MLB 2K12 News Post

Should 2K Sports Do Something to Tackle Cheatgate?

12:26 PM - May 10, 2012 by MMChrisS

You've read our thoughts on Cheatgate. Now it's your turn to voice your opinion in our new poll: Should 2K Sports Do Something/Anything to Tackle Cheatgate?

You can vote on the poll on your right on the frontpage and above you in the forums.

Game: Major League Baseball 2K12 Reader Score: 6.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Xbox 360Votes for game: 10 - View All

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Member Comments

# 1 JerzeyReign @ 05/10/12 12:44 PM

I don't think they should redo the contest due to possibly one of the guys completing it fairly.

# 2 ratedmoney @ 05/10/12 01:22 PM

They should just disqualify the guy that cheated and next in line takes his spot.

# 3 Yeats @ 05/10/12 02:00 PM

LOL at the handful of cheesers who selected option 4.

# 4 goh @ 05/10/12 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Osceola


	What is cheatgate?

For the million dollar challenge in 2K12 you're not allowed to make subs or mound vists or anything to throw the perfect game. Someone found a way to sub out the other teams players and as the game is scored on difficulty if they were to play a normally difficult team it didn't count the replacements. Ex: If you played the Rangers but took out Hamilton,Beltre,Andrus and Young it'd still show a 90 rated difficulty and would still get credit for throwing a perfect game with 90 rated difficultly instead of the 70 something it should've been.

I believe it involved making subs on the screen pre-game.

They have to play in person during the next round so they're screwed anyway.

# 5 RUFFNREADY @ 05/10/12 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by goh


	For the million dollar challenge in 2K12 you're not allowed to make subs or mound vists or anything to throw the perfect game. Someone found a way to sub out the other teams players and as the game is scored on difficulty if they were to play a normally difficult team it didn't count the replacements. Ex: If you played the Rangers but took out Hamilton,Beltre,Andrus and Young it'd still show a 90 rated difficulty and would still get credit for throwing a perfect game with 90 rated difficultly instead of the 70 something it should've been. I believe it involved making subs on the screen pre-game. They have to play in person during the next round so they're screwed anyway.

^I totally agree with you, on your last statement. How do they plan on winning without exploiting within the game viewed by others? the frauds will be found out; fairly quickly!

cheers

# 6 OttoOC @ 05/10/12 10:49 PM

It feels like the poll answers are for two different polls.

# 7 T-Moar @ 05/10/12 10:51 PM

On the presumption that 2k doesn't know who cheated and who didn't, they're kind of in a pickle. They can't let everyone slide through, because they would (obviously) be letting cheaters win, which isn't allowed. If they use some standard by which they think only cheaters will be eliminated, it's inevitable that non-cheaters will get eliminated, too, and this will open them up to lawsuits. If they cancel the contest entirely, once again, they run a huge risk of being sued. Really, their only option is to just start over. Make everybody re-do it.

Something like this actually happened at my high school this past December/January. A student was caught sending the answer key for one of the finals to a bunch of other students. Unfortunately, they didn't have a comprehensive list of who got the answers, so, much like 2k, their options were limited. Eventually, they made everyone either re-take the final or not have it included in their average, and I think this was really the only option.

# 8 goh @ 05/11/12 03:25 PM

They should at least replace the guy that got caught with the person in 9th or that other guy that went perfect for 14 innings but couldn't score.

# 9 jersez @ 05/11/12 04:47 PM

They should just chalk it up and get rid of it for next year, imo they turned their game into a lottery. Not all but most people are buying the game in hopes of wining the million dollars, bring it back to just gameplay and presentation. That's what most sports gamers want. I blame them for even doing the offering. People will always find exploits in anything. That money could go towards development cost or hey a donation to a charity idk, but I just don't like the idea of offering money to play a video game, instead of playing the game because its fun.

# 10 Bobhead @ 05/11/12 08:17 PM

Where exactly is the cheating part? Putting in weaker players isn't cheating, can't you just go to the lineup screen and do it? The contest didn't require you to face only the original roster, correct?

I think these days people say "cheating" when what they really mean is "strategic and creative."

# 11 KBLover @ 05/12/12 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobhead


	Where exactly is the cheating part? Putting in weaker players isn't cheating, can't you just go to the lineup screen and do it? The contest didn't require you to face only the original roster, correct? I think these days people say "cheating" when what they really mean is "strategic and creative."

Based on this:
"Ex: If you played the Rangers but took out Hamilton,Beltre,Andrus and Young it'd still show a 90 rated difficulty and would still get credit for throwing a perfect game with 90 rated difficultly instead of the 70 something it should've been."

