Random: $10,000 Pokémon Competition Winner Reportedly Found To Have Violated The Rules

Well, would you look at that, cheating in a Pokémon competition

That sure would be unheard of, would it?

Oh, and wouldn't you know? China.

ouch

OUCH

OUCH

So sad, because if what he says is true, he didn’t even really cheat. It’s his design. He just used it to sell some cases.

It’s not far fetched to believe people took the design for their own gain— but now it’s obvious why that rule was in place. Either way, I feel bad for the artist

Well, if it was truly his work originally then his only crime is not reading the rules of the competition. (which still means he is SOL) If not however, then yeah he is pretty silly.

@ItsOKToBeOK feel bad? if you're a real artist you would create something unique instead of something thats already seen by the public only to cause confusion. he doesn't deserve the prizes since that piece of artwork wasn't made exclusive for the competition.

As we used to say..."If you ain't cheating, then you ain't trying!"

Big shout-out to the fans who brought this to light, btw...

If it's true, then I hope he gets disqualified. I'm sure there were plenty of artists who wanted to submit something good but couldn't because they had previously published it

@Toastess I didn’t say he deserved the prize, just that I felt bad for him. I’m not an artist, but I know how hard it is to make money from artwork. That design probably made him just a few bucks, if that, on a cell phone case. Now the Pokemon Company themselves is handing you 10 large for it, and putting it in their game. A life changing amount of money, and worldwide notoriety, lost, not because he stole someone else’s drawing, but because he initially thought his award winning design was meant to be for nothing more than a phone case. Really sucks for him.

@Bobb

@BensonUii Why would you say that because of what one person said? Not a fan of Americans?

You'd think the judges would know what Yandex or other reverse image search engines (albeit nowhere near as good as Yandex) are...

@Yorumi Didn't read the whole article but still bothered to comment on it? Never thought that would happen on a site such as this. I'm utterly shocked.

@BensonUii Hmm, I do understand where you are coming from. Americans are often derided un provoked or because of one or two people. However let's try to battle ignorance with positivity whenever possible; there is enough offhanded toxicity in the world without consciously adding to it.

Besides I've always felt that you can't blame a country if that is what foreign companies ship oversees to pay for. Is that China's fault for being willing to take the contracts (and then invest the money back in their infrastructure, seriously its the best comeback game ever and the world keeps falling for it while thinking they are better for no reason) or is it the companies' fault for having their manufacturers cut corners or not stopping them when they do?

Either way, Positive Ki to you

Ryu, an American lol.

The thing is, if they have to take him to court to get the money back, it would almost certainly cost more than the prize.

He made his situation worse while attempting to make it better lol poor guy... Hope this gets sorted out quickly.
Next time remember to check the contest rules.

Wait, so they have contests to design Pokemon shirts...and not to write songs for Pokemon FILMS? HELLO!

And Resetera people were already calling him a "piece of s***" (®) for the plagiarism...

Having had published it online to the public (worst, he was selling it) basically nulls his credibility of ownership of that design, since now multiple people have possession of it prior to the event submission, there is little to no full way to actually proof he is the creator.

@Ryu_Niiyama You have a point, that both are to blame, as well as understanding that racial profiling tends to have more of an unfriendly biased, but this person doesn't need to be so apologetic in my opinion, as it's fairly reasonable to assume they weren't being offensive or malicious. There's a bunch of people who have used racial stereo types and paint all from China with a tarnished brush, not on this site alone... Maybe @BensonUii was just making a point.

IF his story is true, I kinda hope they make an exception; that's a pretty cool design. Granted, it's ultimately Uniqlo's decision.

@BacklogBlues
"Although it is kinda ironic that a Chinese man is getting upset about pirates and counterfeits."

Wow that is actually extremely racist and stereotypical. Would you say that it's ironic for a black man to get upset about getting robbed?

@ItsOKToBeOK theres no reason to feel sorry for him when i'm sure he may already have a real job, if not, he can get one to make a living.

Observing the irony in a situation where a resident of a country known for its pirated goods and dishonest economic practices driven by modern day child labor is revealed to have not been entirely forthcoming in a contest is not racist, it's a fair observation.

As much as I love the series, our generation can name all 151 original Pokemon, but we do not know what actual racism is. Shameful.

