nutwood wrote:Once the game finishes though, there's going to have to be a monumental archiving or you won't be able to move in Tasmania without tripping over a moveable!
That is going to happen, but is going to make your game organiser very sad. It's not a reflection on you, it's a refection on what will most likely come to pass. You just happen to be the one who has put it into words.
There are a couple of reasons the end of year game runs.
To keep folks entertained during the summer months when it's nice weather to get out into the fresh air and sunshine.
To promote the Geocaching Australia website and the niche cache opportunities we offer that don't exist on other sites.
To grow a sense of community by placing / finding caches that, to your own detriment, can be used by others to achieve the goal of the game (whether it be bingo, distance, etc).
For those folks in rural and regional areas who can't join in because of the lack of caches in their area, a chance to sit on the sidelines and watch people enjoy a game in the spirit it was intended. Just like watching the Olypmics. You can't participate, but watching can be a great deal of fun.
This is the fourth annual cache race. The first was just a race. The second was themed to Gnomes and the third to Frogs. Over the last 4 years I have watched, with a feeling of despair, that the game is not so much a game, but a serious competition where some folks will go all out to "win" (you don't exactly win a sheep station here folks). Some folks do join in for the fun of the game. That's obvious from the effort that some people go to create and hide their caches. Remember that any cache I hide is actually used by others to help them achieve their goal.
There are some unintended side effects of the huge number of caches that get created and released for the game.
The number of caches that are around impact on the daily email, logs, cache lists where some folks see them as a "waste of their screen / GPX real estate".
The number of moveable caches that are hidden in the same locations (i.e. 10 caches under the same tree), benefits the numbers whores (said nicely), but some feel don't live up to the game of geocaching where it's the journey and the thrill of the hunt, not just a bunch of caches under a bush.
The unfriendly nature of taking caches and not placing them again for quite a while ... ostensibly to annoy others who are hanging out for that one cache (this year) to finish their card.
A whole bunch of "nothing" caches, just for the numbers.
Folks who take a cache from a relatively populated area (in terms of potential geocachers) and move it a hundred kilometres into locations where the cache is unlikely to found again to stop a rival completing their card.
There are of course, the benefits of the game. People who have never hid or found a cache at Geocaching Australia are getting involved. Whether they stay or go, long term, is unknown. There is a sense of community. Some caches will be moved specifically into areas where a friend lives so both geocachers can benefit from the game. i.e. I get a find / move and if I hide it near a friend, then get a find / move too. The sheer entertainment of seeing what sort of creativity people put into their caches. There's also reading the logs to see what sort of fun people are having and to some extent, the frustration of arriving 2 minutes are a cache has been found and moved on. It's like a collective "D'oh" moment when they realise the person moving away from them has the cache in their backpack. I also like to see random encounters when two teams arrive at the same location at the same point and then work out how they can both get a find / move as well as the opportunity to meet another geocacher that they might not have met before.
There is a non-trivial amount of background work that goes into the game. Thinking up the rules for the game and trying to make them loose enough for entertainment, but strict enough that people don't "rules lawyer" their way into getting a benefit from a loophole. That takes a long time. Then there is the site coding. It doesn't happen magically. Your games organiser sits at their computer for some weeks making up the code for the game to try and automatically track the game pieces. Then there are the prizes. The same game organiser determines what the prizes will be, how much he will spend on them, designs then, gets them made up and then pays for the envelope and stamp to deliver the prizes to those involved.
Sound like I'm whining? No, not really. I enjoy doing this in my spare time. What I do tend to find frustrating is the complaints. Gee. It's a game. If you win you get a $1.00 pathtag. If you don't win, you're not exactly out anything that you wouldn't have done anyway. There is no cost to enter. There is no cost for anything. I suppose you could say you have spent a lot of money in petrol to get the caches and if you don't win, then you might feel you have wasted a lot of money. Does a $1.00 pathtag make up for the hundreds of dollars in petrol? I doubt it.
Each year the game gets a little more competitive and the game players get a little more, er, anxious to win. I'm not singling out anyone here. I'm highlighting what I see as a detriment to the game. If you see the things I'm talking about in your behaviour, please let it be known that I have no idea who you are. I've never met you. I ascribe no ill will towards you. I don't know what you as individuals do. I am looking at the game as a whole, trying to see whether the game is benefiting the community and the Geocaching Australia website rather than looking to have a go at any individual. Remember the game was set up to foster community and a participation at Geocaching Australia. If I don't perceive those benefits, then the goal of the game is not being achieved.
If a mass archival occurs after the game I will know that the game has failed.
If the community has grown apart through "trying to win to the detriment of others", then the game has failed.
If the entertainment from the game is where people say "I dread this time of year because of the game", then the game has failed.
Now that you're all thinking this post is all about you. Stop it. Seriously. It's about no-one in particular. This sounds (when I read it back) like a pious, pontification on the attitudes and behaviours of others. It's not meant to be that. I am looking at whether the game is creating a good community outcome or a poor one. Whether the game encourages people to Geocaching Australia or drives them away. Whether the game offers a spectator opportunity to have fun or whether they cringe when they read the forum and the logs.
I need to think good and hard about the goals for the game and whether they are being met or not.
Enjoy the remainder of the game and seasons greetings and best wishes to you all.
) There's a pathtag in it for you BB (and JAC too) 
Not to say it's wrong just saying it's perhaps unexpected 
, I found the same one several times and it travelled 1,000's of kms in between and I enoyed tracking where it went even after the game. One of my frogs 
is still hopping around the country (tas mainly) and I find it funny each time an alert pops up, he might make it back at some point? 
