Gamer Wins $1M For Pitching Virtual "Perfect Game" 142
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.
A 1.5 Hour baseball game (Score:5, Funny)
Fastest baseball game ever, that wasn't called due to weather.
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Actually the shortest MLB baseball game [answers.com] ever was 51 minutes
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And yet still 3 people died of sheer boredom.
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That's part of it. Also, it was the first half of a double header between two teams that were out of contention to play in the World Series in the last week of the season. Both teams wanted to get out of there and go home.
On top of that, batters tended to swing more at pitches back then, and umpires still called the high strike.
Most seasons, even today, have a few games right around the 2 hour mark, with commercials and slower players and more patient hitters. Remember that 51 minutes is the record, not the
baseball? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:baseball? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:baseball? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:baseball? (Score:5, Funny)
Better do both to be on the safe side.
Re:baseball? (Score:5, Funny)
And then discover he's adopted.
See? See what the Terminator had to go throug?
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Poor Terminator...
*bursts out in tears*
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If he's killing before conception, and he's sure it's before conception, killing either parent would make him sure.
Unless you take into account sperm donations...hmm. But then you'd have to take into account possible egg donations too.
So either he has to kill the father and mother before puberty, or kill them *both* (or possibly just one!) before conception then torch all possible donor/storage sites. If he only kills one parent, he'd have to torch that parent's potential storage location of baby ingredient
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And after all that we learn the tragedy that he was switched at birth.
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And peanuts. Don't forget the peanuts!
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For some reason, I see that as the plot of one of the "Saw" movies. Every time the other team makes a run, some more evil torture is committed to the victim. Of course, they'd have a boyfriend/girlfriend couple, where the boyfriend is being tortured, and the girlfriend is losing miserably. The more she cries, the worse she plays, and voila, dead boyfriend. I wouldn't worry much though, they'd kill off the girlfriend in a subsequent scene. :)
Re:baseball? (Score:5, Funny)
Cricket.
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One word.
Cricket.
Baseball.
Proof that Americans never had an attention span.
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Americans have a lot to learn about sitting about and drinking.
With cricket you also get the excuse to visit exotic countries and then sit about and drink for 5 days in a row. Clearly cricket is by far a superior game.
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!
Americans have a lot to learn about sitting about and drinking.
With cricket you also get the excuse to visit exotic countries and then sit about and drink for 5 days in a row. Clearly cricket is by far a superior game.
Though I grant that Brits are able to sit and drink in wonderful locales, I feel obliged to direct your attention to the phenomenon of Nascar. Nascar, being a sport that consists entirely on a driver's ability to turn left, is perfectly suited to having spectators sit outside and drink.
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And you get to go to exotic state like Alabama, which by the end of your trip you'll wish was a different country.
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Wish? I thought it *was* another country. :)
A friend of mine who's a big NASCAR fan begged me to go with him to Talladega. He brought his RV. I flew to Atlanta for work, and then drive out to meet him. I could have sworn I saw a sign that said "Welcome to Deliverance, Alabama" at some point before I got there (it was late, I was tired). I took that sign to mean it is the nation of Alabama. I swear everything changed when I hit the border. I did find it odd that there was
Re:cricket? (Score:1)
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Billard?
Poker?
Chess?
At least cricket or golf are played outside.
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Gotta admit, that one made me laugh. Good work, AC.
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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.
It depends about the video of someone playing a baseball computer game. Does it have that mullet forever hair, 80's throwback Billy Mitchell in it?
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Personally I don't like baseball, but I can see the appeal of playing the game on a console.
See geeks like to take long drawn-out inefficient methods of accomplishing something and do it for fun.
Like killing 500 monsters to flip a few bits in memory. Sort of a physical touring machine, you ARE the program.
So in a similar sense... trying to precisely direct the velocity and flight path of a baseball using an inefficient and unwieldy instrument which is wholly unsuited to the task... instead of ya know... a
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trying to precisely direct the velocity and flight path of a baseball using an inefficient and unwieldy instrument which is wholly unsuited to the task... instead of ya know... a potato cannon or something.
I don't know how much more succesfull I'd be, swinging a potato cannon to hit the fricking ball.
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Gasp! A talking potato!
Bill Lee (Score:2)
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....
Perfect game in less than 90 minutes? (Score:2, Insightful)
1) This game is far too easy for a $1million reward.
2) Read # 1
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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.
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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
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The fraud was advertising "pitch a perfect game and win $1m" when it was no longer possible to win and they knew it.
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could have a case than.
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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 lo
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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.
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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.
Re:Perfect game in less than 90 minutes? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Re:Perfect game in less than 90 minutes? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The funny thing is I haven't even come close since then," McGilberry said. "There must have been something special about that day."
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You were trying to win a million dollars.
Can I take this one? (Score:2)
Ooh Ooh! Can I hit him with a real bat instead?
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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?
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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..
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There have been 16 perfect games in MLB since 1900. That is about 1 every 7 seasons, not every season.
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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.
