Nice investigation, HaRRicH ;D
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SC2K5 Elite Eight: Mario, Frog, Snake, Tidus, Crono, Knuckles, Sonic, Ocelot

Oh, it's worth noting that Starcraft got 40,698 votes against Kingdom Hearts, a match that wasn't linked to from anywhere as far as I know, and got 41,480 votes against Wind Waker, which was linked to. Take that as you will.
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"Heil Dweebenheimer!"
MasterMage119

Teamliquid, PGTour, and WGTour all had links to StarCraft vs Kingdom Hearts in the forums. None of them had news posts though.
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Think fast. Click faster.

Starcraft's matches weren't anything stellar in terms of vote turnout, except against Halo, and that was before the layout change anyway. I'm pretty sure SSBM/MGS2 would've gotten a lot of votes hadn't it happened.
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SC2K5 bracket: Samus over Snake, Crono over Megaman, Samus over Crono; Link over Sephiroth

Oh, it's worth noting that Starcraft got 40,698 votes against Kingdom Hearts, a match that wasn't linked to from anywhere as far as I know, and got 41,480 votes against Wind Waker, which was linked to. Take that as you will.

Kinky. Also keep in mind that Halo/Starcraft had the highest vote-total in the contest by over 5,000 votes.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Knuckles
Serious Reminder: Vote for Tifa Lockheart, too

My first picture. EVER.

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/2917/dantevsvincent2nm.jpg

I have no photoshop.

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A E I OWN U

Teamliquid, PGTour, and WGTour all had links to StarCraft vs Kingdom Hearts in the forums. None of them had news posts though.

Well, I'd think news posts would be what draw voters. Not everyone on the site will read that one topic.
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"Heil Dweebenheimer!"
MasterMage119

All of you people complaining about sc2k5.com being down... Why don't you just go to sc2k4.com? Seriously, it's not that hard to figure out that you could go there instead.

As for bracket voting...I don't believe that it's at all significant.

1. There aren't that many brackets out there.

2. Not everyone with a bracket votes on every match, probably especially in SC2k4, in which a large percentage of voters left during KH vs. Soul Calibur.

3. Most people with brackets don't bracket-vote. Hell, plenty of people with brackets probably don't even remember what they have in every match.

4. Even the people who do bracket-vote would probably have voted that way anyway, especially considering how many favorites brackets there are. If someone makes a favorites bracket and then bracket-votes in every match it's not going to make any difference.

1. There aren't that many brackets out there.

In SC2k2, there were about 17000 brackets, around 20% of the average number of votes per match.

In SC2k3, there were about 41000 brackets, around 40% of the average number of votes per match.

(next three bracket numbers are from Shadowdude)

In SpC2k4, there were about 40000 brackets, around 50% of the average number of votes per match.

In SC2k4, there were about 33000 brackets, around 40% of the average number of votes per match.

Now those are ROUGH rough numbers as I didn't really take the average number of votes in each contest. I based that off a simple look at voting numbers. Anyways, with numbers from 20% to 50% of votes, we can conclude that if people DID bracket vote significantly, it would have a GREAT impact on the contest. So the thought that there aren't enough brackets to have an effect would be incorrect.

2. Not everyone with a bracket votes on every match, probably especially in SC2k4, in which a large percentage of voters left during KH vs. Soul Calibur.

I totally disagree. If you care enough to make a bracket, then you are aware of the fact that the contest is going on. I find it hard to believe that people would make a bracket in a favorite character contest, and not check to see how their bracket is doing. The site change wouldn't make a difference because the bracket makers should be the people MOST aware that a contest is going on.

3. Most people with brackets don't bracket-vote. Hell, plenty of people with brackets probably don't even remember what they have in every match.

So you're saying the average bracket voter doesn't even remember who they put in their bracket? You're greatly underestimating the average bracket maker. They are very much aware of what is going on in the contest.

4. Even the people who do bracket-vote would probably have voted that way anyway, especially considering how many favorites brackets there are. If someone makes a favorites bracket and then bracket-votes in every match it's not going to make any difference.

Yeah, it was never said that 100% of the bracket voters vote one way. So even if you include the favorites brackets and all that stuff, you can assume that at least 60% of the bracket makers put up serious brackets. Even if you lower it to 40-50%, that shear amount of bracket votes STILL could make a significant impact during a close match.
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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

Forgot to add SpC2k5 numbers, but you get the point....
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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

They are very much aware of what is going on in the contest.

