It’s pronounced, “COH-vet”
You've seen our previous announcement about Despoiler, of course, and know all about how you can request a wiki for use in connection with your favorite game, right? But if you hadn't actually gone there, you might not know that we've also already begun posting trailhead and tip links on Despoiler before we post them to the forums. The other day, we posted a tip about a new game, "The Case of the Coveted Bottle," promotes Sarah Jessica Parker's new perfume, "Covet." Discussion has already begun on our forums, which you are welcome to join.
First, I want to thank whoever was behind the "shout-out" to Unfiction in the "How to Play" section of the official site. Second, I want to point out something about the design of this contest that I think is really clever: the way they've added bonus tiers to the prize scheme. Basically, it is a puzzle contest game, where "leads" are releases each week for which you receive points for solving. Once you have enough points, you're entered automatically in the grand prize drawing.
Now here's the clever part: the designers have clearly recognized that they cannot forestall someone coming along in the last week, finding all of the puzzle solutions, then entering the drawing and winning. Sometimes this is referred to as "sniping" by those who were dedicated in following the entire contest from the beginning. But you can't really stop this because what about people who didn't even hear about the contest until the end? You can't really leave them out, can you?
Instead of trying to persuade (won't work) people not to do this, or to control the public posting of solutions (impossible), these designers instead have embraced the chaos. They actively encourage their players to collaborate and work together and the tiered bonus prize structure implicity encourages players to play along from the start – if you enter a puzzle solution within seven days of the puzzle's release, you're automatically entered in a bonus prize drawing.
Not only that but they've come up with a separate challenge that allows people to demonstrate their own creativity and provide their own content, in the form of two upcoming movie-making challenges, which bring with them the opportunity for their own bonus prizes.
As I said, this is very clever, and I applaud the designers' ability to focus on encouraging the good bits rather than trying to battle futilely against the less desirable elements.
Also, we are seriously going to use any excuse we can to keep reposting this picture. I might make it my avatar, even.
