OS Roundtable: What do you think of Cheatgate MLB 2K12?

Feature Article

Submitted on: 05/09/2012 by Caley Roark, Jayson Young, Matthew Coe, Millennium, Glenn Wigmore

Recently there has been a discovery on how players cheated to win MLB 2K12's Perfect Pitch Challenge. Multiple users found a way to swap out the best hitters in a team's lineup and replace them with the weak links. Unfortunately for the ones who won a perfect game legitimately are screwed, and 2K has made a statement that nothing is going to change.

Here's the OS staff's opinions on the matter:

Jayson Young: The MLB 2K scandal takes me back to 2007, when 2K Sports tried to run an online tournament for All Pro Football 2K8 and it was ruined by players using an illegal field goal block exploit, as well as a nasty glitch that would freeze the opponent's system.

The lesson for 2K Sports and other game publishers is that video game contests should be held locally, and players should have to play the game in-person with officials on site. When contests are held online, it is difficult to police the rules and prevent people from taking advantage of game exploits or loopholes in the rules.

2K Sports should do the same thing they did back in 2007 and expel all known cheaters from their tournament.

Glenn Wigmore: For a contest that actually had generated some interesting buzz for the MLB 2K brand in the last couple of years, it's unfortunate that it now has to be marred by something so preventable. To not ban the offenders and create some sort of standard for the contest just breeds cynicism and apathy for future contests.

Following Jayson's example, competitions like this should be held locally. I harken back to the likes of the "Special Edition" cartridges that Blockbuster Video used for NBA Jam and Donkey Kong Country for contests back in the mid-'90s. Users generally only got one shot at those sorts of tournaments, the parameters were fixed for everyone, and there was some level of control by a third-party.

In the realm of online, people are always looking for an edge. Whether it's manipulation of the connection, collusion with other parties or "boosting" their teams/players through clearly exploitive behaviour, this type of thing is going to happen. Still, you'd think when this much money is the line that 2K would have all sorts of redundancies and fail-safes to prevent a situations like this.

Matthew Coe: I think this was inevitable. When that much money is on the line, you're gonna have players trying to cheat the system. It reminds me of the Madden tournament where guys used glitches and exploits to win and run sim players off from playing ranked matches. If there is an exploit to be found, some people are bound to find them.

It's a shame really, because the MLB 2K Perfect Game Challenge had been nothing but good publicity for the title, and it needed as many positives going for it as possible. Now with the cheating that has occurred in the Perfect Game Challenge, it de-legitimatizes the entire process and leaves a huge cloud of dishonesty over the entire concept.

The best thing 2KSports could do is to investigate this fully and weed out anyone who clearly abused the system that was in place. Unfortunately it seems that 2K is intent on sweeping this under the rug and hoping it goes away.

Chris Sanner: It's ironic that the one thing 2K Sports did right with the MLB 2K12 franchise has now turned into a big black eye as well. Let's face it, being presented with the evidence of cheating and then doing nothing about it is one of the lamest things I've seen a gaming company do in sports gaming.

Competitions like this should be programmed to have a very specific set of rules and a gameplay environment. This means that 2K should have simply given the users a choice of certain games and pitchers they could attempt the feat with. To have the perfect game competition turn into a giant sham is a complete joke at this point and unfortunately, fitting for the MLB 2K franchise.

To me, if this is truly the end of the MLB 2K series (although we really don't know either way), then it is a fitting one. The MLB 2K12 franchise is a failure at this point on this generation of consoles, with every year showing promise only to be ruined by buggy releases. It's time for another company (EA) to have their turn at the baseball mantle and for MLB 2K to simply just go away from the exclusive third-party baseball spotlight.

Caley Roark: I'll begin by agreeing with Matthew and Chris: this was both inevitable and a black eye on the franchise. To this point, the contest drew interest and spawned some creative commercials.

However, I'll go against the grain a little here. Because the exploit can't be recreated, I'm a little fuzzy as to whether it required some kind of hack or allowed users to access the opposing lineup from a normal menu. Furthermore, from what I've read, the exploit wasn't expressly forbidden in the contest's official rules.