Then why can I get pitiful results one contest and still finish in the top 10% *coughthisspringcough*?

The average bracketmaker doesn't care as much as you'd like to think.
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SC2K5 bracket: Samus over Snake, Crono over Megaman, Samus over Crono; Link over Sephiroth

"So you're saying the average bracket voter doesn't even remember who they put in their bracket?"

In between making my 2k3 bracket and the start of the contest I forgot that I had Squall over Jill. At the time the knowledge we had backed up the Jill pick, and as we got near the contest I started to think that I had her in what I expected to be a very close match. Turns out I didn't have him losing until Luigi. People do sometimes forget these things, especially when they aren't making favorites brackets.
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Yoblazer just kicked my ass!

I totally disagree. If you care enough to make a bracket, then you are aware of the fact that the contest is going on. I find it hard to believe that people would make a bracket in a favorite character contest, and not check to see how their bracket is doing. The site change wouldn't make a difference because the bracket makers should be the people MOST aware that a contest is going on.

Didn't even think of that, good point...though I'm still not entirely sure just how serious bracket-voting should be considered. I would think about 76.51% take their bracket-making seriously though, heh (or, the people who picked Sephiroth to win the Villain Contest).
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Knuckles
Serious Reminder: Vote for Tifa Lockheart, too

Don't forget to account for the fact that he is genuinely the favorite villain of a large number of people who go to this site.
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Festivus

But Sephiroth, with an absurd amount of bracket backing, put up the weakest performance we've ever seen from him (possibly excluding 2k2). That makes me wonder about bracket voting.
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"The strong men take everything and the weak men die." ~ Luca Blight, Suikoden II

The site change wouldn't make a difference because the bracket makers should be the people MOST aware that a contest is going on.

IIRC, the site change was more offensive to hardcore GameFAQsers than casual visitors. They left in droves after that, and they're the ones most likely to have a bracket.

As for remembering what's in your bracket...I often forget myself, on many of the matches. Generally, I vote before I have a chance to even think of what's in my bracket. I doubt the average person spends much time thinking about which option to choose on the PotD, they just see a picture of their preferred character and vote.

And like Chichiri, I forgot that I had Tails over Joe until that match occured. It was quite a pleasant surprise to get that point.

Even if you lower it to 40-50%, that shear amount of bracket votes STILL could make a significant impact during a close match.

And how many people with serious brackets, who remember who they have every match and want to win, actually bracket vote in every match? Most people just pick their favorites, regardless of what they have in their brackets.

Let's say that 50% of people have serious brackets and want to win. Then lets say (and I'm being VERY generous her) that 10% of those people bracket vote. This comes out to, at most, 2000 people. Considering that plenty of the time the favorite and what's in the bracket coincide (obviously, since they are picking the more popular character, and the more popular character is more likely to be the favorite), this is going to have an extremely minor effect in any given match, and even less so for matches with high vote totals. It could've given Link a boost of 300 or 400 votes in Link/Ganon, since most people would vote Link over Ganon even if they didn't have a bracket.

In Conclusion: Bracket voting is completely irrelevant.

I didn't say the average bracket maker was SMART in making their brackets. Remember, this whole discussion was on bracket votes, not how well the average bracket maker does. It doesn't take much caring to come to the site and vote in the contest. If you put time into making a bracket, then one would assume you have the time to vote.

Again, I'm not saying 100% of the bracket voters act the same way. You can even take out all of the favorites brackets, zero brackets, people with multiple brackets, people forgetting WHO they put in their brackets, people who don't vote, etc. Even if we said that 25% of the brackets are serious and their voters bracket vote, that's still at LEAST a good 5000 votes. That's almost the bare minimum, and we know that 5000 votes can play a big role in close matches.
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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

That makes me wonder about anti-voting moreso, actually, though I'm too shaky on my stance about Sephiroth to really argue much right now.


Don't forget to account for the fact that he is genuinely the favorite villain of a large number of people who go to this site.

