Suspicious “Burst” of Voting Reported, Video Inside
For the second time in less than 18 months, a Sega sponsored contest stands to be tainted.
Over the weekend, numerous participants and observers have voiced concern over strange and seemingly automatic voting patterns underway in the North American division of the Sonic Birthday Contest. Voting is open for the top 10 finalists on both side of the Atlantic until July 27th, but participants are only supposed to vote once per day. In a video that we have for your review below, the finalist A Sonic Intervention is singled out among several others but not all in the top ten, where strange, quick bursts of votes were recorded in a matter of seconds during the wee hours of Sunday morning.
In the video, another strike against the contest’s integrity is disclosed: the simply way to circumvent the one vote a day rule is to simply clear your cookies and cache, allowing participants to vote again.
“This has to stop,” proclaims Supersonic68, who authored the video. “Sega needs to take down this page, either fix the problem, or negate all the votes that have been taken so far, and start over.”
Those concerns were also echoed by the tipster who sent in this information to TSSZ News, but asked to remain anonymous.
“What they say is true, you can simply erase your browser history/cookie data and vote as many times as you want,” our tipster said. “I’ve caught onto this since day 2 and have observed so much abuse of the system. At one point on the 2nd day, Needlemouse: The Musical and Splash Hill Mural experienced a dramatic 200 vote burst, simultaneously, 30 minutes. It was as someone from both sides were trying to gain the upper hand against each other, since at the time those videos were #1 and #2.”
The same sentiments were shared at the Sega forums, where some of the other finalists are concerned they are unfairly out of the running for a trip to Tokyo, even though they’re playing by the rules.
“Since I am a contestant in 9th place with only 300 or so votes, it might sound like sour grapes – but even if everyone above 1000 had cheated, I’d still be behind the game here,” said Sonic_Prime on Sunday. “I am genuinely concerned that no party in the top ten is getting a fair shake at this trip to Tokyo.”
“I was a bit surprised to see some entrants having a ridiculous amount of votes,” wrote Bria later in the thread. “Unless they’re all very good at networking, I can see something is very very wrong here.”
“May the best cheater win,” quipped K2SonicFan in the same thread.
The same problem may have popped up on the other side of the Atlantic. A few entrants on the Sonic Stadium message boards have also reported irregular voting patterns–including on a few entrees where the alleged dirty work isn’t that of the entrants themselves.
“I can safely say I know nothing about it, it is a damn shame and I’m sorry it’s happened, it’s taken away all fairness completely,” wrote SSMBer ENVY16, a finalist in the competition. “It seems a mystery person or people are behind this.”
Sonic Stadium webmaster Svend Joscelyne, who is also a finalist on the UK side, is also suspect of the circumstances, but doesn’t think any action will be taken.
“Unfortunately, I doubt anything will be done by Sega about it,” Joscelyne wrote. “So there goes my chances.”
If the fix is proven in, it will be the second time in almost a year and a half a Sega competition has been marred. You may remember in 2009 when an Italian artist plagiarized the work of another for a Sonic and the Black Knight fan art contest. The mistake was not caught in time, and is forever immortalized in-game. Still, the perpetrator, Antonino Miniero, was disqualified.
That’s not stopping at least a few from trying to touch base with Sega community managers Kevin Eva and Aaron Webber about the issue. Unfortunately, in the latter case, those cries may be for naught. An E-mail requesting comment of Webber sent by TSSZ News was returned with an auto-reply, in which Webber states he is on a business trip to Europe. Webber won’t be back until August 4th–a week after the competition ends.
Our E-Mail was also sent to Kellie Parker, another community manager on staff with Sega of America. We hope to hear from her on the issue today and we will update you once we learn of new information.
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Well, I had to reset my browser multiple times to VOTE for the video I was originally trying to vote for, which was one of the entries featured on TSS. I ended up voting 3-4 times for videos I never wanted to vote for.
And the curse of the Sonic fandom still with us, even when we argue about a Sonic contest that doesn’t have to do with the games. Karma is such a bitch. The gaming gods don’t like Sonic fanbase at all.
It’s 2010 Sega this kind of thing should be under control!
How ’bout that famous quality Sega web coding? *facepalm*
I hate that sonic intervention video the least! I watched them all and the guy is ugly and he looks like he does drugs. This is so unfair. I rather have Sonic Team pick who they want to meet.
Meh, I knew this would happen. With proxies, it’s incredibly easy to cheat.
…but why such an ass-video like the Sonic intervention? Compared to the others, it’s simply not THAT good or even entertaining to watch.
You think Sonic Team will ever not get media heat?
Uh, Trisan, I think, as the editor of this here news story, you need to issue a new one on the issue of smearing and negative publicity you inadvertently gave our video (A Sonic Intervention). SuperSonic68, in the very video that you linked to, uses the cheating method for his own benefit, as well as singlehandedly attacks us for “cheating”, when he never even attempted to confront us about it. I also think your journalistic abilities are very poor if you never even attempted to contact us, the very people who are being accused of cheating in your article. You never mention any other video by name as you do ours. I can honestly tell you, the people involved with our video have not once cheated for the video. We would have been glad to tell you that, however, you decided “better news” would be to propagate what seems to be a smear campaign led by SuperSonic68. Even if SEGA were to pick the best entry and get rid of all this voting, they would most likely view our entry as the “cheating” entry because of all this negative press we’ve been receiving. I think you ought to publish a news article, apologizing for the lack of respect or journalistic integrity you have shown towards our video by not asking for our comment.