I feel bad for those who threw perfect games without messing with the opposing lineup. But, if doing so wasn't mentioned in the official rules AND didn't require some kind of software manipulation, can this be construed as anything other than creative thinking?

I know, it falls into that grey area for both games and sports. Where does sportsmanship end and gamesmanship start? It's easy to say these actions violate the "spirit" of the rules ... but so do a lot of other things we accept in sports.

After all, it was once considered unsportsmanlike to throw any kind of deceptive pitch. And I'm not sure trick or gadget plays were intended when Walter Camp and others laid down the rules for football. But they are creative ways to get an edge on your opponent, and are within the written rules.

The blame for this mess, then, lies on 2K for not having the foresight to either lock this problem down or forbid it in the rules.

What do you OSer's think about MLB 2K12 and Cheatgate?

Major League Baseball 2K12 Videos

Member Comments

# 1 TheShizNo1 @ 05/09/12 02:24 PM

"Yea, if all I had to do was cheat at a game to get a million dollars, sorry: rent/bills > morals."

That's what I posted in the other thread for this. Cheating is wrong and all that stuff, but cheating at a game for a million dollars? I can live w/ that on my conscious.

Shame on 2K for investing this much time, effort, and money into a contest that can be exploited as simple as it was.

# 2 TheShizNo1 @ 05/09/12 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggies67


	What if you cheated, and the person you beat out needed the money more than you?

They should probably be doing something other than playing a video game to make money then.

# 3 TheShizNo1 @ 05/09/12 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggies67


	We all should be. The point is that if that person worked hard and played by the rules to pitch a perfect game, a cheater should not go ahead of him. And the cheater should feel really guilty about possibly taking moeny away from an honest person.

You're changing your argument. You initally asked what if the person needed the money more. My point was, they shouldn't be relying on a video game for an income. I should have been specific on that point.

You're right the cheater shouldn't go ahead of the honest person. I never said anything against that. I said if I could cheat at a game to get a million dollars I would. Should I? No. Would I? Yes.

# 4 DocHolliday @ 05/09/12 03:21 PM

One of the dudes "Handles" that is in the Final 8 in "Da Cheat618"....

I wonder how he got in.

In all honesty, having to be around the people that are probably in this would not be worth the Mil, I can only imagine what they are like. Gross.

http://2ksports.com/perfectclub

# 5 Yeats @ 05/09/12 03:52 PM

This story isn't about cheaters so much as it's about 2K dropping the ball, making excuses and being in complete denial yet again and as usual. Another example of the ineptness that's now synonymous with the 2K brand.

# 6 GuyinPA75 @ 05/09/12 05:22 PM

I think its sad. Shame it tarnishes what is actually a GREAT baseball game this year. I always enjoyed 2k baseball and hope it does not go away. 2k is far superior to ANY EA sports game. EA feels WAAAAAAY too arcadey and glitchy.

Want to talk about exploits? Psshf. Pick any EA sports game. Loaded with them.

# 7 GuyinPA75 @ 05/09/12 05:24 PM

I did miss who won the million dollar prize this year and cheated to win it?

Was Bill Belichick playing the MLB 2k contest this year?

# 8 Happy29 @ 05/09/12 06:50 PM

If you're not cheating you're not trying. What I mean by this is there are loop-holes and grey areas in all competitions it is the responsibility of the competitor to find them and use them to their advantage.

# 9 crumpled_heap @ 05/09/12 08:56 PM

I think we should be talking about the actual game instead of talking about a stupid contest that nobody cares about.

# 10 Happy29 @ 05/09/12 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggies67


	I hope you don't teach your children that philosophy.

Well haven't you played sports in your life, weather it be high school college, or whatever level it may be? What's some of the first things the coaches teach you? It's where those grey areas are in the rules and how to exploit them to your advantage over your competitor. It's not cheating it's exploiting the rules to your advantage.

