KDND-FM, a Sacramento based radio station, held a contest in 2007 that asked willing contestants to drink large amounts of water all while trying to hold back their urge to urinate. Sounds like a blast! What’s the reward for this bladder based torture you ask? A fucking Nintendo Wii!

Jennifer Strange, a mother of three, decided she would take part in this madness for a chance to win the console for her children. The end result for her was second place finish in the contest and an eventual death caused by water intoxication several short hours later.

The Strange family filed a wrongful death suit against the station and was awarded $16 million in damages.

What else can I say that the family surname and the contest concept don’t already? It’s a shame. A shame that adults feel the need to put themselves in harms way to obtain items for their children. That said, I think the thing that angers me the most here has more to do with the roll retailers play in this supply and demand mess.

What I don’t think a great deal of the public knows is that Nintendo, and companies like it, often produce more than enough product to adequately fill the demand of consumers. But retailers like Best Buy and Toys”R”Us stockpile units in their warehouses to give the illusion of a shortage. Then, they slowly trickle the product onto their shelves in small amounts (usually on weekends to coincide with their circular and generate additional traffic/sales).

If that’s not enough, they come up with lavish ways to extort even more money from potential consumers by forcing “soft bundle” purchases like the Toys”R”Us “bend-over bundle” I reported on back in 2007.

So please, think twice next time before you set up an overnight tent outside your local retail store in the middle of Winter or enter a half-baked contest to get your hands on some “hard-to-find” merchandise.

source: gamepolitics