The recent controversy surrounding IGN’s alleged manipulation of the Honor of Kings annual game player voting data has sparked widespread debate. The game’s vote percentage dropped from 90% to 70% within an hour, prompting accusations of play hard to get behavior from the gaming community. However, IGN’s co-founder and chief development officer, Peer Schneider, has since stepped forward to address these concerns.
IGN’s Explanation
Schneider clarified that the tweet in question linked to a page from six days prior and did not represent the current game rankings. He explained that within the past week, the number one game had changed three times based on fan support. The page in question is the IGN Community’s Top 25 Games of 2024 So Far, which is updated weekly and features data from the IGN Community 2024 Game of the Year Voting page, which is updated in real-time based on player support.
Schneider continued to explain that during the weekend, the vote percentages for Honor of Kings and Cosmic Robots surged. After reviewing the situation with the engineering team, they believed the increase was due to robotic voting. IGN did not alter any voting data; instead, they removed robotic and non-human votes.
Player Feedback vs. IGN’s Explanation
Despite IGN’s claims, player feedback has been mixed. Lo Renzuo, the administrator of the Honor of Kings Baidu forum, live-streamed the game’s real-time voting rate and discovered that the data dropped by 0.2% every minute. Additionally, within 1 hour and 20 minutes, the game received 40,000 comments, compared to 2,000 comments for Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth during the same time frame. These 40,000 comments were almost entirely negative, leading to a drop in the game’s ranking.
Furthermore, players pointed out that the drop in Honor of Kings voting rates coincided with the early morning hours in the United States, when most Americans were asleep and unlikely to be voting. The only plausible explanation, they suggested, was that IGN had altered the data behind the scenes.
IGN China’s Stance
In response, IGN China issued a statement clarifying that each of its international sites operates independently, without any headquarters or branch concept. While respecting the views of other IGN sites, they also reserve the right to hold their own opinions.
Conclusion
The controversy surrounding IGN’s handling of the Honor of Kings voting data continues to unfold, with differing accounts from both the gaming community and IGN itself. As the situation develops, it remains to be seen how the situation will be resolved and whether player trust in IGN will be restored.
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