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Gamer Wins $1M For Pitching Virtual "Perfect Game"
A few months ago, 2K Sports announced a unique contest to promote a new game they were working on, Major League Baseball 2K10. They said whichever gamer was the first to pitch a perfect game and provide proof would win $1 million, with the contest running for two months. Reader yukk tips news that the two months have now passed, and 2K Sports has announced a winner. It turns out the prize was won on the very first day, by a player who had put less than an hour and a half of effort into it.
Fastest baseball game ever, that wasn't called due to weather.
The most boring possible video game genre.
Playing baseball - boring.
Watching baseball - very boring.
Playing a video game of baseball - even more boring.
Watching someone play a video game of baseball - kill me now.
Sent from my PDP-11
One of two things comes to mind:
1) This game is far too easy for a $1million reward.
2) Read # 1
the definition of 1337.
Apparently 2KSports didn't do much research on the level of difficulty for this reward, or they simply didn't care and just wanted it as a marketing tool.
But apparently they researched how long to keep the contest open AFTER getting their first winner in less than 24 hours. It would be interesting to know how many copies of the game they sold on Day 1 and how many they sold from Day 2 to when they actually announced they had a winner.
"The funny thing is I haven't even come close since then," McGilberry said. "There must have been something special about that day."
Having actually played the game, getting a perfect game is not easy.
You have to get 27 straight outs. You get an out one of two ways: 1) you strike out the batter, or 2) the batter hits the ball and your defence gets the batter out. Complicating things further, it gets progressively harder to pitch accurately when your pitcher gets tired (after you hit about 80 pitches, you have less than half a second to complete the pitching gesture. After 100 pitches, good luck getting a good pitch off even if you pull off the gesture under a quarter of a second).
So you have to weigh whether you want to focus on strike outs and risk getting your pitch count too high to handle, or you focus on trying to get the batter to hit into the defence and keep your pitch count low. If you try to pitch to hit, you risk having a ball just dribble by your infield or having a blooper drop in between your infield and outfield, ruining your game. Adding to the frustration is a buggy infield AI that sometimes allows soft liners through, or the first baseman running for a ball that should've been the second baseman's thus leaving first base empty.
In any event, minus the buggy infield AI, the perfect game challenge highlighted something very important for MLB 2K10. When you're pitching, it is a pretty immersive experience. You really feel the pressure when you're delivering the pitch, and you have that split second of helplessness and frustration when the batter makes solid contact with the ball.
Pitching is definitely the highlight of the game, and the reward did a pretty good job to draw attention to that. Although we can't speak to the financial success of the campaign without any sales stats, it was at least a success in the sense that it was effective in showcasing the strongest aspect of the game.
"We're very happy to give the money away," said Jason Argent, vice president of marketing for 2K Sports.
Because insurance companies couldn't possibly come up with the odds of throwing a perfect game, 2K Sports didn't take out insurance and now will pay McGilberry a lump sum of $1 million out of its own pocket.
They're happy to pay out a million bucks? That's really going to affect some bonuses I bet.
I believe they'd probably be happier driving nails through their balls than having to fork over that kind of cash.
You could probably actually sue them since (IANAL) they didn't make full disclosure about the details of their contest. If the knew someone had already won and didn't announce it just to drive more sales that smacks of fraud.
I can't cite a specific statue, but I'm sure you could find one that would fit.
Just a thought, you could probably get a partial refund of the game at the very least.
There was no $1 million prize. Not from the publisher's perspective, at least.
They paid $1 million for marketing. Who they payed the $1 million to was irrelevant. The only difference here is that the money went to some schlub consumer instead of a marketing firm.
Seems fairly disingenuous, but I don't even think I'd go so far as to call it unethical.
Sounds a bit low to me. If he were a real major league pitcher, he would get paid nearly $1 million just for showing up to a game, even if he lost.
There was.
You were trying to win a million dollars.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I remember a similar situation with Virginia's scratch-off lottery tickets: a fixed number of tickets are printed with winning numbers, and once those prizes are all claimed, the Lottery Agency is supposed to pull the remaining tickets since they're all losers. But of course, they don't.
Ibid.
...the "winner" of this contest throws like a girl.
Excuse me, there's a woman from N.O.W. at my front door...
Joe Dougherty, Florida, USA
The words I thought I brought, I left behind. So, never mind.
How's that fraud? There would have been a bigger uproar had they closed the contest early they definitely would have been sued for fraud. What they should have done was, if they were going to keep it open for 2 months regardless, was to give each one who pitched a perfect game an entry into a drawing for the $1 million
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Cricket? You gotta understand what a crumpet is before you can understand what cricket is..
you know you can fry stuff putting things into things that dont like the things you put into it...
The fraud was advertising "pitch a perfect game and win $1m" when it was no longer possible to win and they knew it.
I wonder if anyone else submitted a legit no hitter.
I can understand keeping it quiet on 2k's part, you don't want people to stop buying the game because they are trying to win the prize, but I would like some more stats like how many people submitted a complete no hitter, how many were legit, how many spoofed one.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
The 2K baseball games are horrible. They are full of bugs and totally unrealistic. I picked up 2K7 out of a clearance bin a couple years ago and in my second game playing I struck out 23 batters. 23 out of a possible 27 outs were strikes outs. No, I wasn't pitching as Randy Johnson or someone like that, I was pitching as Ted Lilly!! If you want a real challenge, pick up MLB: The Show. Overall a more realistic baseball game, and you definately won't be throwing a perfect game after an hour of playing.