It's not cheating. It's just that he's sold the designs before and he's submitting it again for a contest. At best, this is just people overreacting.

@TheAwesomeBowser it is cheating if other people couldn't submit previously used designs why should he? Other people actually made designs specially for this competition as they were supposed to do. He broke the rules of competition, that is what cheating is.

Wait? China Ripping stuff off?? NEVER!!!

@XavierIser Don't people ever get tired of correcting others for no good reason? Motion rejected.

@TheAwesomeBowser the good reason was that your post was stupidly incorrect.

Have Uniqlo / The Pokemon Company never heard of reverse image search?

@BacklogBlues
Well I guess if you want to be equally racist towards Chinese and Americans then I can't stop you. Glad to see casual racism is well and alive in modern America. I'd love to see where you're getting these statistics from though

@BacklogBlues
Ahh yes, the "I'm not racist because it's not a race" defense. Discrimination is discrimination, the fact that you're being pedantic about whether or not you're specifically being racist or stereotypical only proves my point. And let's not kid ourselves, you didn't Google anything.

Anyways, it's clear that both of us are not find budge, so I'll just end this debate here before we both get uncivil. Thank you for the interesting look into the American mind.

China has a huge, huge, HUGE cultural problem with cheating. It's not just accepted--it's expected and rewarded. You can find tons of stories about Chinese students being caught cheating at international universities, which usually tolerate it because they pay so much in tuition.

The culture of cheating extends to video games and even simple activities like waiting in queues at a store.

I like how the entire debate here is if the guy in question is a commercial IP thief, or if he's an artist who was IP pirated commercially in China. No part of the question at all even debates if counterfeiting was going on within the span of a short competition. Why does the world do business with that country? At some point the monetary gains are self defeating. Even Soros eventually figured it out....

He should be disqualified!

Assuming he's telling the truth, that's quite harsh on him.

At least he's been stripped from his prizes, as he should be. It's a shame the competition became a waste of time and resources though. :/

Good that he got disqualified, but they can't be bothered to draw a different winner?
LAZY!!

Wait, did he still get the cash prize? He cheated one way or another and ruined the competition, so he doesn't really deserve anything.
Except resentment, lol.
(Didn't like the design anyways.)

Everyone loses!

@DDFawfulGuy He DIDN'T cheat, though, as it was HIS OWN DESIGN.

Rules are rules, but Uniqlo comes off a bit stupid after all this as well. They should’ve background checked this stuff also. Not only did it make themselves come off as negligent, as they are the competition holders, but it possibly just ruined anyone’s chance of winning the contest at all. What a waste

Hmm...
Since I've had to wonder 'what counts as unpublished?' for a competition previously, I tried to look into just what the original rule said.

The rules page seems to be removed now, and even Internet Archive doesn't have it, but Google's cache still finds it searching for 'utgp regulation'.

Seems the original rule was
JP: ご応募いただく作品は、応募者ご本人の著作による未発表のオリジナル作品に限ります。 [Only unpublished original designs created by the entrant themselves are allowed.]
CH: 应征作品仅限报名者本人未曾发表的原创作品。 [Google: Applicants submitted works himself unpublished original works only.]
EN: Plagiarized submissions, designs that have been developed for other purposes or designs that have been used in the past by other organizations or companies, will be not be accepted.

So it seems the English rules at least did definitely explicitly prohibit reusing art, unfortunately for the winner.

Also, I went looking for the "another finalist" the Uniqlo announcement mentions... turns out the other disqualified entrant was a Brit, AJ Hateley, with a Shadow Mewtwo design.

Uniqlo image:
https://www.uniqlo.com/utgp/2019/common/images/item/UTGP2019_422040.jpg

She used to sell a t-shirt with the same art on her website from 2014-2017:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140320205221/http://www.gametee.co.uk/product/shadow-series-psychic-t-shirt

@PigmaskFan It was absolutely cheating, as he broke the rules and had access to a larger pool of art (Previous designs instead of original art) giving him an advantage over others that did not reuse designs. It's the textbook definition of cheating.

Contest: Make something new that has never been seen before
Entrants: I'll re-use stuff I sold before

There. Hopefully that's quite clear for everyone that still doesn't get it.