Fair enough then. 65.32%, it is.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=1970
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Knuckles
Serious Reminder: Vote for Tifa Lockheart, too

And what about Link in 2k3? What about Sephiroth in 2k5? What about Cloud in 2k4? All of them had extreme amounts of bracket voting behind them, and still did worse or the same as the previous year. Why did Magus overperform against Link despite having less than 25% of the brackets even supporting him to reach that match? Why did Frog overperform against Snake, while in the same scenario as Magus? Bracket-voting makes no sense at all, and anyone who believes it after seeing the results of this spring is absolutely insane.

Also, about bracket-support...while not always true, bracket-support often-times able to be correlated with strength, especially when we're talkin' about characters who aren't rookies. Bracket-voting rarely should be one of the final things to consider, and that's if the match looks to be closer than your average.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Knuckles
Serious Reminder: Vote for Tifa Lockheart, too

Harrich, I think you mean 44.61%.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=2020

The thing with accounting for bracket votes is that you have to account for how many people have brackets that are still in for the running.

If you're not in the running, you wouldn't bother voting for your bracket, and would just vote for your true favourites instead.

So yeah.

:/
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There's fear and darkness all around you.
The criminals are on the run.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Nah, 65.32%. That's the total of the two Sephiroth choices in the poll about who you think will win. Your poll with 44.61% only asked if he really was the best villain. Compman wanted me to account for favorites-brackets from the 76.51% Sephiroth had supporting him to win the contest, and that poll looked alot more accurate in that sense.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Knuckles
Serious Reminder: Vote for Tifa Lockheart, too

And what about Link in 2k3? What about Sephiroth in 2k5? What about Cloud in 2k4? All of them had extreme amounts of bracket voting behind them, and still did worse or the same as the previous year. Why did Magus overperform against Link despite having less than 25% of the brackets even supporting him to reach that match? Why did Frog overperform against Snake, while in the same scenario as Magus? Bracket-voting makes no sense at all, and anyone who believes it after seeing the results of this spring is absolutely insane.

Just because you have the brackets behind you, it still doesn't mean you should have the upper hand in a match. It ULTIMATELY comes down to the rest of the fanbase. Link, Cloud, and Sephiroth are the 3 singlemost largest vote drawers IN the contest. The sheer number of votes in their matches are HUGE compared to the average number of votes in other matches. But you are saying that brackets CAN'T have an effect on a match, which is absurd. Magus obviously didn't NEED bracket support to do well on Link. I never said that if you DIDN'T have bracket support that you wouldn't do well in a match. You're turning the argument in another direction completely.

And since you want to bring up examples...

What about Liquid Snake? He had 55% of the brackets behind him, yet he did HORRIBLY worse against Sephiroth. Of course there may be other factors as well, but I brought that up since you want to use examples.

The example I REALLY was going to use is Ken Masters. Ken has had all of TWO matches in the contest. One against Sonic, and one against Samus. Now we KNOW that Samus is stronger than Sonic, yet Ken did WORSE on Sonic than he did against Samus. There was no reason for Ken to DROP in popularity from 2k2 to 2k3, especially since Ryu stayed consistent. And there were 20000 more brackets that year. Now, we don't know exactly why Ken dropped, but those numbers are very intriguing....
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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

He had 55% of the brackets behind him, yet he did HORRIBLY worse against Sephiroth.

Whoa...he had 55% supporting him to get to FACE Sephrioth, not beat him; 90.9% had Sephiroth winning that division.
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Damn, most of my dates involve mocking and/or beating up people like you and your bride-to-be, so I really have no advice --Horatio

Meh... 55% of the brackets against FROG, but he did horribly worse when he faced Sephiroth the NEXT year.

<_<
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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

Doh!

*smacks head as I see he only had 53% supportin' him to get to Sephiroth anyways, not 55%*
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Damn, most of my dates involve mocking and/or beating up people like you and your bride-to-be, so I really have no advice --Horatio

What about Liquid Snake? He had 55% of the brackets behind him, yet he did HORRIBLY worse against Sephiroth. Of course there may be other factors as well, but I brought that up since you want to use examples.


http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=2008

He had almost the same amount of bracket support in this match as he did against Frog, and Lavos didn't have nearly as much as Frog did. And yet, Liquid still flopped against Lavos, despite the nearly identical bracket support.

