000 each day for 30 days, at which point, if no one has solved it, the entire pot will be donated to charity.

Comments

Hum

[Arthur B.]

Can't someone reverse engineer the enigmas, backtrack through the puzzles and 'win' the game ?

Re:Will this work?

[fermion]

286 sales a day would just about pay for the prize. As the prize money increases, we would expect more sales. I would assume the expected sales versus time would have an concave shape, where at some point people just buy the game in hope of receiving the prize money, and sales go up dramatically, then likely drop significantly. It is like the lottery where lines grow grotesquely long as prize money increases.

The scam tag may be appropriate here, because they can basically engineer the game to be so easy as to insure someone can solve it in a few days, or so hard that that no one can solve it in 30 days. Sure the money will go to charity, but the actual net loss such a donation would generate after taxes and publicity benefits are unclear.

This seems like a credible piece of advertising to boost sales in a market with few opportunities to get noticed. It is low cost, of limited duration, and will encourage people to buy the product with a minimum 200X ROI, for those with a gambling mind.

Re:Link omitted

[lysergic.acid]

i'd rather read "slashvertising" for an interesting and original game that helps fund a charity than slashvertisements about some crappy Microsoft mouse with a blue tracking light or more Apple product updates. really, of all the slashvertisements that get posted, this is the one you have a problem with? is it because of the lemurs? why do you hate lemurs so much?

saving lemurs > !saving lemurs.

besides, their fundware idea is pretty cool. it creates a way for software producers to be less reliant on VCs while directly involving end-users in the development process. perhaps this model will mean more products that are created for/by the average user instead of all software being made to the specifications of profit-driven CEOs and PHBs.