ATK LAN Sponsor: Novint

[Chalex4]

The Idea
It's 2009, and I decided to change things up a bit.

We've had sponsors before, but never have we had a LAN Sponsorship deal that would improve or otherwise contribute to our experience at i37.

One company instantly popped into my mind - Novint, creators of the Novint Falcon. You'll remember we discussed it when the CEO of Novint announced that there would be a competition for people to win a Falcon of their own. Some of us tried, but the timezones difference made it nearly impossible.

The overall consensus was that we would like to try before we buy, and so I contacted the CEO of Novint with this in mind.

The Deal
A couple of days later I was put in touch with John T from Novint. After much discussion, we both agreed on LAN Sponsorship for ATK !!!

They will provide us with 3 NOVINT FALCONS & PISTOL GRIPS! All we have to do is pay for half the postage and promote them at the LAN.


So, what will we be doing with these Falcons & Pistol Grips?

• At least 1 (probably 2) will be used for demoing FPS games over the long weekend.
• We will invite anyone from the LAN to come and try them out.
• At the end of the event all 3 falcons and pistol grips will be given away (£40 each) to ATK members at the LAN! (see below for more details)
  

Note: Because of the effort I've put into organising this, one of the Falcons will be reserved for me.

Ways we will advertise Novint and their Falcons:

• 13 ATK members will have the Novint logo on their back.
• When the projector is pointing against the wall, we will mention on some slides that anyone can come to our seats to try out Falcons (I checked with Wizzo, this is fine).
• I will post on the MPUK forums saying that anyone can come and play with some Falcons (I checked with Wizzo, this is fine).
• If we run some game servers at the LAN, we will talk to people in-game about the Novint Falcon.
• There will be Novint banners up on ATKCommunity.com.

How is this going to work?
As a result of these new plans, I will need to be on the end of the row at the LAN. I will NOT expect everyone to be helping at the same time on this, but I will expect everyone to help me at some point over the long weekend (even if only for 10 minutes).

It would be sensible that the person who next wants to help the most with this sits next to me at the end. Please post below if you fancy that role.


What is the Novint Falcon anyway?

The Novint Falcon is an entirely new type of game controller. Replacing your mouse or joystick, the Falcon is, essentially, a small robot that lets you experience true virtual touch unlike any controller in history. This is a must have bundle for any serious gamer, particularly First Person Shooter gamers. The Falcon also has a compelling library of compatible games (described below), and this bundle includes a great beginning collection of them including the Orange Box from Valve.

For more information see the previous thread here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ1Rz2clLS0

On their site you'll see that the Novint Falcon & Pistol Grip bundle sells for $199.99 (approx £122 excluding postage from the US). This would easily be £175+ with postage to the UK for the bundle.

Receiving one from ATK for £40 is therefore a massive bargain, and I expect if there is large demand within our ATK group that we will either draw names out of a hat or if people agree, we could have bidding.

[Darkeagle]

You. Fucking. Ledgend, I bugys buying one !, and chalex, i want to help out with this, if you dont mind

[Target]

Nice work chalex, prob your best piece of work ever, really good deal on those Falcons btw. Should be really good and will deffo get us a lot of attention and publicity for the community. Now all we need is for everybody to have a t-shirt and we will appear epic as long as they dont speak to DE

[VoX]

I'll sit next to you and help with it all, am interested in this and may put forward an offer.

[Calneon]

Holy godamn shit Chalex you really excelled on this one. That's fucking fantastic! Dibs on having one for my PC, i'll definately help if you want me . I'll probably buy one for £40 too after using it.

[ez64]

Fucking A* for that

I think everyone will want to buy one so how is that going to be decided?

edit: ah just read the thread again missed the bottom bit.

With all this going on will there be time for the ATK video, if not I could help out by filming stuff if thats needed.

[D_K_Head]

HOW?!?!!?!?!?!?!

[Target]

I think a bid system would just be silly as we want to get them as cheap as poss, maybe names in at hat or some sort of elabourate quest /game ????

[Calneon]

1v1 CSS or CoD4 deathmatch elimination tournament TBQH. Using the Novint Falcon ofc.

[Target]

Sounds like a good idea ^^

[ez64]

1v1 CSS or CoD4 deathmatch elimination tournament TBQH. Using the Novint Falcon ofc.

Names out of a hat lol.

[Chalex4]

Create a poll if you want about the 1v1 stuff, it would be interesting to see what people think.

[Chazlene]

Meh, I already knew about this.

I'll help out of course Cambi, although I don't really want to be sitting one from the end.

[Isphera]

I am prefacing this post with this disclaimer just in case someone from Novint comes along to read this - THIS IS MY OPINION AND NOT THAT OF ATK AS A WHOLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ACT UPON THE COMMUNITY BASED ON MY OPINION. Also, please don't send me hate mail about this, or curse me out everytime I come on TS. But I expect that will mainly come from the people in charge more than the people that are actually on TS.

Bidding would be stupid - people with loads of money would just spend upto the RRP. Great work on getting the sponsorship and the swag.

But I am going to be honest for a sec - how glad I am now that I am not going. You make it sound like that during the weekend you'll be working for them, which is what you have paid a lot of money on in terms of travel, food and the ticket to get away from. Not to mention, some of you are not even there for the full four days, so your time will be constricted even more. You also make it sound like a mandatory service that we have to give up our PC's to let randomers use the product - what if someone would rather keep their PC to themselves?

On top of that, those which do give there PC's up are not even guaranteed 'payment' at the end of the event, because of the limited number of units. I appreciate that this is quite an expensive controller, and therefore they can't give away 13 of them, but it does seem a bit unfair that a majority of ATK members are going to be inconvienienced and then not compensated at the end. Plus, Chalex - your not even there the full 4 days. This isn't a personal jibe, and I understand that you, as the big cheese, have put a lot of effort into acquiring this deal for us, but I do not understand why you should automatically recieve one of the Falcon's when people will be doing more of what Novpoint want us to do by demonstrating over the weekend than you will be. Overall, it looks like an exploitation of circumstance, and considering the high demand and limited supply of the good - it would only seem fair if it were randomly chosen with no reserved products.

Personally, I think the Falcon is too pricey for what it is, a tad gimicky and is by and large, extraneous, and would therefore not personally buy one. However, I appreciate the opportunity Novint has given to members in the community who are more optimistic and enthusiastic about it to use and possibly own one of these devices. I also thank them for providing us sponsorship for the LAN event.

[Calneon]

I do agree with you Oric about bidding being a bad way to go. I also agree with how it could be unfair how people lend their PCs out for some time and not get to buy one at the end.

However, I disagree that we're 'working' for Novint, I think it's a great opportunity to test out the Novint before buying, where else would you get that? I don't think they want us to do much 'lending' of PCs, I personally wouldn't mind if somebody came over and asked nicely to have a go with the Novint on TF2 for 10 minutes, provided it didn't happen too often.

The benefits (3 Novints for £40, advertising for ATK) by far outweight the drawbacks IMO.