EA Sports issues statement on Twitter regarding the Cover Vote irregularities
I'm sure there are plenty of people tired of this appearing on the board, but here is what EA Sports had to say about Texas A&M exploiting a loophole.
https://twitter.com/EANCAAFootball/status/310059529549262848
https://twitter.com/EANCAAFootball/status/310059812476035075
"We are aware of the voting irregularities around the #NCAACoverVote. We are in touch with the schools involved in the final round voting and in the spirit of integrity and fair play, are in agreement that only votes from legitimate accounts will be counted in the vote."
So take that for whatever it's worth. Apparently the complaining and losing a 14K lead in one day did get their attention.
UPDATE:
https://twitter.com/EANCAAFootball/status/310101158918230016
"FYI - If you're still creating fake accounts and "causes" pages to vote from, you're wasting your time. #NCAACoverVote"
Not sure how they can decipher between all of it or whatever, but they just issued this on Twitter at 2 pm.
Vote the old-fashioned way - well, to the extent that logging into a popular social networking site that started in the early 2000s to vote for the cover photo of a video game is old -- never mind.
In any event, can't rely on UM bots out botting TAM bots.
What Would Herm Do
Cheating bastards.
Unlike what's being suggested here, you mean?
Possibly not the best line of discussion you want to be going down, I'm thinking.
Calm down. I was being sarcastic.
Maybe it's because I don't play video games or something, but I find this hard to get too worked up about. Yes, Denard winning would be awesome for both him and Michigan fans. Absolutely. But what is happening is exactly what happens every time there is an online poll. One side looks like it's going to win, the other side starts rigging the vote, then the first fan base starts trying to out-cheat the other, and it becomes a big bot arms race. In the end, the host of the poll will say something about how they know people are cheating and that they'll take care of it, all the while no one cares whatsoever other than the people who are working really hard to out cheat the other side.
In this case, I think A&M started it in earnest last night, but I've seen the Michigan fan base jump the gun and start rigging results of previous polls. So in the end, alls fair in online fan polls, I guess.
Like I said below, when EA Sports inevitably picks whichever player they want regardless of vote, it'll probably be Denard over Swope for simple name recognition reasons. For his sake, I'm hoping I'm right. If I wrong, I won't lose sleep.
If anyone's an expert on the subject of skirting the rules, it's Buckeye fan.
Once again demonstrating that hell hath no fury like a Michigan online fanbase scorned.
This might be the comment of the decade. JM, you have to use it as a signature or at least license it out to someone else to use. Its an instant classic!
It's out in the public domain. License away.
Awesome news. I hope they are able to change the number of votes ASAP instead of waiting a week or whatever amount of time to inform everyone of the winner. I have a feeling we won't know until late next week, assuming they have to go through the thousands of votes.
I haz a sad for the Aggies.
Am I the only one who's skeptical of this? Unless there's some automated way for them to tell which accounts are "real" and which aren't, I have a very, very hard time believing that EA Sports is going to sift through >300,000 votes to manually count only those they deem legitimate. Sort of seems like the value of tweeting something like this is to discourage continued cheating, not to actually correct any of the irregularities that have already surfaced.
I assume they have a way of seeing that only one vote per account, or something along those lines.
Facebook only allows one vote per account anyway. My impression was that people were creating potemkin accounts in order to vote.
Facebook allows way more than one account per person. Keep clicking the vote bubble and you'll see that your vote will be added again.
So there's still the problem of deleting multiple votes too.
The whole thing is poop.
Or how about saying the vote ended yesterday before all the cheating started? I'm sure they have the ability to take a snap shot of what the voting looked like before AM's total started magically skyrocketing.
Sure, but that would be arbitrary and contrary to the rules and deadlines they set out for the contest. I think they would've been better off just saying nothing, pretending everything was legit, and then crowning the winner.
but at least it would be fair and ensure an even playing field for both finalists.
I think it'd be pretty easy to not count votes from Community pages, the main mode of these illegitimate votes. Since they're all tied to a personal account anyway, it doesn't make a lot of sense that "Communities" could vote in the first place.
Damn slow internet.
Is there a way to completely delete this that I don't know?
Also, you can't edit it now that I've replied. Sorry bout that.
I was thinking the same thing. How are they going to verify all those accounts?
It could just as easily be a way for EA Sports to pick whichever one they want, and say "according to the real vote, this guy won." (Personally, I would think that that would favor Denard, as he's been a household name for three years. No offense to A&M or Swope, who I believe is supposed to be very good, but he simply never had the hype train that Denard has had.)