Will they pay or try to find a way out of it?
could have a case than.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Pitching a no hitter on LSD - awesome
Watching a pitcher on LSD pitching a no hitter while you're on LSD - Whoa! Freaky!
Pitching a no hitter playing a baseball video game while you're on LSD - Trippy!
Watching someone on LSD pitch a no hitter playing a video baseball game while you're on LSD - Where's the Hendrix albums?
It's all just a state of mind man....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Wasn't there a South Park episode about this?
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/127947
My favorite line from the episode:
"No one plays just a little Heroin Hero..."
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Lets presume the company accurately modded the game mechanics of major league baseball. Perfectly reasonable given its heavily statistics based.
MLB has maybe 1 perfect game a year, or every other year. Lets say once every 2 years to be generous. There's 32 teams, playing 180 games (roughly)...thats 16 matches x 180 times x 2 years with a chance of producing a perfect game. So statistically, a 1 in 5760 chance of producing a perfect game.
Presuming this is a moderately successful game title, they sell...say, 100,000 copies in the first month.
The chances of this happening on the first day of sale were actually fairly good. Certainl within the first week.
If i was on the board of directors, I'd recommend summary execution for the marketing rep.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
You don't have to strike every batter out on 3 pitches to throw a perfect game. You can throw a perfect game in 27 pitches, or hundreds of pitches, depending on how many foul balls the batters hit or 3-ball counts you get to.
Ooh Ooh! Can I hit him with a real bat instead?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
There have been 16 perfect games in MLB since 1900. That is about 1 every 7 seasons, not every season.
I remember playing Contra on the NES with my buddy one day. I was trying to show off my skills, claiming that I could beat the game without the 30 lives. I played through the whole game without dying once. I was plenty impressed with myself!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
If you consider the entire history (or even the 130 years since the first one), there have only been 18. I have no numbers on the total number of games played in that time span, but I would venture to say the chances are much worse than 1/8000.
You could probably assume that the 2K10 players themselves were doing whatever they could to increase their chances as well (like a Yankees v Nationals matchup). If 2K Sports really wanted surge in sales, they should've offered $10M for a perfect game against the Yankees.
It's almost as if "2K" is part of the company's name...
just asking
FTFA:
"The funny thing is I haven't even come close since then," McGilberry said. "There must have been something special about that day."
So he's like Mark Buehrle?
Here I was thinking they were having a contest to "pitch" ideas for the perfect baseball game. Curse you homonyms!
It's not necessarily a fraud. It took them a while to verify the winner's results. If he had been disqualified in any way after they declared that a winner had been found, then the promotion would have ended prematurely, possibly without a winner.
If I had heard about this promotion in advance, I would've assumed that I'd have to buy the game the day it came out to have any chance at the prize. After a week, I would've expected there to be numerous potential winners. It's common knowledge that there are a lot of dedicated gamers out there with lots of time on their hands to beat challenges like the perfect game here. I think any reasonable person would ignore the promotion after a few days.
Doing the right thing pays off..... Imagine that.
Of all the things I've lost; I miss my mind the most. - Mark Twain
>>>...or the first baseman running for a ball that should've been the second baseman's thus leaving first base empty.
The pitcher should be on his way to first as soon as contact is made on a right-side infield grounder. If there's a bug in that essential aspect of gameplay... this game fails Baseball.
You're honestly claiming that it took them 2 months to verify the guy's result?
And sure, you might ignore it after a week, but someone might see the advert for the first time after that. If they buy the game purely to enter this competition (which already has a winner by that point) then they've been frauded.
I have no idea what you have just said, but it sure sounds like you deserve that million of dollars or more even just for understanding that and more importantly for caring to understand it.
You can't handle the truth.
Now he has nothing to do but spend $1M on 40's, hookers, and smokes.:/
"We're very happy to give the money away," said Jason Argent, vice president of marketing for 2K Sports. "This was something innovative we dreamed up and we were really able to make some noise in the marketplace."
how is babby formed?
You would seriously buy a game you hate playing just to try for a possible million dollar prize? Do you also eat at McDonald's just to play their Monopoly game?
I wouldn't. And I never said the buyer would hate the game, just that they only buy it to enter the competition. Perhaps they already had the previous year's version or a competitor's version, and saw no reason to buy this one? For example.
MLB has maybe 1 perfect game a year, or every other year. Lets say once every 2 years to be generous. There's 32 teams, playing 180 games (roughly)...thats 16 matches x 180 times x 2 years with a chance of producing a perfect game. So statistically, a 1 in 5760 chance of producing a perfect game.
Shouldn't that be 32 teams x 180 games? In each match, either team can get a perfect game.
I get shortening 2000 to 2k. And I suppose 2k1 to 2k9 make some sense. But 2k10... that's exactly the amount of characters needed for 2010. What's the use of an abbreviation when it's not shorter?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Marketing. Think about it. What's easier and more unique to verbalize, "two-kay-ten" or "two-thousand-ten?" People already say, hear and think the latter all of the time. So if someone says "two-thousand-ten," other people won't think "oh yeah that baseball game." However they will recognize the phrase "two-kay-ten," and they are used to using the "two-kay-(number)" format to refer to the games. In my opinion, it's brilliant, despite all of you nerds whining that it's the same number of characters. The difference in pronunciation is just as important as the character count, if not more so.