unforum

[terminalskeptik]

[BrianEnigma]

[spaceXplorer]

well i'm no lawyer, but i'm fairly sure that if you start a game where you say 'but these cards at £2.50 a pack and you may win £100,000", and then at the end of the game you say "actually, we lied about the £100,000, but thanks for buying all the cards! here, have a cheap plastic cube with 333 scrawled on the side in felt-tip pen..." Now i'm fairly sure you could sue the pants off them for misleading marketing practices, no?

As i have said before on this very forum, i'm not in this for the money but for the adventure, kudos etc etc. However, if they say the reward is £100k, and then later on they then change and say that reward doesn't exist, well i for one am going to be extremely pi$$ed off, and may even be forced to use the cube to travel to Perplex City and burn the place to the ground (perhaps a little harsh?)

....and.....relax

[hamatoyoshi]

[u05mpb]

In Scottish Law, if you do a competition or whatever, and offer a prize, then by law you must provide that prize.

For example, this is a true case...
A radio station ran a competition and said the prize was a car, like 'win a toyota yaris'.
When the winning lady went to collect her prize, they gave her a miniature toy model of a toyota yaris. She took them to court and they were made to give her a real one.

Scottish Law is different to English Law though. I don't know how the English is, but I think it would be similar.

[buff]

Honestly, do you guys really think that they would promise a prize and then say at the final that it never existed? I can't believe that the Hons and anyone else behind that curtain, who probably want to see our genre grow and become financially viable more than anybody else considering they need it, would so totally crash this genre by doing that.

What we (the ARG-community as a whole) need is some way of making it possible to charge money without breaking TINAG and if this is the best way of doing it - so be it! Without some way of making money from being a PM - there is no way that ARGs will ever become bigger and better than the stray ad-campaign and multiple grassroot-games. How many of you wouldn't have paid 15$ per month for The Beast?

Anyway, since PPC seems to be really well funded, well constructed and without any form of "shadowy" play (apart from what's supposed to be there of course) - I seriously can't see how they would do that!

Or perhaps I'm just naive...

[Darkstar]

[Rolerbe]

[JamesDart]

Heres the flaw I have with their marketing: They advertise the prize to be 100,000 GBP, or 200,000 USD. However 100,000 GBP only equals 189,439.59 USD at the current exchange rate. Either us Americans are getting a great deal, or there will be some legal issues here. The only loophole I can see is if they allow the winner to choose which currency they want it in, similar to how some game shows let you pick the "mystery prize" or the prize you already have. That must be legal.

[JebJoya]

JamesDart - they only said approximately in the letter, my guess is that the prize (which I believe there will be personally) will be to the value of MAX{$200,000, £100,000, EUR150,000, and YEN20,000,000}

Just my 2 cents / 1.2 pence / 1.7 euros / 2 yen

Jeb

[JamesDart]

[JebJoya]

[xnbomb]

(Really) Foreign Markets

[RobPal]

Well it seems that most people have had their say on this matter, so I thought I add mine to the pile.

When I first found out about Perplexcity from a Firebox catalogue, I was intrigued about the game, but not realising this was an ARG and there was already some hidden info on the original sign up page, signed up on the basis that there would be some kind of reward at the end of it.

Since recieving the email about the video and finding this site, plus discovering the world of ARG's, the 'reward' wasn't anywhere near the front of my consciousness, however now we have a monetary value to play for, this has really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons. I find it very interesting that people have been so quick and eager to claim that they are not in it for the money and it's the collective team experience they want to get out of it. I also commend all the comments of splitting the money in various ways, including charities and ARG parties for the players. Clearly the money seems to be quite important to a lot of people here, whatever they claim they will do with it if they win it.

The problem of having any kind of discussions around prize money is that if it is only awarded to one person rather than a group or team, then they should not feel obliged in any way to give any of that money to anyone else. The fact of the matter is that there are people in this forum from all walks of life and with different financial situations. If having £100,000 could pay off a large longstanding debt then keep the money for yourself. If you earn £100,000 a year and have a huge savings account, then you may feel it's easier to part with some of the reward to fund another ARG.

I for one would love to win the money, and would love to say that I would give some of it to other players, however in reality, and I mean actual reality, this may not be so easy. There are lots of people who i've known for much longer than the guys in this forum (great though you all are), and I would feel more inclined to help them out first and foremost, including my parents, brothers and other family and friends. Therefore it's unlikely that there would be much money left for me let alone enough to fund another ARG or party.

So there we have it. I may sound selfish, but I wanted to tell it like it is. There's probably a few other peeps reading this thread who may not have contributed as they too would like to keep the money for themselves and their loved ones, but feel that they would be shunned out of the forum by the people who are 'just in it for the game'. I wish I was 'just in it for the game', but I have to be honest.

Can we now draw this thread to a close please and get it locked? It's tearing us apart!!!

WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

[openfly]

The prize will be real, I'm sure of that, because

1) The negative publicity for Firebox, the Hons et al if it wasn't real.
2) Fi (was a mod, who was lured away to work behind the curtain, for those of you who are relatively new) would never have gone if there was any suggestion of reneging on the prize money.

Someone will win it, I just hope it's someone from UF and not some snidey lurker that no-ones heard of.