New Winner Declared on Sega Blog
Sega today declared a new winner in the UK portion of the recently completed Green Hill Act 2 speedrun contest from the second Sonic Generations demo. It happened after several community sceners uncovered the original UK based winner allegedly cheated.
We received several News Tips over the weekend alleging that original winner, Michael J. (under the handle hypermikey1980), in fact plagiarized a 1:41.99 speedrun belonging to scener 1stkirbyever. Hypermikey1980 had privatized the contest submission, but not before it was downloaded, and a comparison video was made available with it. That video still exists, and is available for review below.
We should note before hypermikey1980 had his win revoked, he was quick to defend the legitimacy of his submission in several areas. Here is one such comment by him found on the Sega blog post announcing the winners:
Yes I was quite aware of the original video & I tried my hardest to replicate it exactly on my run, which is why the are “the same” but if people like you would just pay attention, you’d be able to hear my 360 control pad clicking away during my video, you’d also be able to see that I was playing my xbox on a 40″ TV & not a computer monitor & at the end of the video you can see the control pad in my hand. I understand this is a highly sough after prize (hey, that’s why I entered!) & there will be some jealous people who will accuse you of almost anything when you’ve got something that they want. But I didn’t steal a video of anyone. The original video was a great run which is why I based my run of of it. I didn’t mean any disrespect to that person. they say imitation is the highest form of flattery & as we’re in two different countries, my entry wouldn’t have affected his (had he entered) or at the very least our runs would’ve been tied.
There is a longer version of my video, showing the xbox dash & loading screens that I cut out to make my upload time faster. So if SEGA needed evidence that this run is my own, then I would provide it. But really, I don’t need to prove anything. I won the contest fair & square & the ‘bullying’ that you’re all giving me right now, is unfair & ridiculous!
The original video’s author, 1stkirbyever, contacted several Sega representatives over the weekend seeking their help. This afternoon, TSSZ reached out to Sega community manager Kellie Parker to also see if the company could take a second look at the results. It appears, however, that the greater community efforts were enough. Without much fanfare or explanation, the post was updated and declared Greg Bansgrove, with a time of 1:42.63, the UK winner.
There was some lingering concern as to whether hypermikey1980 had already received the 20th anniversary Sonic statue as a prize, since another one popped up on Ebay not too long afterward. Some additional research shows the same seller is also auctioning off a European Generations press kit, so it’s unlikely the alleged cheater received anything.
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Woooooow, the way he shut off his tv so quick was just sickening! He did the same tricks and all that shit, noooobody could be perfect down to that millisecond! I always tried to mix it up on mine and do stuff nobody would usually do, like on the fish chaise i would be boosting but also press B at the same time so sonic would do his rail hop.
“Hypermikey1980 had privatized the contest submission, but not before a comparison video was made available.”
Actually–He took down his video/put it on pirate BEFORE the latter was uploaded. I downloaded the video and uploaded it to a hosting website (MU) and allowed whoever to make a comparison video. Someone at The Sonic Center uploaded the video and I’m very grateful to him for doing so.
It’s a joke he even attempted to defend that. The odds of recreating that video’s run without even a slight deviation boggles the mind.
No-one can be so precisely timed for an entire speedrun. That’s just impossible. Well not impossible; just highly, highly, highly improbable. And as thewafflefactory says, he was pretty sharpish to switch off his TV.
And the exact same number of trickjumps and poses too…
For me, 1:29 onwards is just ridiculous. Where Sonic stomps down the bridge to the lower level and spindashes the tight corners on the the long path. It is EXACT.
In fact, all of it is exact.
Yeah, I’m not convinced of his defense. If he wanted to replicate the run precisely, then he wouldn’t need to memorize cosmetic stuff, like the sequences of tricks, at the very least. And it’d be extremely unlikely that he’d do the exact same sequences at the exact same time.
Don’t forget the checkpoint comparison popups were also identical. So even if, somehow, this was independently recreated with controller input that happened to be identical at every frame, the only way the videos would match up was if Mikey had carefully constructed _another_ run beforehand, with no visual cues on how to construct it other than the precise times that each checkpoint was hit (and from all the red + numbers, that run would have to reach all the checkpoints even FASTER than in this video, before giving away some fraction of a second on the final segment).