I'd say they exploited a bug in the software. That's pretty much cheating.

# 12 Henry2 @ 05/13/12 04:28 AM

I think these days people say "cheating" when what they really mean is "strategic and creative.

# 13 Bobhead @ 05/13/12 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KBLover


	Based on this: "Ex: If you played the Rangers but took out Hamilton,Beltre,Andrus and Young it'd still show a 90 rated difficulty and would still get credit for throwing a perfect game with 90 rated difficultly instead of the 70 something it should've been." I'd say they exploited a bug in the software. That's pretty much cheating.

Did the contest require you to face a team with a 90 rated difficulty? You still haven't established any actual cheating.

There's no such thing as "pretty much cheating." Decades ago someone came up with a way to exploit the standard defensive alignment in baseball to get on base. They called it a bunt. Was that cheating too? What about hitters that choke up on the bat to increase their coverage and reaction time? Cheating? When pitchers throw breaking balls? Alley oops? Zone Defense? Power Plays? Flopping in the NBA? Using a differently weighted and sized iron in golf?

Just because you gain an advantage from something you do doesn't instantly make it cheating.

# 14 funnyfiggy @ 05/13/12 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobhead


	Did the contest require you to face a team with a 90 rated difficulty? You still haven't established any actual cheating. There's no such thing as "pretty much cheating." Decades ago someone came up with a way to exploit the standard defensive alignment in baseball to get on base. They called it a bunt. Was that cheating too? What about hitters that choke up on the bat to increase their coverage and reaction time? Cheating? When pitchers throw breaking balls? Alley oops? Zone Defense? Power Plays? Flopping in the NBA? Using a differently weighted and sized iron in golf? Just because you gain an advantage from something you do doesn't instantly make it cheating.

You don't think it is cheating to get credit for doing something by taking the best players out of a lineup in comparison to doing it the way it was intended. That would be like saying it isn't cheating to get credit for getting a 100 on a test even if you only knew half the answers, but you had an answer key for the other half.

It is too late to change anything now, and I would have cheated too, but I'm not going to be an idiot and say I wouldn't be cheating.

# 15 fakeimmigrant @ 05/13/12 08:50 PM

Considering how little attention this got outside of the dedicated Sports Gaming sites and Kotaku, I doubt 2K Sports was concerned. Had this gotten any sort of traction on the bigger, mainstream sites, I am certain there would have been a greater response.

It's disappointing that what could have been such a great marketing opportunity was overshadowed by this.

# 16 Bobhead @ 05/13/12 10:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by funnyfiggy


	You don't think it is cheating to get credit for doing something by taking the best players out of a lineup in comparison to doing it the way it was intended. That would be like saying it isn't cheating to get credit for getting a 100 on a test even if you only knew half the answers, but you had an answer key for the other half. It is too late to change anything now, and I would have cheated too, but I'm not going to be an idiot and say I wouldn't be cheating.

That's a terrible analogy. It's more like a test where you are only required to answer 5 questions, but not everyone reads the directions, and most people answer all 20 questions on the test. The guy who only answers 5 is cheating? More like he was smart enough to not work harder than he had to. It'd be different if the contest required you to pitch to the original lineup on a team, but clearly it didn't.

Another good analogy is some video game that requires you to beat a challenge to unlock something, ie: defeating some boss or completing a stage. Is setting the difficulty to 'easy' before you begin the particular challenge cheating? What's wrong with using what's readily available to you, to make things easier for yourself?

I honestly don't see anything wrong with it.

# 17 goh @ 05/14/12 12:28 AM

Actually yes it does forbid changing line-ups. Something I never agreed with because you'd want to change to a better defensive guy later in the game. (Not that I participated as it's only open the US,just in theory.) You're not even allowed to pause the game actually. There was some way to change the line-ups before the game and still get credit for having faced a difficult line-up.

The difficulty is important because that determines the score of the perfect game. They decided to score games this year instead of just the first person to do it. So at least one person got credit for facing a highly rated team but they cheated/used an exploit to remove the best players and replace them with guys on the bench thus it no longer being a highly rated team/difficult match up but it still counted as such resulting in him moving up higher on the leaderboard than he should've been.

# 18 Bobhead @ 05/14/12 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by goh


	Actually yes it does forbid changing line-ups.

Ah that's the piece of information I was missing. So neither side was allowed to have a changed lineup at all? That's crazy. But if that was a stated rule I take back what I said then, it's obviously cheating.

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Should 2K Sports Do Something to Tackle Cheatgate?