The headline may sound too preposterous to be believed, but new reports suggest that that's what Square Enix has in mind, offering players of "Just Cause 3" a chance to win their very own island, though there are set to be several strings attached.

The concept is simple enough; 90 days after the game comes out, the game's developers will check the Chaos Points leaderboard to determine who has not only bought the Day One edition, but also done the most damage and raised the most havoc on the island. Chaos Points are awarded for creative destruction of just about anything on the island, so the process should be fun enough for most anyone.

At the end of that, the top player on the leaderboard will subsequently, reports suggest, have a chance at taking an island of his or her very own. But before you grab the tanning butter and start designing a flag for your very own country, there are some fine print issues that may put you off the island life.

First, Square Enix doesn't actually specify just where this island is. Nor does it guarantee that the island in question will be "...inhabitable, developed, or reachable by any means other than a boat." That's disturbing, in its way; what kind of island is this, that floating patch of junk plastic out in the Pacific? What's more, the winner will be on the hook in a big way; taxes and fees associated with the island's purchase will be the responsibility of the winner. That includes everything from escrow to attorney's fees, and none of these are actually defined.

Square Enix did, however, recognize the issues here, and is offering a second option for the winner: a straight-up cash prize of $50,000, which is the approximate value of the island in question.

This is a bad idea. On several fronts, this is a bad idea. It's a bad idea for the player, who would end up with a pretty hefty tax bill, in all likelihood, from some tiny Pacific nation or the like that may decide to get belligerent with its new tenant down the line. Worse, what if some enterprising drug kingpin decides to use it as a fuel depot? Or enterprising country as a weapons platform...or target?

What if someone actually takes Square Enix up on this, and the worst happens? That's bad press for Square Enix all over, and it might well happen. Just hearken back to the episode of The Simpsons where Bart won an elephant. No one thinks that the winner will take the "stupid" prize, but if someone does, it's a potential disaster in the making.

Kudos to Square Enix for thinking up a surprisingly original prize for a contest, but this might be just a bit too original in the long term. Still, with a straight cash option, the chance of this going too badly wrong should be minimal.