# 11 wudl83 @ 05/10/12 01:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happy29


	Well haven't you played sports in your life, weather it be high school college, or whatever level it may be? What's some of the first things the coaches teach you? It's where those grey areas are in the rules and how to exploit them to your advantage over your competitor. It's not cheating it's exploiting the rules to your advantage.

What? You must live in a strange area. My sports coaches never tried to teach me some things like that lol

# 12 bkrich83 @ 05/10/12 05:13 AM

Is anyone surprised by this? Trying to exploit games or flat out cheat has permeated online gaming since it's inception. Whether it's Madden, or Halo, or COD, people are always trying to take the easy route when playing games. It's perfectly acceptable among a large part of the online gaming community.

It's crap like this, why I don't even bother with contests like this, or play others online. I'd rather just enjoy the game, for what it was intended to be, than spend my time trying to find holes in the AI, or limitations to the game, or loopholes.

It's obvious these people played the game in a way that was not in the spirit of the contest. They simply didn't care or didn't know any better.

Either way, this is a big who cares for me

# 13 Yeats @ 05/10/12 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happy29


	Well haven't you played sports in your life, weather it be high school college, or whatever level it may be? What's some of the first things the coaches teach you? It's where those grey areas are in the rules and how to exploit them to your advantage over your competitor. It's not cheating it's exploiting the rules to your advantage.

Hard to understand why you're now trying to defend that first statement of yours, lol. Nobody is taught to cheat by their coaches. (Other than by Greg Williams, ha!) And if they are, then that's one seriously f'd up coach.

# 14 geisterhome @ 05/10/12 09:47 AM

think cheating sucks when its abt such a amount of money, but hey this just reflects the society we are living in!

# 15 Happy29 @ 05/10/12 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggies67


	Then why did you write:

It's an old saying in racing.

# 16 Iceman87GT @ 05/10/12 03:36 PM

Caley Roark,

It may not have been mentioned in the rules (which was a definite oversight by 2K), but messing with the opponent's line-up destroys the integrity of the score.

The score was directly tied to the opponent's line-up for that day, not upon which team you faced. So playing the Red Sox without Adrian Gonzalez, David Ortiz and Justin Pedroria in the line-up should not get the same amount of points as facing a line-up with those players. Unfortunately the difficulty was set based upon the MLB Today line-ups, meaning if you could manage to alter them at any point without voiding your entry your game against a deflated Red Sox line-up would get you just as much point as a game against the actual line-up.

Basically had the Red Sox actually gone with a line-up without those 3 players in real life the difficulty would have been significantly lower. It's not 'creative thinking' it's straight up cheating, you can't choose your opponent's line-up in real life. And its ridiculous to suggest that someone who plays against a line-up missing 3 of their best hitters should get as many points as someone who accomplished the same thing against a line-up with the 3 best hitters.

There's no grey area here, 2K screwed up by not ensuring it was impossible to alter the MLB Today line-ups or at the very least not having dynamic difficulty ratings if changes were made, but those who compromised the integrity of the score are just as guilty. I'm tired of people who exploit rules or game glitches getting a pat of the back because they found a way to exploit the system. Its not creative, its not smart its straight up dirty. Our culture has shifted dramatically in the wrong direction, we should all be condemning these people yet there are far too many people who either don't care or are evening commending them.

# 17 CPRoark @ 05/10/12 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iceman87GT


	Caley Roark, It may not have been mentioned in the rules (which was a definite oversight by 2K), but messing with the opponent's line-up destroys the integrity of the score. The score was directly tied to the opponent's line-up for that day, not upon which team you faced. So playing the Red Sox without Adrian Gonzalez, David Ortiz and Justin Pedroria in the line-up should not get the same amount of points as facing a line-up with those players. Unfortunately the difficulty was set based upon the MLB Today line-ups, meaning if you could manage to alter them at any point without voiding your entry your game against a deflated Red Sox line-up would get you just as much point as a game against the actual line-up. Basically had the Red Sox actually gone with a line-up without those 3 players in real life the difficulty would have been significantly lower. It's not 'creative thinking' it's straight up cheating, you can't choose your opponent's line-up in real life. And its ridiculous to suggest that someone who plays against a line-up missing 3 of their best hitters should get as many points as someone who accomplished the same thing against a line-up with the 3 best hitters. There's no grey area here, 2K screwed up by not ensuring it was impossible to alter the MLB Today line-ups or at the very least not having dynamic difficulty ratings if changes were made, but those who compromised the integrity of the score are just as guilty. I'm tired of people who exploit rules or game glitches getting a pat of the back because they found a way to exploit the system. Its not creative, its not smart its straight up dirty. Our culture has shifted dramatically in the wrong direction, we should all be condemning these people yet there are far too many people who either don't care or are evening commending them.

