This month Typeracer will be celebrating its 7th birthday! When I think of how old Typeracer is getting, the first thought that pops into my mind is that I must be getting old too! I started playing Typeracer when I was back in college. When I see some of the super-fast 16-year-olds on here nowadays, destroying me with their 150-160 wpm averages, it’s pretty terrifying. I suggested to Typeracer founder Alex, that we should add a minimum age requirement to help me win more races, but he vetoed that idea, saying something about not wanting to discourage competition? Anyway… what we did agree on is that we should do something to celebrate! After discussing the idea, we thought it’d be fun to run a simple contest this week. Last week, we added a bunch of new texts (submitted by our users), so this week, we’re going to give a special bonus to our users and give everyone a chance to win prizes by doing some races, and allow people to try the new texts.

Contest Details

Contest winners will have their choice of either this nifty flashlight keychain² or a free premium account upgrade.

The contest is pretty simple! Starting on April 7th, we’re going to monitor everyone’s races for 7 days. Anyone who does at least 7 races will be eligible to win prizes: either a custom-built Typeracer key chain, or a free premium Typeracer subscription for 1 year. Here are the two ways you can win:

7 Winners by Total Points

We will multiply everyone’s speed by the number of words typed¹. For example, if you type 3000 words, at an average of 60 wpm, then you’ll have 3000 x 60 = 180,000 points. The 7 users with the most points after 7 days will be eligible for a prize.

7 Winners by Lucky Draw

We’ll also generate a list of all users who do at least 7 races during the 7 days following April 7th. From this list, we’ll randomly select 7 more winners, who also will be eligible for a prize.

That’s it! The results will be announced here some time next week. The winners, who will be notified individually by email, can choose which prize they want: a key chain² or premium membership. We hope you’ll enjoy the new texts, and enjoy the contest!

David Pritts (valikor)

Notes

1. We use the convention of 1 word = 5 characters for English text. Cheating (by using any program, script, or anything else) will disqualify you from this contest.
2. Due to the high cost of international shipping, we can only ship the key chains within the United States, but everyone is eligible for the premium subscriptions. We will conduct the lottery on April 14, 2015, where each contestant who has completed 7 races will be assigned a random number.  We will be contacting the winners (starting with number 1, then 2,  and so on, to offer you a prize.

Let us know what you think!

Edit: Contest results have been posted here!