And don't forget that Liquid must be horribly underrated in SC2k4. After all, Frog had terrible bracket-support against Snake, which caused a Frog underperformance there, and reflected poorly on Liquid. Then Snake had terrible bracket-support against Mega Man, reflecting even worse on Liquid, and we can't forget about Mega Man's pitiful bracket-support against Link.</sarcasm>

If you want to talk about bracket-support hurting someone in the X-stats, you have to go all the way down the line, and more often than not, you'll fail completely.

And Magus/Link is still a great example of bracket-voting making no sense. From a large amount of the evidence we've seen, it looks like Magus overperformed against Link by a large margin, despite having less bracket support in that match than in any of his others. THIS MAKES NO SENSE, if you believe in bracket-voting.

TRE or anyone running the Guru Contest....I need to turn my bracket in by Saturday at the latest, before the bracket will be locked down, and apparently before the topic for turning in our brackets will be put up. I need to know who/where I can send my bracket to so I don't miss this.

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Dp, I love you, man. Can I have your babies? -Shadow Ryoko
*SC2K5 PRINTABLE BRACKET* See profile for link

Theory: Bracket voting has a smaller effect in matches when one competitant is guaranteed to win.

Like Solid > Frog. Like Link > Magus.

Maybe that's what happens.

But maybe not.

Dun dun dun.
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There's fear and darkness all around you.
The criminals are on the run.

To be fair, we still don't know how strong Lavos or Mother Brain really should be, what with how controversial Liquid is and all. Saying he flopped against him isn't fair to say yet.
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Damn, most of my dates involve mocking and/or beating up people like you and your bride-to-be, so I really have no advice --Horatio

To be fair, we still don't know how strong Lavos or Mother Brain really should be, what with how controversial Liquid is and all. Saying he flopped against him isn't fair to say yet.

It's pretty clear that Lavos is weak. I wouldn't expect him to score a blowout on Sin or anything.

Quick thought on Vivi's strength:

In 2k3, Auron got 27.80% on Cloud
In 2k4, Auron got 32.30% on Sephiroth
Difference: 4.50%

In 2k4, Squall got 23.79% on Cloud
In 2k4, Vivi got 29.75% on Sephiroth
Difference: 5.94%

**************

In 2k4, Vivi got 56.47% on DK with 35.13% of brackets supporting him.
In 2k4, Squall got 55.01% on Kirby with 54.91% of brackets supporting him.

In 2k3 stats (the only contest where both characters stats can be fairly derived), Kirby = 25.49% on Link, and DK = 24.52% on Link.

**************

With that in mind, is it much of a stretch to think that Vivi is on Squall's level?
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ALL YOUR VOTES ARE BELONG TO...Pac-Man?

I'd take Squall over Vivi, but it'd be close.
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Damn, most of my dates involve mocking and/or beating up people like you and your bride-to-be, so I really have no advice --Horatio

Theory: Bracket voting has a smaller effect in matches when one competitant is guaranteed to win.

Definitely. People have no problem voting against their bracket if their favorite character who they predicted to lose is definitely going to. If it's a really close match though, where it's going to be decided by a handful of votes, then they start eyeing that prize at the end and vote for their bracket.

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Dp, I love you, man. Can I have your babies? -Shadow Ryoko
*SC2K5 PRINTABLE BRACKET* See profile for link

Kirby is noticeably ahead of Donkey Kong, for one thing, and in a head-to-head match, I have no doubt Squall would be the bracket favorite, and easily at that.

Still, for those of you talking about bracket voting, chew on this: Tidus and Shadow are .04% apart in the 2003 stats. Tidus has 70% bracket support, and wins by 1,600 votes. Hmmm...
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

Mac Arrowny, what are you talking about? I'm confused. I never brought up the X-stats ANYWHERE in my post. You don't need the X-stats to see that Liquid did worse against Sephiroth than he was expected to.

And I'm even MORE confused about your Magus example. What exactly does bracket voting have to do with Magus vs. Link? Are you saying that Magus did BETTER against Link than he did against Ganondorf or Sam Fisher? How did you determine this? And regardless, it's not like Magus had lots of bracket support anyways. He only had 56% against Sam Fisher and 24% against Ganondorf. I don't get what your point is for Magus....
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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

Still, for those of you talking about bracket voting, chew on this: Tidus and Shadow are .04% apart in the 2003 stats. Tidus has 70% bracket support, and wins by 1,600 votes. Hmmm...

