Majesco scraps Advent Rising contest

An announcement on Xbox.com regarding Majesco Entertainment's big "Race to Save Humanity" million-dollar giveaway for Advent Rising indicates that the promotion was quietly canceled on Monday, what was originally planned to be the last day of the contest. Neither the official Advent Rising Web site nor Majesco's site makes mention of this cancellation, although administrators in the Advent Rising section of the Majesco message board posted the news.

As a consolation, Majesco is giving each person who participated in the "Race to Save Humanity" two free games from its recent catalog. By sending in the UPC from the Advent Rising box and the name of the registered GamerTag that participated in the contest, gamers can receive their choices of BloodRayne 2, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload, Psychonauts, Raze's Hell, and Phantom Dust.

While Majesco has recently hit on some rough times financially, the official reason for the cancellation was rooted in technical issues.

"After careful assessment of the technical issues identified with the Advent Rising 'Race to Save Humanity' contest, Majesco Entertainment and Xbox Live have determined there to be no technically feasible solution that would allow the contest to continue in a fair and secure manner," the announcement said.

The way the contest was set up, each week for six weeks Majesco was to hide an Advent Rising logo pickup somewhere in the game. When players logged into Xbox Live, the location of the new logo would be downloaded to their systems. The first gamer to discover the hidden logo would receive the cash prize for the week. Other prizes to be given away included Xbox Live subscription cards and SoBe-branded items.

Going back through the Majesco message boards, it's clear that there were technical issues with the contest from day one. The problems recurred with the second planned download, and the contest was simply suspended two weeks after it began.

Majesco representatives did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.