Was Zynga Cheated?

[Marmooset]

To preface this, I am in no way supporting or endorsing Zynga's potential victory (or even appearance) in the Escapist March Mayhem. And I am just a conspiracy-loving crank (real or not), and not to be taken seriously.

With all that in mind:

• Rewind to last weekend. Valve, developer extraordinaire, has been pushed to the limit.
  
  They started out with a bang, getting thousands of votes in the first hour. But Zynga puts a link up in one of their FB fanclubs ("ADD ME!!!"), and suddenly, they have just the necessary votes to pull ahead - x+1.
  
  Other developer fans join forces with Valve. Under this unity, they have managed to retake the lead. But Zynga simply posts on another FB game, and it is again x+1 Zynga.
  
  Valve resorts to tapping the power that is their home site. The votes accumulated outnumber those of the other final four match combined - it is quite likely a record in votes and traffic for this site, period.
  Zynga puts a button up on Facebook. The masses click. Once again, x+1.
  
  Saturday morning, and things have gotten desperate. Valve fans, other fans, the entire community have pulled out all the stops to no avail. The outcry is fierce - if forum posts counted rather than votes, Valve would be winning with an 85%+ share - but the deadline draws near, and Zynga is drawing away. X+1 has become x+3.
  
  Without warning, the lights go out. Voting is frozen, and forum access is limited. The deadline has been tabled 24 hours. And when the system comes round, Valve not only has a lead, but a rather comfortable one - moreso than can be explained by a Twitter differential. Stranger still, Zynga doesn't do anything to gain on Valve in the final hours, despite the fact that their tactics have worked time and again. A developer that has no problem garnering over 20 thousand votes cannot scrape together another 2. Valve wins.
  

Believe me, no one is happier than myself about the results. But the ending had sort of a tacked-on, post audience screening feel to it. Too good to be true.

Personally, I think the possibilities are as follows:

• 
  A) (And most likely) It is what it is. Valve pulled it out in the final hours, and I'm just paranoid.
  B) The Escapist, recognizing a potentially volatile community fallout from a Zynga victory, acted in the best interests of its participants. Things were done, no one was spared.
  C) Maybe numbers were fudged the other way. Zynga was never that close, but it made for good TV (March is a sweeps month, you know).
  D) Maybe Zynga was caught cheating. And in the ensuing blackout period, they were given the option "Die quietly, and we won't blow the whistle on your vote manipulation." From a cinematic sense, I sorta like that one.
  

In any event, I've run out of rambling. Any thoughts?

 

[DividedUnity]

Valve won it fair and square. Can we please just forget about this whole MM thing now. Its getting old

 

[tomvw]

Twitter votes made the difference, case closed. Let us never speak of this again.

 

[Captain Karma]

As the loudest Zynga supporter in MM, I will go on the record saying that I feel Zynga lost fair and square. Honestly, if anything Escapist would have wanted Zynga to lose in the finals.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Valve pulled it out in the final hours, and I'm just paranoid.
Any thoughts?

I would like to contribute something more, but I took this entirely the wrong way. *Represses images of Gabe Newell.*

My eyes! The goggles do nothing! ...probably because it's inside my brain thanks to you.

 

[Fox242]

Really? Zynga wasn't cheated. It lost fair and square just as it should have in the first round. Justice was served with its loss.

 

[D_987]

I think it's more likely the case that a far greater number of Twitter voters voted for Valve, alongside the fact that voters that were banned / voted twice lost their votes.

But as has been said above - who cares? It's March Madness, a stupid internet poll designed to give The Escapist more publicity and traffic - simple. It was almost embarrassing reading some of the pages on that thread - of people that took what amounts to an internet poll incredibly seriously, in the end the contest doesn't - as many morons proclaimed, prove who is the best developer (what exactly defines "best developer" anyway when there're so many different types of games?).

Just forget about it; just as everyone has done for the last couple of years when Turbine won.

 

[Jack and Calumon]

Here's my Thought, The Escapist Worked out how to use Twitter. Huzzah!

Calumon: Dance Party! *CaramellDansen*

[sup]not again...[/sup]

 

[Indecizion]

i think it was almost the other way around, anyone who genuinely believes that their apps are better than HL2 CS:S and L4D need help.

 

[Aptspire]

I still think Valve won this fair and square

 

[Eldarion]

This whole thing is just a publicity stunt by the site to attract traffic. That is why they made facebook and twitter part of the contest, that is the one and only reason Zynga was in the contest to begin with. The escapist wanted the traffic it would bring.

The contest wasn't an attempt to decide the best game developer, if that was the case gamers would have been the ones voting, not facebook browsers. At least Valve beat them, but that doesn't excuse Zynga being in the contest to begin with.

But as has been said above - who cares? It's March Madness, a stupid internet poll designed to give The Escapist more publicity and traffic - simple. It was almost embarrassing reading some of the pages on that thread - of people that took what amounts to an internet poll incredibly seriously, in the end the contest doesn't - as many morons proclaimed, prove who is the best developer (what exactly defines "best developer" anyway when there're so many different types of games?).

^Posted at about the same time I did, yhea my thoughts exactly.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

Valve won the honest old-fashioned way. Deal with it and stop being a paranoid nut over it.

 

[RheynbowDash]

Zynga shouldnt have even been in this contest in the first place. All they did was spam facebook and myspace to get their idiotic fanbase to vote. They arent a real developer anyway.

 

[Daveman]

I think it was more everyone going "holy fuck, anyone but them!" If Capcom didn't win (the good casual games developer) then I wouldn't want another casual gaming company to do it.

 

[Kollega]

Valve won fairly, stop tinfoil-hat-ing it. But you know what? Even if they didn't, i don't care. Company scamming it's customers will not be called "best developer", and that's what matters.

 

[fix-the-spade]

D) Maybe Zynga was caught cheating. And in the ensuing blackout period, they were given the option "Die quietly, and we won't blow the whistle on your vote manipulation." From a cinematic sense, I sorta like that one.

Any thoughts?

If any vote deleting took place, the most likely is that one side was caught using some method of voting that Themis Media had declared unacceptable.

In past Mayhems people (not the developers they were voting for) have been caught employing bots to mass vote. It wouldn't surprise me to find people on both sides tried this approach.
It's also possible Zynga's massive, massive facebook spam and one click voting could have rankled. Seeing as that vote button puts load on Escapist servers without giving them user accounts and useful traffic. Making it effectively spam.

Of course most likely is the great, lidless eye that is Valve's forum user base turned it's attention to March Mayhem and thought, "we want to win this,"
From that moment, all the FaceBook spam on earth wouldn't have changed the outcome.

 

[notyouraveragejoe]

I think that Valve just pulled forward. I mean the huge voting was probably what caused the crash. Plus Zynga likely had tapped the users that actually cared enough to vote and didn't have the fresh faced violent Valve fans coming straight out of Steam. I may be naive if cheating did occur but I doubt it and I'm happy with my idea.