Thanks,
Brad E.
Bradley, our story is very careful not to use the word “cheating” outside of cited quotes from people who, in their opinion, believe cheating took place. While your entry is specifically cited in the video we received to explain what’s going on, we also took great care to note your entry is not the only one impacted. Several, if not all entrants are dealing with the problem. While you may not be cheating or manipulating the system, someone else clearly is.
In our opinion, there was no reason to reach out to you because we know you’re not the source of the problem. Who is remains unknown. We instead reached out to Sega representatives, as they were the ones who again left a gaping wide hole open in their web system which allowed this to occur.
For that reason, no apology will be afforded.
-T
Yes, Tristan. You are very “careful” not to use the word “cheating” outside of cited quotes from uncredible sources. You are also very “careful” of not naming any other video other than “A Sonic’s Intervention” in this defamatory article. You are very “careful” at inciting while under the disguise of “reporting”. Any Freshman of Journalistic Studies would see right through you. What you are doing is nothing new. You’re on your way to the punditry of hyperbole and the constant defense of “It’s in quotation marks. I didn’t say it, they did.” It’s real easy to say anything you want by “carefully”stringing the quotes of others together. That puts you halfway through the door at Fox News Channel.
And yes, for that reason no apology will be afforded because you don’t have the moral backbone to admit your manipulation of your position for this blatant smear campaign. At this point, TMZ has a greater journalistic code of ethics than you.
Eh, if this story is the haters’ flavor of the month, I’m batting pretty well.
If you really want my opinion…if anyone deserves to be smeared in this, it’s internally at Sega. With the lapses in web security, especially this year spoiling not just this contest but key ASR & Sonic 4 details, I’m amazed those responsible still have jobs. Regarding the contest itself, between this and Aaron mocking a majority of what he received before the finalists were chosen, the whole thing has not been handled well.
-T
Sure Sure, downgrade my entire argument by labeling me a “hater”. But I find that story that your sticking yourself to as amusing – especially since you opted not to make it the focus of this piece. I think SEGA did make a mistake in not making it a one-vote-per-IP-address system for the contest. But there you are, stepping on everyone else to decry their evils and they won’t even given you more than an autoresponse e-mail. I hope they continue with whatever fix they have in mind and I most certainly hope they never budge on anything for someone like you. I was a fool for thinking anyone read your articles other than the flame posters and yourself. You tricked me into taking you seriously this time and I won’t make that mistake again. Good day to you sir.
Duomax, because of our past reporting, Sega’s had to demonstrate some humility for many of their own mistakes, including two instances of in-game plagiarism with SBK and ASR. I suspect this time will be no different.
Believe me, I have nothing to prove.
For the record, I don’t necessarily believe you’re a “hater” more than you are opportunistic, much like many other fair weather readers who selectively disagree with story content here. You refuse to acknowledge an overwhelming majority of positive material we cover, but when you’re in the crossfire, look out. This iteration has existed long enough for everyone to know we’re not going to be all positive, all the time–because that’s simply not what news is supposed to be.
-T
Unbelievable that you would print a story like this, totally one sided without asking the other people involved or accused. You totally smeared thetrianglechannel on youtube with this hack story, and ruined their reputation. It’s very clear supersonic68 is the sole manipulator and cheater in this contest because he’s showing everyone how to do it for his own gain. Tristan, you owe Thetrianglechannel, and a retraction of this story. You never once asked or wrote to them for any input. As you can see the video accusing TTC has been removed after TTC reported it for violation of Terms of Service. Like all yellow journalists, your shoddy facts are unravelling.
Bottom line, this story is a one sided yellow smear and you owe TTC an apology, now.
Mike, we appreciate you letting us know the video is gone, but as far as we’re aware, SuperSonic68 removed the video on his own accord. It was not removed due to a YouTube TOS violation.
That you still believe we’re picking on a single video is ludicrous, as it’s evident and noted in our stories most videos are being targeted by the same sort of rigging. We even mention two other videos specifically in this piece. Quite frankly, from what I remember of the video, SuperSonic68 wasn’t directly or even indirectly accusing the Intervention creators of wrongdoing–he merely noted that someone was engaging in fishy business.
Again, no apology will be afforded. You really are living up to your name, Big Dumb Mike.
-T
You owe the guys at thetrianglechannel an apology. supersonic68′s video jumped several THOUSAND views in the same period as many others did. He’s obviously not only a lousy loser, he’s a lousy cheater as well. Get your facts clear before you print a story using tabloid tactics.
As soon as we notified supersonic68 we turned his slanderous video in to youtube, he took it down. As with your one sided story, you failed to check your facts, we ran that video off youtube because we had the right to protect our privacy, as per Youtubes terms of service. You should apologize for this insult as well. You, dear Tristan, are a lousy journalist. Keep defending Supersonic68, we’re on to your association with him.
Had it been another video I bet the people with Intervention would have enjoyed this article. It’s annoying how defensive they are. You don’t see the other entrants who have been accused of cheating whining and making a whole show about it. In most cases, it’s people who are unrelated to the entrants that are spam voting. The other entrants acknowledge this once and move on but with Intervention it’s always an outburst or flame war. Anyways, props for the article (I was wondering when someone would cover this) and standing their drama.