• by Todd Zuniga , May 14, 2010

For joystick jockeys, all that's required to play pro baseball is $60 and access to a video game console. But in recent seasons, with Xbox 360 seamheads straying from the system-exclusive and quality-challenged MLB 2K series, 2K Sports made a bold move to amp up earnings and announce the game's comeback. To showcase confidence in the revamped and much-improved pitcher-batter interface, 2K gave gamers the chance to earn big-league bucks with MLB 2K10 by offering up a whopping $1 million to the first person who could throw a perfect game - retiring 27 straight batters without one reaching base.

And so far it's worked.  

"We clearly aimed to generate excitement around this contest. Nothing like it had ever been done before," says Jason Argent, vice president of marketing for 2K Sports. "But I don't think we anticipated how far-reaching this would become. We're hearing stories of parents, women, children, celebrities and other people that you wouldn't expect to be playing a simulation baseball game."

2K reached out to its core audience first, spreading news of the big-money prize by integrating all the usual social media suspects into the campaign, and word quickly spread beyond the scope of game nerds.

"Much of what we saw was significant media pickup outside of the traditional gaming and youth-oriented outlets," Argent says. "Mainstream media seemed to love the idea of 'getting paid to play a video game.' Our goal with this campaign was to shine a light on our vastly improved game, and do it to a much larger audience than would typically see us."

For the record, it had always been 2K's intention to dole out the cool million - certainly a winner will mean a second splash of major media. The victor won't be announced until after May 2, once the validation process is completed by Twin Galaxies (the worldwide sanctioning authority for video game high scores and records, which has nothing to do with the ballclub from Minnesota). We have this sneaking suspicion it will be the Baltimore Orioles that suffer even further, hitless humiliation.