Mistakes, and what we make of them.

At the end of last week, there was a small fiasco at Gamesville. An error in a line of coding caused the members' only game, Gold 21, to go from awarding 565 cash prizes a month, to 387 cash prizes over four days. That's an average of 95 prizes a day versus the 18 a day it was *supposed* to award.

In other words, this was not a tiny boo-boo.

As soon as Gamesville spotted the error they immediately shut the game down. I can only imagine the sick, sick feeling they had when they realized the extent of the damage. ~_~ They had 387 prizes given in error, and 387 winners who would be very unhappy to lose their gains. (Can't say I blame them. If it was the first time I won $2, I would hate to lose it!)

Additionally, somehow 6 players managed to keep playing (and winning) even though the game was closed to everyone. Could have been an honest mistake or something not-so-honest. Time will tell.

How did Gamesville handle this mess? Well, they publicly explained what happened on their blog and laid out their plans to resolve it. Despite the fact that they have every legal right to void the winnings, they are going to honor them and pay them out. The only exception to this are the 6 people who were able to play while no one else could get on. It wouldn't be fair for them to get prizes when they had no competition, so those winnings are void.

I've always felt that you can't judge a person's character by whether or not they make mistakes, because we all mess up at some point. The real test is how someone handles their mistakes. Do they shift the blame to someone else? Or do they step up, try to fix the problem, and learn from it?

Personally, I think that Gamesville passed this test with flying colors. They came out of an ugly situation with integrity. Bravo. ^_^