Oh look, a bunch of generalizations and hate against Chinese people on the internet. Bet if it were any other ethnicity, there wouldn't be anything about this guy's background or country. Keep pretending and complaining to care about what Chinese people do without actively countering their actions that you find to be negative. Internet sure does have huge case is Sinophobia.

Dude should have read the rules. No excuse. If the rules clearly stated that the content could not have been published elsewhere and had to be 100% completely unique just for this contest, then he should not have entered the contest. And he clearly outed himself in his public response, which he eventually deleted. I don't have any sympathy for him. Terms & Conditions exist for a reason people....read them, understand them before acting.

@PigmaskFan That's the same argument university students use when they re-use a paper from one class for another. They're still guilty of plagiarism and the university will call you out on it and sanction you. Dude didn't read the rules, he got caught and he got disqualified. You can absolutely be found guilty of plagiarizing your own work.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. They cheated in a competition with a cash prize, they are lucky they didn't get in real people trouble.

While I still think this stinks - I liked that design - the rules were broken. That said, I still think it's bogus that Uniqlo isn't going to bother with the competition anymore. I'm sure that there were plenty of legitimate entries that are just as deserving. It DOES occur to me that it could be too late to reprogram the design into S&S.

All in all, this competition was an unfortunate waste.

So nobody wins? That's just stupid....

@Tyranexx "...disqualified Grand Prize Winner and another finalist..."
If I read it correctly, even the runner-up got disqualified for breaking rules one form or another, so they probably wouldn't have time to review the 3rd or subsequent entries if they already tossed them out (especially if only the top 2 were submitted to final panel review). And the programming thing too. What a waste indeed.

Absolutely agree that the users in question were right in being disqualified, but I have to wonder why other winners aren't being bumped up to fill the empty spots.

As it stands, I see this as UNIQLO getting deeply-discounted art and publicity for $3,500+ instead of the $13,500+ it should've cost them. If that's accurate, it feels like an extremely slimy move on their part to weasel out of what's owed to other (honest) competitors.

@HADAA Yep, I did catch that part. I just think it would stink for those who put in the work and followed all the rules to see their efforts amount to nothing. Sad news all around.

@Morgan19 I doubt it. If only the top 2 were kept and all other entries destroyed (as it should in contests and college/company applications for privacy/security reasons) and both the top 2 are found dubious, then they would have nothing else to review. They also cannot sell the designs (as they announced; legally they can't anyway) so all printed materials become losses. Everyone loses here.

@HADAA Not sure we're talking about the same thing. At least, I don't understand how what you replied with applies to my thought.

What I meant was, I wonder why they're not just shifting all the winning entries up one prize level to compensate for the now-missing DQed entries. ie, The current second place entry becomes Grand Prize, third place becomes Second Place, etc.

The thought being that if the DQed grand prize entry was never entered, for example, the current second place entry would've theoretically won instead. So why not just approach it that way and still compensate the honest winners is what I was wondering out loud, instead of failing to award a grand prize at all.

@HADAA @graysoncharles Ahh, I see what you're saying now. But, that's only true if all of the top three winners had been disqualified.

From the results page, it looks like only the grand prize winner has been DQed from the top three--with the other DQ being one of the lower-down runner-ups. If that's true (which is how it currently appears on the results page, with 2nd and 3rd still being in the clear) I do believe the "shift the other winners up" suggestion is how UNIQLO should've handled things.

@Morgan19 @HADAA
They announced 24 winners, being 1 grand, 1 second, 1 third, and 21 'Special Selection'.
The 'another finalist' was one of the 21 labeled Special Selection, below third place.

Thank you for the added info. I did not check the result page and just assumed the possibility of the first two places being DQed from Uniqlo's wording. Now then, I agree Uniqlo should have rewarded the prize to 2nd place if Uniqlo still has their entry data and if 2nd place is legit. Not sure why they didn't.

@Bobb I never would have thought of that on my own,but it does look like monster hunter

I’d buy the shirt on a black tee with white art print-
Or
Orange shirt with blue print

@Aethon,

Racist?,surely the poster could be accused of using cultural stereotypes,but I think in this instance calling people racist is going a bit too far imho.

At China, home of the bootlegs and rip offs.