My wife went to work today to pick up her first paycheck, and I drove her. While she headed to the HR department, I looked in electronics. The guy working there opened up a box and there were some Wii consoles.
I asked him if they regularly have Wii systems in stock around here, since they certainly don't seem to anywhere else. He laughed and said that they don't, that the only time they have them in is when a shipment comes in like this (and they don't even have access to information about when those shipments will come, as the vendor handles that side of things).
Long story short: I bought an extra Wii. Now I'm going to be giving it away on the site. There will be a prize drawing on December 10.
There should be no secrets here: this is an effort to increase site activity, and to generate site content. There will be only one winner--not a staff member--and that is that. I expect a lot of content to come in and I will promote this contest wherever I can because that $250 came out of my pocket. I want to see it succeed.
Submit content. Tell friends. Tell enemies. Make sure that everyone knows. The Wii is the most valuable prize I am likely to give away on the site for a long time to come, possibly forever. This is what you've been saving HG Points for. Even if you don't want the system, you can probably sell it online this holiday season for big bucks (imagine all the moms that will be shopping online when they can't find them in stores). If this contest works and generates a lot of good content and new users, I will consider it a success and try to do more things like it. If it doesn't work, that's it. I tried.
The results of this contest will have a huge impact on the nature of contests in the future, so have fun and get to work!
| Most recent blog posts from Jason Venter... | |
| Feedback | |
 |
Genj - September 06, 2007 (03:39 PM) That's a pretty dope prize. |
 |
bluberry - September 06, 2007 (05:19 PM) dope is a pretty prize. |
 |
joseph_valencia - September 06, 2007 (05:43 PM) How does the raffle system work? Does every ticket we buy automatically get entered in the big drawing? |
 |
honestgamer - September 06, 2007 (05:45 PM) Every ticket you buy is active for six months. During that six months, it is applied automatically toward all available raffles. So any tickets you redeem today will be automatically applied toward the raffle once it is held. |
 |
Halon - September 06, 2007 (06:11 PM) I'll enter if I can convince myself that I will use it. Maybe. Also is it really that hard to find a Wii in Oregon? Here on the east coast there are plenty everywhere. |
|
honestgamer - September 06, 2007 (06:20 PM) Yes, Sportsman. Retailers and gamers I know online frmo throughout the US report the same situation. There's a near-nationwide shortage. This is not just Oregon. This is most states. If you live in a region where that isn't true--and really, there aren't many--then you should take advantage of it. If you can daily walk into a store and find Wii systems on store shelves, that's a pretty unique situation worldwide (plenty of platform-agnostic game sites in Europe report the same phenomenon, and the Wii is by all accounts smashing its non-PS2 competition in Japan). |
 |
iamtheprodigy - September 06, 2007 (06:21 PM) I know I'm going to be submitting a lot of stuff for this... the more tickets the better! |
 |
jiggs - September 06, 2007 (08:38 PM) very shrewd move Venter. |
 |
jerec - September 06, 2007 (08:50 PM) This is really only useful to Americans and Canadians. >_> |
 |
Felix_Arabia - September 06, 2007 (08:54 PM) Sucks to be you! |
|
Halon - September 07, 2007 (09:20 AM) Maybe they just got a shipment in, but when I went to Best Buy the other day they had at least 4 or 5 in stock. Then I know I saw at least one at Target a week or two ago. Not sure about anywhere else, though, since I seldom visit game stores nowdays. |
|
© 1998-2024 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors. |