Last year, Your Humble Blogger came up with a cool Oscars game and then never got any players. Well, and I tell a lie; I got one player, but one player doesn’t make a game. Anyway, as I was grousing to myself that I didn’t get any players again this year, I responded that I hadn’t actually asked for any, and that if I wanted to grouse, I should at least ask if anyone is interested.
So. Is anyone interested in a cool Oscars game? The basic idea is that people start before Thanksgiving, putting down (small amounts of) money on the people and films that they think will be nominated for Oscars. There is a fairly simple bidding process, during which the “rights” to a putative nominee change hands as often as once a day, all leading up to the nomination day (January 31, 2006). As of nomination day, the rights holders get a payoff, and also get shares in the nominees, after which there’s share trading up until March 4, and then the winners, er, win.
What I’m hoping (with the design of the game) that people will risk money on longshots in the early bidding, because there are a lot of longshots that would be honored just to be nominated, and a nomination guarantees a payoff. Then, when there’s money in the pot, people can, by setting prices for shares, set their own odds on the various nominees. Anyway, I think I’ve set up a game that should work, but the only real way to tell is to have a dozen or so people competing in it. So if any Gentle Readers are interested, please let me know. If I get a few Gentle Readers, I’ll start asking non-readers if they want to bet as well, and maybe we can make this thing a fun pastime for a few months.
And, if not, well then at least I can grouse with justification...
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
I am, as usual, interested; I am, as usual, ignorant about movies and lazy and thus unlikely to spend a lot of effort on it. But if you get a game going, I’ll play.
Sorry, V, but I think the number of movies I’ve seen in 2005 is … one. (But I saw it three times in three different foreign language versions….) Alas, for me to be into a game so complex as yours I need to feel like I have some actual clue what’s going on so I can make use of possible strategies, rather than just playing entirely at random.
I don’t want to pressure anybody, but for information’s sake, watching movies, or worse, liking movies, has nothing at all to do with the Oscars, or certainly to do with my Oscar game. You are (a) predicting what other people will bet money on, and (2) predicting what the academy will nominate and award. I rarely watch Oscar-bait myself, but can keep track of the odds at such sites as Oscarwatch, Variety or The LA Times. I think that should be enough for strategies. On the other hand, playing would mean spending an hour or two familiarizing yourself with the names, and then putting in a few minutes a day keeping up with the news. On the other hand, since you will be getting Oscar news for two months anyway, this way rather than responding with an eyeroll or a shrug, you can respond with a glint of avarice.
Thanks,
-V.
Ah, but your suggestion that I will be “getting the Oscar news” assumes I read/watch/hear the news, which I don’t–I’ve been blissfully news-free for about two months now. Saves me a lot of time and fretting, meaning I can do all sorts of other things and be happier while doing them.