A young Alabama man has been awarded a cash prize of $1,000,000 for his baseball videogame skills.
Wade McGilberry, 24, of Semmes, Alabama was given the prize this morning by 2K Sports, after he successfully won a contest to be the first person to pitch a verified "perfect game" in Major League Baseball 2K10.
"It was actually my wife who convinced me to go for it," said McGilberry. "I never thought I'd actually win a million dollars playing a video game, it's all still sinking in for me."
Contestants had between March 2 and May 1 to record a perfectly pitched game (via a built-in "contest" mode) and send a DVD of themselves playing to 2K for verification. Amusingly, McGilberry recorded his perfect game on the opening day of the contest.
i remember seeing the commercial for this and im quite impressed by the player
Klimbatize wrote:
I'll eat a turkey sandwich while blowing my load
Slayer1
Title: ,,!,, for you know who
Joined: Sep 23 2008
Posts: 4274
Posted:
May 05 2010 10:33 pm
I used to remember all those old competitions like this back in the 90's... companies should do this more for both publicity and just for competitive edges
LowEndLem
Title: Not Gay
Joined: Mar 19 2009
Location: Illinois
Posts: 966
Posted:
May 05 2010 10:46 pm
I heard it was for a perfect season, not a perfect game.
<docinsano>i beat off using save states
<Tako> But, brontosaurs ate plants. It wouldn't be a threat to Jesus.
Why? Fuck you, that's why.
Doddsino
Joined: Oct 01 2009
Posts: 5316
Posted:
May 05 2010 10:57 pm
A perfect season? That would be impossible.
I agree with Slayer...I miss those days of going to Blockbuster Video and seeing the competitions for Star Fox or Donkey Kong. If I knew what I know now, I would've snagged one of those games.
Lady_Satine
Title: Head of Lexian R&D
Joined: Oct 15 2005
Location: Metro area, Georgia
Posts: 7287
Posted:
May 06 2010 02:38 am
The subject cuts "Skills" off at "ski." But it looks like this was handled a lot better than Advent Rising's million dollar contest.
wiki wrote:
An interesting side note is that a million dollars was offered in a contest via Xbox Live for the first player to find a hidden symbol. Unfortunately, Majesco was forced to cancel the contest when security issues with Xbox Live's global time syncing created an unfair playing field for competitors. Majesco offered as compensation to those players, copies of several of its games and an apology on its home page.
"Life is a waste of time. Time is a waste of life. Get wasted all the time, and you'll have the time of your life!"
Doddsino
Joined: Oct 01 2009
Posts: 5316
Posted:
May 06 2010 03:54 am
Just to further my own point from earlier, in order to pitch a perfect season you'd need to do at least 13,000 pitches, and an aditional 810 more if you're counting post-season. And that's only including strikes, when you consider foul balls or balls....you're probably looking at 20,000 pitches.
Syd Lexia
Site Admin
Title: Pop Culture Junkie
Joined: Jul 30 2005
Location: Wakefield, MA
Posts: 24887
Posted:
May 06 2010 06:12 am
Quote:
Amusingly, McGilberry recorded his perfect game on the opening day of the contest.
More like predictably. If you weren't standing outside GameStop at store opening that day waiting for the game to buy the game, you had no chance of winning.
Amusingly, McGilberry recorded his perfect game on the opening day of the contest.
More like predictably. If you weren't standing outside GameStop at store opening that day waiting for the game to buy the game, you had no chance of winning.
The truth is that this might have been a contest for the contestants, but it wasn't for 2K. This was purely a publicity stunt to lure attention to the video game and brand. Personally I think it worked and probably paid for itself with ease. Still I wonder if it would have been more viable to just hand out a million dollars worth of copies of the game to people who wouldn't otherwise buy it.
UsaSatsui
Title: The White Rabbit
Joined: May 25 2008
Location: Hiding
Posts: 7565
Posted:
May 06 2010 09:33 am
Doddsino wrote:
Just to further my own point from earlier, in order to pitch a perfect season you'd need to do at least 13,000 pitches, and an aditional 810 more if you're counting post-season. And that's only including strikes, when you consider foul balls or balls....you're probably looking at 20,000 pitches.
Your math is off, at least if you're talking about an absolute best case scenario. Remember, you don't need to strike everyone out. Just get them out, and in theory, you can get every batter out on one pitch. So that's 24 pitches apiece for the 81 home games (remember, you don't need to pitch the 9th if you're the home team and ahead) for 1944 pitches, and 27 pitches apiece for your 81 away games for 2187 pitches. Meaning that's a minimum of 4131 total pitches in a season.
Just to further my own point from earlier, in order to pitch a perfect season you'd need to do at least 13,000 pitches, and an aditional 810 more if you're counting post-season. And that's only including strikes, when you consider foul balls or balls....you're probably looking at 20,000 pitches.
