Sunday, August 1st, 2010
Issue: 39   Editor: Nyxxie


Jail Breaked iPods Altro
Link together several thousand points, a few hundred hours, a happy apple, 12 new boxes, 10 hated players, 1 loathed player and a reason to play the game with one word! GIVEAWAY!

Tuesday the 27th of July brought about whispers. The game forum buzzed, Facebook and the blog hummed, while IRC crackled with rumours. What could the cryptic picture of the apple logo, followed by the words, “It’s Coming” posted by an unknown source on the Blog, Facebook and Twitter possibly mean? Could it be an application for the iPhone, or was it a giveaway, like the previous presidential candidate shootout? No one was sure. Tempters ran high as users debated the in and outs of an application solely for the iPhone, including the problems it could cause. The suspension had many a seasoned player glued to the social networking sites, in the vain hope of more clues.

Eventually, on the 29th of July, 2 days later, we were given further information via a post on the game forum. “As some of you have been correctly guessing after the small image was posted on our networking sites, Bootleggers is hosting another giveaway.” The topic by BSF2000 read. The game, to start on Saturday the 31st of July, would be the first time the bust feature would be used in an official real life prize giveaway. In the past giveaways had been conducted via the lottery feature or the kill feature. The game would have multiple winners who would win 12 iPods; Two iPod classic’s 160GB’s, four iPod nano’s 16GB’s and six iPod shuffles at 4GB’s. 12 inmates would have an iPod, whoever bust that account would win their iPod.

The topic sparked players to begin preparing, many of which spent hours a day busting in order to increase their skill level. The game was to be broken down in to two stages, with the prizes split evenly between. This was to ensure that all time zones had a chance to compete.

5AM Saturday, the game began. Users flocked to the game forum and various jails, in the attempt to locate and bust the 6 prisoners. One by one they were freed by various members, busted by players of ranks varying from Boss to Don. Four hours thirty minutes after it started the last target was set free by DillianB. TheRealJC, was the first winner, he won one of the six iPod shuffles. He told us, “I wasn’t expecting to win at all. I think like most people, I thought there was no chance I could win!”

The second leg of the game started at 1PM. With six more prizes up for grabs the process started all over again. However, the first player to set an account free was found to be auto-refreshing; he/she was therefore banned. The account was re-added to jail and the process started over again. With it being a more active time of the day the competition was over in a mere three hours. During the final stage more than 56 accounts were seen in New Jersey jail. The final iPod, an iPod Classic, was won by HondaVTEC, a previous winner of an iPod shuffle. This inflamed a few users, asking for one of his wins to be removed, and replayed for. However, the win stuck. He told us, “I have received LOADS of hate mail since winning [...] I played within the rules of the game.”

We asked a few of the winners if they had used points. Many players were claiming to be setting themselves free from jail with points. Winner of an iPod nano, ViolentUltimatum when asked, said, “I used around 1,100-1,200 points.” TheRealJC told us, “I did indeed use points. I used 1 point for every attempt; so if my guess of up to 60 attempts is accurate then I reckon it must of been around 60 points!” Winner of two HondaVTEC used points on both occasions, “I used 306 points in the first game, with some traveling included, and just under 400 points in the second one. These were all points I earned in game so I figured I may as well have utilized them for a change!” Not all the winners, however, use points. Mmellow winner of an iPod nano told us he did not use any and HappilyNeverAfter, also a winner of an iPod nano, claimed he succeeded on his first try at busting that account.

The game in general appeared to be a success, with lots of thank you’s from winners and losers alike on the forums. HondaVTEC said, “Sure, I’m a little biased but I do believe BSF was incredibly generous to host a game for so many prizes.” Mmellow said, “It was a fun game. [...] I LOVE BOOTLEGGERS!” TheRealJC told us, “I thought that it was a great way to get people involved in something different.” ViolentUltimatum said, “I just want to thank BSF for putting on the game and everyone that participated.”

TheRealJC raised an interesting point, “I think that what a lot of people liked about this competition was the involvement and interaction from BSF. Normally he is a name, to which few have seldom spoken. But today he was replying to BM’s, and posting in the fourms. It’s great to see!” This week has not only seen a competition, but bug fixes and a new feature on the login page.

BSF2000 ended the competition by saying, “Thanks to all those who participated, it really made for a great event. Congratulations to all the winners! I hope you enjoyed the contest.” He added, “Now the winners just need to schedule a flight to the US to take delivery of their prize.” I’m sure if they had a chance to meet the man himself, they would jump at the chance.