LogFAQs > #914577737

6.



Man. Maaaaaaaaaaaan. This wasn't a contest match, it was an internet war.

We've all accepted that gamefaqs is dying. Our vote totals are about 20% of what they used to be since gamefaqs is this beautifully antiquated website. Text walkthroughs have long since passed video games by, but here we are, still doing our thing because that's our little corner on the block. One look at this site's forums really shows how much we like old time-y things, and the audience has either embraced that or moved on.

When something like reddit or twitter or tumblr comes for our contests, we're largely helpless to do anything about it. It happened in 2004 when battle.net came for gamefaqs, and it made a mark but didn't blow up the contest as we know it. Draven, though, put on performances that we've not seen before or since. This was a full scale invasion.

And gamefaqs responded, and responded hard. It's fucking wild that we decided to defend Link, ruiner of competition, against the outside world. But he's our conqueror, not some other site's. Draven came in and did what Draven does, putting Link down 6000 votes by 7am. It wasn't quite on the scale of the MMX match, but it was Link.

Morning came and Link did what Link has done in the mornings for 10 years: he killed his opponent. Link's legitimately never lost a day vote. He's like 83-0. Suddenly, Link was legitimately making a comeback. Draven seemed like he had, somehow, run out of votes. Link cut off a thousand votes in an hour and it was down to 4k with 12 hours to go.

And then the site (mostly) went down for like an hour and a half. Maybe a DDOS? Maybe not? The timing is awfully convenient. Allen said he did everything he could to identify what had happened and it didn't look like one, and I believe him when he says he can't find it, but who knows. Ceej also said he couldn't identify vote stuffing in the Starcraft/Melee match and there clearly was some of that. That kind of thing doesn't just happen. Draven pushed the match back to a 5k lead.

Then the amazing happened: somehow, a lot of the internet noticed what was going on. You had guys like Jennifer Hale and David Hayter tweeting to vote for Link. What?! Link tore at the lead until the end of the poll and came up 765 votes short. He needed 30 more minutes. 30 minutes that was lost. If Mario/Crono 2 was illegitimate, this was worse. And this was the de facto final of the contest. The Mario/Crono 2 winner was always going to get killed by Sephiroth.

It's just a wild match. The craziest thing is that it happened in 2013, when contest interest was at an all-time low. There was so many wild things that happened here that is on a level beyond anything else we've ever seen. Something happened with Allen's wife, using his reddit account, talking to the league of legends subreddit? Just, what? This whole thing was like one big fever dream. For 24 hours, an internet war happened and, either by accident or by cheating, Draven had managed to win. The site didn't have the security holes that 2003/2004 gamefaqs polls did, but a DDOS is a DDOS. And it's impossible to know if that's what happened here or not.

From a certain perspective, this is the greatest gamefaqs match of all time, and from another perspective it's the worst match we've ever had, a total perversion of what these polls have always been. I love that this match riled up so many emotions so many years after the fact. The way it happened sucked, and if Link had pulled this off, holy crap. But after watching 2018 limp along with characters going up 300 votes and holding on to win the match, there's certainly part of me that thinks, "gimme that Link/Draven enthusiasm one more time."
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