Completely forgot about that.

*stares straight at Donkey Kong/Duck Hunt*
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Damn, most of my dates involve mocking and/or beating up people like you and your bride-to-be, so I really have no advice --Horatio

*looking at the results of the contest on IGN*

Vercetti > CJ, huh? Though not by much.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

TRE or anyone running the Guru Contest....I need to turn my bracket in by Saturday at the latest, before the bracket will be locked down, and apparently before the topic for turning in our brackets will be put up. I need to know who/where I can send my bracket to so I don't miss this.

You'll need to talk to UltimaterializerX or Ngamer64 about that, they are the ones running the contest.
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"Those whose memories fade seek to carve them in their hearts..."
"All dreams are but another reality. Never forget..."

Vercetti > CJ, huh? Though not by much.

I would expect as much, and I'm not even throwing the race card. In general, the Mafia image is liked. Scarface, Godfather, etc. all are popular movies. Let the average person on IGN or GameFAQS rate movies I personally like such as Boyz N the Hood or Menace II Society, and I bet they would get trashed. So on a video game internet side, one would probably assume that mafia > gangs.

But Tommy didn't beat CJ by THAT much (52% I think?), and realizing that it is a potential SFF match, it probably means that CJ may be even closer to Tommy in strength. I'm sure that GTA fans will support both. I only wish IGN gave vote totals...

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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

Could somebody e-mail the IGN webmaster and simply ask nicely about the range of votes those polls get? I figure that might work.....
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Knuckles
Serious Reminder: Vote for Tifa Lockheart, too

I think it's kinda weird that Auron beat Jak by about as much as he'd be expected to in a contest here. Not that there's any correlation as Snake beat Auron handily.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

Can somebody show me a link to this, please? I don't have it anymore.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Knuckles
Serious Reminder: Vote for Tifa Lockheart, too

I was just about to ask the same thing, this IGN contest is intriguing and I can't find it on their website.
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Raiden fact of the contest: Alucard is a plagiarist, this year Raiden will prove it!

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/629/629401p6.html

The link's in this topic, fellas.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

I would expect as much, and I'm not even throwing the race card. In general, the Mafia image is liked. Scarface, Godfather, etc. all are popular movies. Let the average person on IGN or GameFAQS rate movies I personally like such as Boyz N the Hood or Menace II Society, and I bet they would get trashed. So on a video game internet side, one would probably assume that mafia > gangs.


American History X would like a word with you.

Mac Arrowny, what are you talking about? I'm confused. I never brought up the X-stats ANYWHERE in my post. You don't need the X-stats to see that Liquid did worse against Sephiroth than he was expected to.

Uh, why not? Before the X-stats came out, the best indicator of how well someone would do was how far they got in the contest. You do need the X-stats to tell how well someone does in any given match, unless you're comparing the same match over two years. But even then, you have to use the X-stats to see why the results came out that way.

And I'm even MORE confused about your Magus example. What exactly does bracket voting have to do with Magus vs. Link? Are you saying that Magus did BETTER against Link than he did against Ganondorf or Sam Fisher? How did you determine this? And regardless, it's not like Magus had lots of bracket support anyways. He only had 56% against Sam Fisher and 24% against Ganondorf. I don't get what your point is for Magus....

Sam Fisher and Luca Blight both underperformed after facing Magus. IIRC, basing Samus off her match with Fisher gave her 70% on Link, and basing Kefka off of Luca makes him equal to Dante. Tidus's drop also implies that something went wrong in Magus vs. Link, which many call a Magus overperformance.

I am becoming afraid that FFX is getting too old for people to care about it like they used to, but maybe that's just me. It's no longer a best final fantasy game contendor, now it's more of a best thing that ps2 had going at the time it was released. anyways i'm seriously reconsidering my picks of auron over ganon and tidus over kirby.

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All my base are belong to Yoblazer, winner of the Guru Contest.

"One thing you must never lose is courage. If you believe in the goal you are striving for, you will be courageous. There are many difficult times ahead, but you must keep your sense of humor, work through the tough situations and enjoy yourself."

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2nd Place, Spring Contest 2005
My Video Game World Records: http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=22&p=35289