$1 million for 1hour and a half of occupation (Score:2, Funny)
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It could have been an hour and a half playing Major League Baseball 2K10 after having spent years with earlier-year versions of the game.
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It could have been an hour and a half playing Major League Baseball 2K10 after having spent years with earlier-year versions of the game.
According to Kotaku [kotaku.com], this version of the game has different pitching controls from the previous versions.
Although according to the same article, he spent two weeks prior to the game's release playing the demo and practicing for the contest.
So, yeah - not like he only spent an hour and a half on this. He practiced.
Proof that liars work in marketing. (Score:1, Funny)
"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.
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2K Sports is a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive. Take-Two have a revenue of $968 million (2009), and Net Income of $97.1 million (2008). Although $1million seems like alot to us mere mortals, it's chicken feed to them. They would probably have spent it on traditional marketing anyway.
Personally, I like the fact that it was won so quickly. Goes to show the game isn't rigged, and the goal was achievable.
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I wouldn't be happier especially if:
1) They are my balls
2) The 1 million dollars weren't mine in the first place
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ummmm they probably are happy because first they got some attention when they first announced the contest, a lot of people went out and bought the game so the could participate in the contest, and now they get a lot of articles written about the contest and the happy winner of the game. People reading those articles will think more positively about 2K Sports, and the baseball game. They aren't looking at it like they're giving away a million dollars, they're looking at it like they're paying a million dolla
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Well, then they are likely to not give a shit about you.
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It's not a contest at all. It's marketing. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's not a contest at all. It's marketing. (Score:5, Insightful)
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In the UK at least it comes under something stronger than simple false advertising law iirc.
There was a scratch card company (maybe even from Camelot the lottery company I forget) that was taken to court over the fact they sold hundreds (thousands? more?) tickets after they knew the main prize had been won, so people were buying tickets under a misapprehension.
If there is similar in the US as I'd expect, I'd think 2K Sports only (slim) hope would be claiming you didn't have to purchase anything to enter, so
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Well, there's certainly plenty of plausible deniability. The prize was not for the first person to give them proof of the feat, it was for proof of the earliest example the feat.
It's certainly within the realm of possibility that someone might have done it in an hour, or even in 89 minutes, and not turned in the proof until just before the deadline.
Thus, they didn't "really" know who the winner was until the end. In fact, one could argue they'd be remiss to announce the winner early when they set a time spa
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And if it turned out the initial winner was cheating, it's likely that the next person to do it (without cheating) wins.
Heh, I wonder what his wife thinks of him playing computer games now... How much does a 401k record keeper job pay?
$1 million for a perfect game? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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How many people would pay to watch some kid play a video game in his basement vs. how many people would pay money to watch a real major league picther?
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Not likely. In 2008, average salary for a starting pitcher was $4,429,366 [ap.org]. There are 162 games during an MLB season (not including playoffs) meaning a pitcher only makes $27,341.77 per game. Even if you assume he only gets "paid" for the games he plays (there are typically five starting pitchers on a team) then he only gets $138,417.68 per appearance.
Even the highest paid starting pitcher currently in the league only makes $23,000,000 per annum making his per appearance fee $718,750. Of course there's also
Misleading (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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FTFA:
2K Sports kept the contest open for two months and couldn't believe what they saw when they reviewed the time code on McGilberry's perfect game. Was it really possible that a gamer threw a perfect game in the first 24 hours the game had come out?
Looks to me like they kept entries then reviewed them once the 2 months were up.
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uhm? Are you sure they have to pull them back?
That would be a bit against the way lottery math works.
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I see your point from a mathematical POV, but not in a legal one. When you advertise "You could win up to 1,000,000 today with 'Scratch-Off-Millions!'" after the million dollars was won, you are in fact lying, since that's no-longer possible.
A casino can advertise that you can win up to $10,000 on this roulette table because you can, every time. But they can't advertise "win the 1,000,000th-customer pr
I'll bet in real life... (Score:2)
...the "winner" of this contest throws like a girl.
Excuse me, there's a woman from N.O.W. at my front door...
Did anyone else submit a no hitter? (Score:2)
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.
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The article makes it sound like they didn't review any submissions until after 2 months. Obviously they chose to do this intentionally to artificially extend the duration of the contest, but I don't think they were deliberately and knowingly hiding the fact that someone had won so soon.
It's pure genius, really.
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No one gets to first base. Surprised more Slashdotters didn't submit entries...
(ducks and cover)
Not Surprising... (Score:1)
Will they pay or try to find a way out of it? (Score:2)
Will they pay or try to find a way out of it?
South Park (Score:2)
Wasn't there a South Park episode about this?
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/127947 [southparkstudios.com]
My favorite line from the episode:
"No one plays just a little Heroin Hero..."
is the reward in "virtual dollars" then? (Score:2)
Oh, that kind of "pitch" (Score:1)
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who read that...
Thought of the day: (Score:1)
How fitting. (Score:2)
2k10?! (Score:2)
Marketing (Score:2)
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 diff
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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
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