Win a Million Dollars, Playing Major League Baseball 2K10

[Knight165]

Quote: Originally Posted by brendanrfoley

Trevy hits the nail on the head; this series is in desperate need of getting widespread (positive) attention and this is a good way to go about it. .

I'm no financial/business genius......but if they would have made a good game the last couple of years...they would have garnered some positive attention ...and.......I could have saved them a million dollars.

M.K.
Knight165

[Knight165]

I can see it now...

"We never expected anyone to actually win the million!"
"We're filing Chapter 11....sorry!"



M.K.
Knight165

[brendanrfoley]

I don't disagree with either of the above points.

Knight, I agree making a better game the past two years would have helped. But it's a moot point; 2K didn't release good games and therefore needs to step-up on all levels to win customers back (or find new ones). The situation is what it is.

Blzer, I'd love a 39.99 price tag. I am certain it would generate increased sales numbers but would not make more money. Take2 stands to make 36m selling 600,000 copies at $60. At $40, T2 needs to sell 900,000 copies to make the same amount.

That's no easy feat; MLB 2K9 sold 730,000 copies (PS3/360), 2K8 sold 890,000 and 2K7 sold 990,000. Dropping the price could cost T2 millions. That's not only bad for the company, but for the future of the franchise.

[Knight165]

Quote: Originally Posted by brendanrfoley

I don't disagree with either of the above points. Knight, I agree making a better game the past two years would have helped. But it's a moot point; 2K didn't release good games and therefore needs to step-up on all levels to win customers back (or find new ones). The situation is what it is. Blzer, I'd love a 39.99 price tag. I am certain it would generate increased sales numbers but would not make more money. Take2 stands to make 36m selling 600,000 copies at $60. At $40, T2 needs to sell 900,000 copies to make the same amount. That's no easy feat; MLB 2K9 sold 730,000 copies (PS3/360), 2K8 sold 890,000 and 2K7 sold 990,000. Dropping the price could cost T2 millions. That's not only bad for the company, but for the future of the franchise.

Just for the record...
I like it.
Giving away a million dollars(possibly) is great.
Who could argue with FREE MONEY!

I also think that this year....2K has turned the corner with this game.
Looks good.
Sounds like they know what bothered us last year with the game(opening up the editor was a clear indicator to me they heard our complaints....I say "our" even though I shelved the game after about 3 days...but you know what I mean)

M.K.
Knight165

[nemesis04]

A million seems very excessive to me. I would rather them keep the million and put it towards developing the game. If you want a promotion a $100,000 is more then ample.

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by FootballForever

Yeah. but we really don't know/ Like I said, this game hasn't even made a million in sales, and now there willing to give a million away, I just find that crazy/funny.

my guess is that the money is paid out by sponsors.

[rspencer86]

OK, let's really take a closer look at this.

Question #1: Why?
The MLB 2K series has struggled in recent years as sales have dropped significantly. Take-Two has put much of the blame of disappointing earnings on the MLB 2K franchise.

In response, 2K has switched developers to Virtual Concepts, who does quite well with their NBA 2K games. But this alone probably would not be enough to reverse gamers' conception of the MLB 2K series as a second-rate product. Even if the quality improves significantly (which so far looks to be the case), there is pressure for an immediate huge jump in sales.

So to make a major splash, 2K decided to offer a real incentive to get typical non-buyers (casual gamers or those typically interested in baseball games) to purchase the game. The best way to do this, especially in a very tough economy like we are in now, is to give out cash. Lots of it.

But a million dollars? That sure seems like a lot. But again, in order for this promotion to have the impact 2K needs it to have, the prize must be big enough to make headlines, make people pay attention.

In order for the marketing department to have this approved, they needed to convince 2K brass that their $1,000,000 (or a couple hundred thousand dollars if they went through the sweepstakes contingency insurance route, which I'm sure they did) would come back to them in the form of increased sales.

Now, if 2K wanted to get back all of their investment in this promotion THIS YEAR, they would have to sell a lot of additional copies. This article states that many big-budget games with significant licensing fees only earn $1 in profit per copy sold. Assuming 2K makes $1-2 for each copy sold, they would have to sell 450,000-900,000 additional copies to justify this promotion (assuming someone does win, of course). That would mean 2K10 would need to sell anywhere from 1.25-1.75 million copies total.

Of course, the effects of this promotion reach beyond just this year and MLB 2K10... they are building goodwill with consumers which will likely help sales of MLB 2K11 and beyond, so the amount of copies of 2K10 that need to be sold to "break even" aren't quite the 1.25-1.75 million stated above.

Is it doable? Yes, I believe this contest will have even non-baseball fans picking up a copy and trying their hand at winning a million bucks. Still, 2K will need to move an awful lot of product to justify the cost of this promotion to top-level management, who are already running out of patience with this franchise.

Question #2: How?
I see a lot of people asking why this needs to be videotaped instead of programming an indicator into the game that would automatically alert the devs if and when someone does toss a legit perfect game.

The answer, I believe, is to reduce the odds of winning. Like Ronnie has said on his Twitter, the dev team fully expects someone to toss a perfect game within the bounds of the contest. But will they have videotape rolling? It's not as likely, and since the cost of purchasing sweepstakes contingency insurance depends on the odds of winning, they needed to do anything possible to reduce the cost of this promotion. Many people will hear about the contest and never realize that one of the rules is to videotape the entirety of the perfect game.

Also, it's just another way to verify that if someone wins, it is legit. With all of the hackers out there, relying just on a coding trigger to alert when a perfect game has been performed could be risky. And yes, I do believe they have some kind of coding that will alert them when it happens. They aren't just going to rely on reviewing videotapes... video is too easily doctored to do that.

Overall, it is a very interesting contest and certainly unprecedented in the sports video game world. I'm eager for the release of the official contest rules just to see what other stipulations are placed on this contest.

[SoxFan01605]

Quote: Originally Posted by Blzer

So is setting the price tag at $39.99.

Which has the potential to be A LOT more costly to 2K if it doesn't work. If their sales don't increase significantly they'd be out by tens of millions rather than just 1 million. They can also write off the winnings where as a price reduction doesn't give them any tax breaks.

And I doubt it's a false promotion. That's not to say it's likely someone will get it under the preset conditions...just that I don't think it's a "scam" as some suggest. It's a sound move...relatively low risk with a potentially high reward. One of the few marketing decisions by 2K Sports I've been impressed with.

EDIT: I'd also be surprised if the potential winnings came directly from any developmental budget either. It's likely sponsored or re-appropriation of some type of advertising budget.