And then, when Mikey went to focus on precisely recreating 1stkirbyever’s controller input (rather than, you know, focusing on keeping up the pace from the previous checkpoints to result in an even faster time, since someone with the absurd degree of prowess required would clearly be capable of such things), he had to make sure not to get another completion that was faster than the time with those precise checkpoint splits but slower than 1:41.99, or else they’d be overwritten for nothing.
And do it all with a camcorder pointed at the screen, what with the silly contest rules requiring that specific method of recording the video. Because, of course, no one can possibly cheat when they have to include themselves in the video.
Too bad FKE wasn’t in the contest, or else he could have been compensated for it. The product on eBay is legit, the winner never received a press kit, so yeah…
Justice is served! *Que Sonic 3 ending credits music*
And its a good feeling that fans are vigilant enough to ensure contests like these are fair. Forumers have compared this situation to the SatBK and the SaSASR incidents, but the important thing to remember is that fans were just as vigilant and SEGA listened and took action. I just hope that this vicious cycle (NO, NOT SONIC CYCLE) stops dead in its tracks
Remember kids:
CHEATERS NEVER PROSPER… THEY JUST GET MOCKED WHEN CAUGHT, LOL.!!
As my friend once said: “Cheaters never win!”
That is just weak. Not only do we have to worry about this kind of crap on the leaderboards, but now it’s these speedrun contests that we have to watch for as well. What I can’t understand is why he thought he could get away with it in the first place. Maybe he thought he would be given the statue before anyone realized it was a blatant copy….
*phew* Thank goodness that’s over.
from what i have seen, this video does look like cheeting, but on the other hand, what ifhe had een playing as classic sonic, people can follow the same route as others and it is not classified as cheeting. his actons may be cheeting but has anyone not done the same path as another in the past for any sonic game. im not backing him up, i just dont think we should judge and leave it to the people at SEGA
The point of this news item was that the people at SEGA already have judged this particular case (that’s why they changed their winners announcement), but only after the point was brought up so thoroughly and convincingly by the author of the original video as well as his supporters.
Of course route mimicry is possible, and once a certain route is suspected of being the fastest one, speedrunning just comes down to attempting to execute that route as optimally as possible. But even when you know what you have to do, different runs (especially in a game with as much freedom of motion as Sonic) will show slight variance in jumps and turns and so on, let alone what different players’ previous best runs had as checkpoint times. Even if you try to copy a route from memory, the result will not be identical up to the exacting level of detail exhibited here.
I like how he says he had the sounds of is xbox controller. Yeah its TOTALY not possible to download a youtube video and play it on your own tv…
Wow, this worldwide speed run through the GHZ demo was intense. But cheating? It takes skill to zip through the newly renovated level that started it all. Congrats to the UK winner!
Wonder who else was mentioned as runners up.
I think that the biggest indicator of cheating is the exact times that show up after each checkpoint. For example, the same exact time shows up at 0:23.
The spanish generations contest in spain also had cheaters. Its one of the things we could not discuss in the main article beacuse of the police investigating it.
lol wow what a massive douchebag asshole. so glad he got caught! who says that the sonic community are all pathetic morons! HUH?! WHO?! Let’s go kick their butts!
Hyper Mikey is hyper retarded. He probably doesn’t even own Sonic Generations. If he does, it’s probably pirated.
It’s people like these…..
God, I just don’t know what to say anymore.
There’s no word to describe this shit.
Forgive the noob question, since I haven’t actually played the game, but what do the red numbers after every checkpoint mean?
HAHAHAHAHA!!! He’s a cheater.
(Rage mode on)
*facepalm*
Really, just REALLY?
There’s no way to make a excuse for this.
Lots of reasons why he can’t cover it up.
1. The trick combos. Who the hell remembers what action Sonic does when you hit the analog stick? … well besides his SADX pose for the finish.
2. AHEM. drifting. You can’t get it exactly the same if you replay a stage. Even if you’re trying to “Copy” someone.
3. Time. HOW THE EFF DO PEOPLE FINISH WITH THE SAME TIME DOING THE EXACT SAME THING!? Freakin’ ridiculous. You can’t make gameplay in perfect sync with the time from a video you saw >.>
There’s a whole lot more reasons why theres obvious proof Hyper Bitch didn’t “Do the exact same thing” as 1stkirbyever. Too lazy to type more reasons. I would love to ask him this: What makes it different from the actual gameplay he “Got it” from?
(Rage mode off)
…
Done.
I see that he’s recording the video on his HDTV but how do we know he’s not playing that video off the internet on his TV? That was way too exact to not be fake just saying