Thanks for the clarifications. What's still unclear to me is whether the line-up changes were made via some kind of exploit or simply by using the menus. Did it require some kind of code, pausing at the right time, or swapping controllers? Or, could you just pause the game before the first pitch and fiddle with the line-ups?

There's a key difference in those two things, for me. One requires some outside technical knowledge and circumventing the way the game functions. The other is a natural function of the game that anyone could have found and used.

You are correct that you can't choose your opponent's line-up in real life., but neither can a pitcher choose his opponent. Looking at the leader board, there are a lot of Halladay's vs Cubs and Pirates. I guess my point is we can't apply real world situations to what is simply a virtual recreation.

While not a true mirror, look at really competitive video games like StarCraft, old school arcade games, or fighting games. The most skilled players have memorized frames of animation and event times down to the second. This doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the game, but has become a staple of those competitive arenas.

If 2K is laying that much money on the line, I think they should have prepared for users to milk every ounce of advantage out of the system.

Thanks to your post, I have a clearer understanding of how the scoring worked and completely agree that a player who beat the Red Sox with their lineup intact should have a better score than those who did it against bench players. That's a scoring issue, and the fault still lies with 2K (I think we both agree on that).

However, the act of exploiting a game's inherent shortcomings, to me at least, doesn't constitute cheating. Just like Steve Weibe memorized the fireball patterns in Donkey Kong, a player figuring out how to face a weaker line-up isn't necessary breaking the rules. However, if Steve hacked his board or a 2K player tweaked software, that's a whole different story. That's the part of the story I haven't been able to get a clear answer on.

We need to see this contest as a video game, not compare it to real life baseball. However, I completely agree that it is a shame that the scoring is broken and that 2K hasn't done anything to fix it.

# 18 Heroesandvillains @ 05/11/12 03:35 PM

Hypothetical:

Rubik's Cube announced a $5 million award for the first person to successfully figure out it's puzzle. Contestants have one month from the date of entry to complete the cube. Once completed, a photo must be emailed to the company's official website.

Rules:

1. Contestants have 30 days to submit their photo of their completed puzzled via email. A completed cube consists of each side being the exact same color (I.E. One side must be red, one side must be blue, one side must be yellow, and one side must green).

2. The cube must be an official Rubik's product, thus the brand name must be included in the photograph along with a copy of the product's receipt if requested.

3. There is no limit on how many players can compete on one cube.

4. All entries will be evaluated by Rubik's and can be disqualified for any reason based on the discretion of our judges.

So I go to the store. I buy an official Rubick's Cube, a surgical quality knife, and some Gorilla glue.

Within 20 minutes, I've dissected all of the colored tape on the cube, and placed all of the like colors on their respective sides of the cube. I take a photo of the cube and email it to Rubik's. And I saved my receipt.

Nowhere in the rules does it explicitly say that the cube needs to be contorted to be finished. Though I knowingly went against the spirit of the competition, I technically didn't break the officially designated entry requirements.

We're talking life changing money here. Not to mention the integrity of a popular company. How someone at 2K didn't immediately (A) aknowledge that their rules should be clearer BUT (B) at least include a fine print rule that expressly stated that they could disqualify ANY participant for ANY reason is repulsive.

Note: To be fair, a fine print rule like this MAY exist. I'm not sure. If it does, try should use it.

Heads should roll over this. People should be fired.

