I’m sure almost all gamers out there have been told that video games are a waste of time and won’t get you anywhere in life. Try telling that to Alabama resident Wade McGilberry. McGilberry, as it was revealed earlier this week, is the winner of the $1 million prize for pitching a perfect game in the “Major League Baseball 2K10” video game.

A perfect game in baseball, defined as a game in which the pitcher allows no batters from the opposing team to reach base (this means no hits, no walks and no errors), is no easy feat. There have only been 18 in the history of major league baseball in more than 160,000 games. It is somewhat easier in the video game, as the most dedicated of gamers are capable of playing multiple seasons a month. However, 2K sports were so confident in the realism of the baseball sim that they announced, back in January, a monster jackpot for the first person to pitch the first perfect game in “MLB 2K10.” There could only be one winner, and that was 24-year-old Wade McGilberry.

Using Atlanta Braves’ starter Kenshin Kawakami, McGilberry threw pitches to the corners of the plate and with a lot of help from his infield, he accomplished the unlikely milestone. McGilberry actually pitched the perfect game within the first 24 hours of the contest, on March 2, but didn’t hear the outcome until the competitions closing date, some two months later. It was nearly all so different. The Alabama resident was close to not even purchasing “MLB 2K10” after struggling to hit the ball in the demo version it was actually his wife who convinced him to go out, buy the game and give it a go! The first five times he tried, his experiences mirrored his earlier demo efforts. The sixth, however, was something special. For less than 90 minutes playing a video game, he was a millionaire.

While early sales of “Major League Baseball 2K10” have been reportedly better than last year’s version, it has not yet been revealed by how much. This raises the question about whether the marketing ploy was worthwhile. The million-dollar prize is believed to be the largest ever offered for a skill-based video game contest. Due to the fact that insurance companies couldn’t possibly construct odds of throwing a virtual perfect game, 2K sports didn’t take out insurance. As a consequence, they had to pay the prize out of their own pockets. This payout made Take Two Interactive’s stock price drop by $1.14. While vice president of marketing for 2K Sports, Jason Argent claims that they are “very happy to give the money away” it remains to be seen how much of an audience they have captured from their biggest competitor, “MLB 10: The Show.”

While McGilberry plans to spend his prize money paying off his mortgage, you can try to emulate his achievements (albeit without the financial incentive) on “MLB 2K10,” available now for Xbox, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii.

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