Don’t Forget To Enter The GTA IV Xbox 360 Caption Contest

Maybe if DasGamer had some contact info on their site so they could have been alerted to the cheating when the individual with the “turn us into newts” comment started cheating (which was obvious almost immediately), or had shown any desire to put a stop to the obvious early cheating instead of letting it go for 5 days and showing no signs of caring, this would have never happened. By doing nothing DasGamer forced the other contestants to feel as though the only way they had a chance to win was to either cheat to win or make the number of votes so ridiculous that they had to pull the poll. DasGamer’s incompetence in this matter is what caused the problem. First they use a simple cookie as a way of preventing multiple votes instead of limiting votes to a single ip address or requiring a word verification to vote, and then they sit on their collective asses for 5 days seemingly not alarmed at all though the number of votes was rising exponentially and must have soared well past the amount of traffic that they knew was realistic for their site. They can talk about “weeding out saboteurs” all they want but they created this mess by creating an environment that was conducive to cheating. This was a poorly thought out and executed contest, the poll should have been pulled within 48 hours and the winner chosen by the DasGamer staff. You didn’t even write that it was one vote per person in the contest rules section, so technically none of the cheater did anything against the rules. Truly as big a display of ineptitude on a website as I have ever seen.

By Noodles on May 23, 2008

Can one person enter more than one caption? I read the posts and the official rules, and I couldn’t tell.

I’m assuming Noodles was one of the cheaters who can’t quite bring herself to own her own bad behavior, but she does have one thing right, a contact link would be cool. I’ve been looking for a place to ask this question for a while now.

By fortunz on May 23, 2008

fotunz, obviously I cheated, I wasn’t trying to hide that fact nor was I trying to justify it, and I am having no trouble owning up to it.
The point I was trying to make, which I thought was obvious was that DasGamer was grossly incompetent.
The number of votes that I generated both for myself and 3 of the other contestants were done not with the intention of winning, but trying to force DasGamer to pull the poll. Obviously I had hoped they would then vote on the entries themselves, but I was well aware disqualification was the likely outcome. I really didn’t care at that point. As long as “the turn us all into newts” caption didn’t win I was happy.
As a last resort I attempted to alert their sister site, Planet Xbox 360, in the hope that they would contact DasGamer but I never received a reply. So I figured screw it, I’ll try and force DasGamer’s hand, one way or the other. In the end I achieved a result which to me was satisfactory.

By Noodles on May 24, 2008

Just because you CAN cheat doesn’t mean you SHOULD. You guys had a chance at winning a simply amazing prize. Don’t you think you should have just played the game the way you should have and tried to win by votes instead of rigging it?

It’s sad that they tried to cheat to win. I was upset that mine didn’t get chosen but now I’m actually glad it didn’t. I would have been screwed but now I have a second chance (hopefully.)

By NegativeGhostrider on May 26, 2008

And what the hell was that “turn us all into newts” caption about? It wasn’t really that funny to begin with and I was surprised it got picked as a top 5 caption.

By NegativeGhostrider on May 26, 2008

NegativeGhostRider, I think you have missed the point. I never set out to cheat in the contest and thought my caption was somewhat funny and had a fair chance of winning. At the time “newt” started cheating I had a decent lead (though it was very early) and had accumualated votes fairly, the position I’m in allowed me to alert lots of people of the contest and have them vote for me. As I stated earlier if I hadn’t overloaded the vote to a ridiculous extent, “newt” would have won soley by cheating. I was online and watched as he voted himself to a 61% vote total in just about an hour. So the next morning I decided to blow him out of the water, which I did. As I stated earlier, I was stunned when DasGamer actually allowed the voting to continue, given that I was placing over 80 votes per minute for 3 straight days. My apologies to those who were screwed by this, but a cheater would have won anyway, so now every one gets a fair shot again and I wish you luck.

By Noodles on May 26, 2008

SethK, Thank you. I honestly tried to contact you guys, and after much Googling all I came up with was a advertising phone # for Complex. Maybe I should have tried that avenue. I still wish you guys had voted amongst yourselves on the 5 chosen captions but I obviously understand you are trying to maintain your sites integrity. I look forward to seeing the site grow and improve, (and winning future contests).

By Noodles on May 27, 2008

Thanks Seth!

By fortunz on May 27, 2008