It's irrelevant to me whether or not the rule forbade lineup switches. The point is that the participant in question knowingly made the adjustment, and the scoring system was broken enough to NOT factor in the actual lineups used. Under no circumstances should players using adjusted lineups be allowed to enter the final round UNLESS somehow their scores are recalculated.

Wow...this story really has me riled up.

# 19 CPRoark @ 05/11/12 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heroesandvillains


	Hypothetical: Rubik's Cube announced a $5 million award for the first person to successfully figure out it's puzzle. Contestants have one month from the date of entry to complete the cube. Once completed, a photo must be emailed to the company's official website. Rules: 1. Contestants have 30 days to submit their photo of their completed puzzled via email. A completed cube consists of each side being the exact same color (I.E. One side must be red, one side must be blue, one side must be yellow, and one side must green). 2. The cube must be an official Rubik's product, thus the brand name must be included in the photograph along with a copy of the product's receipt if requested. 3. There is no limit on how many players can compete on one cube. 4. All entries will be evaluated by Rubik's and can be disqualified for any reason based on the discretion of our judges. So I go to the store. I buy an official Rubick's Cube, a surgical quality knife, and some Gorilla glue. Within 20 minutes, I've dissected all of the colored tape on the cube, and placed all of the like colors on their respective sides of the cube. I take a photo of the cube and email it to Rubik's. And I saved my receipt. Nowhere in the rules does it explicitly say that the cube needs to be contorted to be finished. Though I knowingly went against the spirit of the competition, I technically didn't break the officially designated entry requirements. We're talking life changing money here. Not to mention the integrity of a popular company. How someone at 2K didn't immediately (A) aknowledge that their rules should be clearer BUT (B) at least include a fine print rule that expressly stated that they could disqualify ANY participant for ANY reason is repulsive. Note: To be fair, a fine print rule like this MAY exist. I'm not sure. If it does, try should use it. Heads should roll over this. People should be fired. It's irrelevant to me whether or not the rule forbade lineup switches. The point is that the participant in question knowingly made the adjustment, and the scoring system was broken enough to NOT factor in the actual lineups used. Under no circumstances should players using adjusted lineups be allowed to enter the final round UNLESS somehow their scores are recalculated. Wow...this story really has me riled up.

I'm completely in agreement with you (and others) on the end result. Beating the Red Sox with their line-up intact should score higher than one without their stars.

Let me throw out another hypothetical, one that actually grounded a little in reality. When I was a kid, Topps release "Gold Cards," which were premium cards with fancy embossing and extra glossiness. One year, each pack had a scratch off ticket. It was a picture of the field, with a scratch-off at each of the bases.

If I recall, the goal of the game was to find three matching symbols before your scratched off the one that was different. If you did, you won whatever prize was under another scratch off field. Pretty much like an instant lottery ticket.

Anyway, some kid on my bus found out that by holding a flashlight against the back of the card it became easy to see the differing symbol. Suddenly, everyone was winning the prizes (which I think were mostly free packs of cards).

Suppose a company ran a similar contest today, with higher stakes...say, $1,000,000. And, by accident, you find that holding the ticket up to light reveals the matching symbols. Would you do it?

I suppose an ethics professor would suggest that the morally correct thing to do would be to abstain from entering the contest, since you had discovered a loophole not covered in the rules. You aren't defacing the ticket or being fraudulent. You just stumbled upon a method for winning that was stupidly unforeseen by the company.

I would suggest that the majority of people would enter anyway.

Again, I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here, and think that those players who tweaked line-ups should be ranked lower than those who didn't. But in the end, it comes down to 2K's screw up. I think when this much money is on the line, "spirit of the rules" becomes too vague to trust.

# 20 ANDROMADA 1 @ 05/12/12 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happy29


	If you're not cheating you're not trying. What I mean by this is there are loop-holes and grey areas in all competitions it is the responsibility of the competitor to find them and use them to their advantage.

My drill sergeant used to say thew same thing.....but he would add "If you get caught you ain't tryin hard enough."

People will always go for the lowest common denominator. Its human nature.

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