Your math is off, at least if you're talking about an absolute best case scenario. Remember, you don't need to strike everyone out. Just get them out, and in theory, you can get every batter out on one pitch. So that's 24 pitches apiece for the 81 home games (remember, you don't need to pitch the 9th if you're the home team and ahead) for 1944 pitches, and 27 pitches apiece for your 81 away games for 2187 pitches. Meaning that's a minimum of 4131 total pitches in a season.
You will always need to pitch a full 9 innings if you have a perfect game going. The other team will not have scored and if the game is tied or they are behind they get to hit 9 innings. If you have a perfect game going then obviously the opposing team will get 27 batters up to the plate. Doesn't matter if you're home or away. It's the road team that won't have to pitch all 9 innings if they're already losing going into the bottom of the 9th.
And though it's theoretically possible to get through a game with only 27 pitches minimally, that's virtually impossible, even for a video game. Still, the absolute minimum number of pitches necessary to throw a perfect season would be 27 x 162...4372 pitches. The perfect game I pitched in 2K10 took me 62 pitches, which is still really low. More likely you're looking at about 10,000 pitches.
Dumb anyway, because no fucking way that every happens.
Dumb anyway, because no fucking way that every happens.
In real baseball you are absolutely correct. In video game baseball, well, some person could find a way. While real baseball requires the highest levels of physical talent to be great, the virtual type requires brains and dexterity. I'm not saying that anyone would ever care enough to throw a perfect season, but if someone were smart enough to figure out how to beat the system, it could be done in a video game much easier than it could be done in real life.
NotEnoughGolds
Joined: Feb 16 2010
Posts: 130
Posted:
May 06 2010 02:49 pm
I think when LowEndLum said he thought it was for a perfect season, not pitching a perfect game, he meant that he thought the first to have a 162-0 record would get the prize.
You guys are over-analyzing this.
Also, you could be considered to have pitched a perfect season if you do not allow a single run (i.e. all your pitchers have a 0.00 ERA).
UsaSatsui
Title: The White Rabbit
Joined: May 25 2008
Location: Hiding
Posts: 7565
Posted:
May 06 2010 03:33 pm
Klimbatize wrote:
You will always need to pitch a full 9 innings if you have a perfect game going. The other team will not have scored and if the game is tied or they are behind they get to hit 9 innings. If you have a perfect game going then obviously the opposing team will get 27 batters up to the plate. Doesn't matter if you're home or away. It's the road team that won't have to pitch all 9 innings if they're already losing going into the bottom of the 9th.
...this is why I shouldn't post off no sleep. You're absolutely right. My bad.
And of course it's not going to happen, but it is in theory possible.
You guys are over-analyzing this.
Also, you could be considered to have pitched a perfect season if you do not allow a single run (i.e. all your pitchers have a 0.00 ERA).
These sorts of puzzles are interesting.
And you can let a run score and still have a 0.00 ERA. Heck, you can go a season with that ERA and not win a game, if you play for the West Lynnfield Blind One Armed Midgets (they have a very interesting mascot).
I think for a pitcher, a "perfect season" would simply be winning every start. Or for a closer, getting every save.
I am in the Antipodes of this discussion, both in knowledge and physical distance... try as I might, I don't understand baseball.
Fun fact: Baseball was actually invented as our first anti-immigration measure. We decided to make it so confusing that only Americans could understand it, and then make foreigners feel bad when they didn't, and not want to move here.
I am in the Antipodes of this discussion, both in knowledge and physical distance... try as I might, I don't understand baseball.
Fun fact: Baseball was actually invented as our first anti-immigration measure. We decided to make it so confusing that only Americans could understand it, and then make foreigners feel bad when they didn't, and not want to move here.
It didn't work.
So then, the British decided to create Cricket for the same reason, but their idea was far more effective.
UsaSatsui
Title: The White Rabbit
Joined: May 25 2008
Location: Hiding
Posts: 7565
Posted:
May 08 2010 09:30 am
NotEnoughGolds wrote:
UsaSatsui wrote:
Zephyr_Arsland wrote:
I am in the Antipodes of this discussion, both in knowledge and physical distance... try as I might, I don't understand baseball.
Fun fact: Baseball was actually invented as our first anti-immigration measure. We decided to make it so confusing that only Americans could understand it, and then make foreigners feel bad when they didn't, and not want to move here.
It didn't work.
So then, the British decided to create Cricket for the same reason, but their idea was far more effective.
Cricket? Nobody understands cricket. You gotta know what a crumpet is to play cricket.
I am in the Antipodes of this discussion, both in knowledge and physical distance... try as I might, I don't understand baseball.
Fun fact: Baseball was actually invented as our first anti-immigration measure. We decided to make it so confusing that only Americans could understand it, and then make foreigners feel bad when they didn't, and not want to move here.
It didn't work.
So then, the British decided to create Cricket for the same reason, but their idea was far more effective.
Cricket? Nobody understands cricket. You gotta know what a crumpet is to play cricket.
We stick to soccer, rugby and basketball over here. So yeah... baseball's really alien to us. Looks fun though. I always remember that Calvin & Hobbes story arc when Calvin signs up for playing baseball during recess even when he didn't want to, and ends up catching the ball for the other team or something =)
