Itâs a rather unique and impressive advertising trick. They donât pay these guys from Marketing lotsa of dough for nothing.
It comes down to this. Video game maker 2K Sports will pay $1 million to the first person who can âthrowâ a perfect game in their upcoming release of their baseball simulation game, MLB 2K10.
The promise of a million buckaroos would probably boost 2K10âs sales significantly alone. Not to mention all the press and PR that the upcoming game will get from such an outlandish offer.
If you go to 2K Sports Perfect Game landing page, you wonât get many details. Only a brief one-sentence description of the contest and to âCome back soon for more detailsâ. But the hook has been baited and the fish are already jumping.
According to Kotaku,com, this prize is most likely the largest ever for its kind. Not only that, 2K Sports probably expects someone to cash in.
The million-dollar prize is believed to be the largest ever offered for this type of contest – a skill-based challenge, rather than a random drawing. 2K Sports isn’t putting up the money believing its game is so tough that no one can meet the challenge. It fully expects someone to pitch a perfect game – retiring all 27 batters without a single one reaching base by any means – and cash in during the contest period from March 2 (the game’s date of release) and May 2.
If past versions of 2K Sportsâ baseball games are any indication, then it certainly IS possible. Pitching a perfect game in 2K9 seemed to be entirely possible as evidenced by countless You Tube videos documenting them. The trick is, I assume, doing it under the rules and guidelines set out by the company. The biggest, I suppose, is that the whole thing has to be recorded. One other, as specified in the small type, the game must be played on the Xbox or PS3 (not the Wii).
Rules and guidelines aside, I think this is a marketing coup for 2K Sports. Call it thinking outside the (batterâs) box.