Exactly. You know EA Sports started sweating when Swope closed in on (and briefly led) Denard. They have a financial stake in this, and they absolutely don't want video game consumers everywhere uttering a collective "Who???" when they pick up NCAA Football 2013.
between EA Sports and the Athletic Departments, that Michigan/Denard will get the cover this time and that Texas A&M has been promised the cover whenever Johnny Manziel enters the draft.
^^^This^^^
Highly agree sir (or lady). EA already admitted to being in contact with the athletic departments. This is as close to a "everybody wins" scenario that you could get to in life. Both fanbases/ADs get "their guy" on there (likely in successive seasons), and EA gets 2 VERY popular and well know athletes on their covers. Makes sense to me.
This whole facebook thing is mostly a hype machine anyways
Why does EA care if "everybody wins"? I forsee EA picking the cover athlete they want (which they would have done anyway) and then moving on. Why would it have to be any other way?
I'd love for DB to refuse that offer if it's extended and Denard has it sewn up - "Manziel's going pro the year DG has a good shot at the Heisman so we want a shot at that cover too..."
"I drink your milk shake..."
Couldn't you pull an extract of all votes, there has to be a voter ID associated with it, and i'd also assume, you can pull back any Parent IDs (e.g. Person who created that groupID that voted)
Does that make sense or am I offbase?
just going out there, saying, "hey, we see something going on. Knock it off, or we will look at the irregularity. So all your effort will be for naught, etc."
but it is interesting that denard took the lead again as of 11:15 am.
I like how Michigan posted on FB, do it the Michigan way, taking the high road etc.. .
That's a nice thing for Michigan to say, but there's no way Denard retook the lead via any means other than cheating the same way A&M has been. Not that it matters. EA Sports will use whoever they want to put on the cover of their video game.
does anyone think this thing is being audited by Deloitte and Touche? It's a marketing ploy to get clicks, then they put up whoever they want in the end. Is anyone going to FOIA the records to see if what they say is actually true? Doubtful.
LOL'd at the Deloitte reference. And pretty sure EA Sports is a nongovernmental entity, so not subject to FOIA. Sigh... chalk another one up to the worldwide illuminati shadow government.
who looks at that accounting firm name and wants to say "Toilet and Douche" instead?
Yikes.
I best not mention who my employer is on this here board.
My 5 year old son upvotes your comment and congratulates you on your wit.
Just curious: how do you check that? Are you searching for things like brand new profiles or empty profiles? Is it automated or do you have some poor intern sifting through profiles?
I'd imagine you can pull back the voter IDs, and run a check to see if there is a parent ID that has already voted. So basically
WillyWIll9 Voted for Denard (ParentID check =Null)
DenardShouldWinGroup voted for Denard (ParentID check = WillyWill9. Did WillyWill9 already vote? Yes.)
Or am i oversimplifying this?
... there are automated checks -- spikes in activity from specific regions, ip addresses, etc... You also have automated checks for anything that's burned you previously.
Then you have the poor interns who go through log files when there is suspicion, but no automated checks. Given the rate at which A&M closed the gap in this example, it wouldn't be hard to go through all the voting records and look for fishy things such as each vote occuring at an exact interval, all votes coming from a few computers, etc...
It's not hard to manipulate most voting/polling results online. What's hard is to do it without getting caught.
They never expected Ryan Swope? to be in the finals and realize that by having Denard on the cover it will greatly increase sales of the game. So why not have some intern sift through all those votes and delete the fraudulent ones to make it more "legitimate." EA is going to do whatever it takes to get Denard on the cover. He is a house hold name and is one of the most popular college football players in the last decade. Plus he is a great kid and deserves this honor. Not to say Swope doesnt deserve it, but most casual fans have no idea who he is. Plus A&M did cheat so I can almost guarantee Denard will win this thing.
Anyone know exactly when this ends? I know it's today, but just not sure of the exact time.
This is a tactic tons of online polls use. By saying that they are only counting "legitimate" votes, they give themselves permission to choose whoever they want as the winner and say it was because the other one didn't have enough "legitimate" votes. It really happens all the time, in all sorts of votes. Good news for Michigan fans at the very least, because we all know who EA wants on the cover, and it's not some unknown WR from A&M.
Without knowing what info is available, it's tough to tell. If it's there in any form, don't doubt the ability of a geek to mine it with a few keystrokes.