2k Sports Fixes The MLB2K Baseball Contest It Previously Said Wasn't Broke

from the if-it-ain't-broke,-fix-it? dept

Tue, Apr 2nd 2013 3:07pm — Timothy Geigner

If you're a fan of playing baseball the way its inventor intended, meaning on your couch in front of the television with a controller in your hand, you may recall our discussion last year around 2K Sports' famous Perfect Game Challenge. Should you not be familiar with it, that contest revolves around a competition between anyone who was able to pitch a perfect game in the MLB2K series (no hits, no walks, no errors in a complete game shutout by one pitcher) for various large cash prizes. Deadspin's Owen Good discovered an exploit in the system that allowed players to manually replace the starting lineups of the teams they were opposing, essentially rigging it to face the worst possible lineup for their pitching performance, and still have it be counted as a valid perfecto. He also outted at least one specific entrant into the subsequent playoff contest for the challenge that used that system. 2K Sports declined to do anything about it, saying instead:

"The contest was run properly," 2K Sports said. "We look forward to awarding someone a million dollars on May 10 in New York."

Utilizing the black magic called "reductive reasoning", I can only assume that that the company is deciding this year to actively make their annual contest improper. What else would one conclude, given that they have fixed the exploit? As Owen Good once more notes:

Today, I started a game under the Million Dollar Challenge menu option and as soon as I pressed start to go the substitution menu in the loading screen, I lost the official logo. According to the contest's official rules, you may not pause the game, substitute any player on either team, make a mound visit, or delay the game longer than 10 seconds between pitches.

I learned long ago that the greatest power you have when you make a mistake is to own it, fix it, and move on. 2K Sports appears to have skipped a step, which just makes them look proud and petty. Unfortunately for them, both the internet and baseball keep long memories.

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Filed Under: baseball, contest, fix, sports
Companies: 2k sports

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2013 @ 3:37pm

tim youre an idiot
stop blogging about video games, you have not made a coherent point yet.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2013 @ 3:52pm

Re: tim youre an idiot
Are you the coherence pot or the coherence kettle?
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Zos (profile), 2 Apr 2013 @ 4:02pm

so...did they give the exploiter the million dollars last year?
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2013 @ 4:12pm

Re: Re: tim youre an idiot
Ain't that a bit racialist
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ukyo_rulz (profile), 2 Apr 2013 @ 5:42pm

Personally I feel that players should be allowed to utilize any and all exploits or loopholes they can find in any given tournament. The tournament organizers should also feel free to remove any and all exploits or loopholes detected... after the tournament is over. For next time. The players must have a reasonable expectation that the rules will not change mid-way in a competition.
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cxlwxz, 2 Apr 2013 @ 7:47pm

chiavette usb
so...did they give the exploiter the million dollars last year?
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Simon, 2 Apr 2013 @ 7:49pm

broken, not broke.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2013 @ 1:20am

If the rules of the contest as originally written allowed this "exploit," then the contest was run properly, by the rules as they existed at the time.

The rules were then amended for the next year's game. Also properly. The improper thing to do would have been to change the rules mid-game.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2013 @ 3:29am

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 3rd, 2013 @ 1:20am
Yep, I'm siding with the people that say no foul was committed here. If they failed to take exploits into account for their rules the first time, the guy deserved his win, and they did the right thing changing then for next time rather than creating a big to-do over changing the rules mid-competition.

We've seen this time and again in the video game industry - people can and will use anything and everything they can to win competitions, and they should as long as its in the context of the rules.
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Lord Binky, 3 Apr 2013 @ 5:48am

So they continue to make their million dollar challenge, more challenging each iteration? How can a contest be run properly if it isn't perfect the first time it is done?!
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kog999, 3 Apr 2013 @ 7:04am

"as soon as I pressed start to go the substitution menu in the loading screen"

hold up a minute. was his "Exploit" really just using the built in and unmoddified in game menu to change the line up? If so that is no an exploit, a creative way to win maybe but no exploit. i assume he modified the game binaries, or modified the save file or used some buffer overflow or something like that.
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