Canada, contests, and creativity
I made a reference to Canadian laws requiring contests to be open to participants without a purchase and/or through a skill test in a previous post, when I hadn’t heard of such laws yet and was wondering whether they indeed existed (see "Making it harder for Canada"). It turned out they do, and I’ve recently heard of another example: the entry fee for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft North American Arena Tournament. The tournament allows players of World or Warcraft to compete in regional player-versus-player battles for a chance to fight in the world championships and win real prizes and quite fair amounts of cash. In North America, like in Europe, the tournament requires participants to pay an entry fee of $20 (€15 in Europe - real money, not an in-game equivalent); however, because of said Canadian laws, the fee is waived in Canada, and that’s where Blizzard shows its creativity. Here’s an excerpt from the Official Rules:
The Entry Fee for the Tournament is $20.00 USD for the First Qualification Round of the Tournament, and $20.00 USD for the Second Qualification Round of the Tournament. Canadian residents are not required to pay an Entry Fee in order to enter. Instead, Canadian residents may enter by submitting a 250 word typewritten essay comparing the video gaming culture in Canada to the video gaming culture in the United States on 8 ½ x 11 inch paper and mailing their essay to Essay Entry for The North American Blizzard Entertainment Arena Tournament, P.O Box 18979, Irvine, CA 92623. Essay entries must be received no later than March 31, 2008 in order to be eligible. Essay entrants represent and warrant that the essay is their original work and does not infringe the rights of any third party. By entering, essay entrants hereby grant, without further consideration, all right, title and interest in and to their essay to Sponsor.
No conditions are imposed on the essays, so they constitute a sort of free-of-charge entry form (as per the aforementioned laws), and they’re asked to be kept short, but perhaps at the same time they can offer a little insight on how to strengthen Blizzard’s presence in Canada (the “Sponsor” in the above wording is Blizzard Entertainment) — and this way they can still get something out of it. I think it’s clever.
Translations don’t always work out that well.