MikeWest502 and accusations of stealing modding work

[StingRay68]

MikeWest502 sent PM to moderator(s) claiming his playbook mods were being copied/modified and released as original work by another forum member.
I agreed to look into the matter, since I was impartial to the claim, not having any interaction with Mike, nor the person he accused.
I explained to Mike it would likely take some time to look into since I have very little knowledge of playbook construction. I warned Mike not to make any accusations public nor have further contact with the person he was accusing.

The person he accused was contacted, asked how they came about creating the work that was posted on these forums. I also asked them to refrain from posting any further work until I had time to compare their work with what Mike claimed was being "stolen"
The explanation was perfectly satisfactory and was easily verified.
I compared Arizona's offensive playbook from Mike's work with what he claimed was copied and found absolutely nothing in common.
Mike was contacted and made aware of the findings. Mike was asked to provide an example from his Arizona playbook that he felt was copied and he declined. At that point, since I was unable to find anything that appeared copied and Mike declined to provide an example, the matter was considered closed.

Mike then decided to take matters into his own hands and publicly attack the person he accused of copying his work.
The post was reported, the post was removed and Mike was given a temporary ban.
Since then, information has come to light that Mike privately contacted several forum members to accuse the formerly mentioned member as well as others he accuses of stealing/copying/modifying his work to use with other mods posted on the forums.
As a result, Mike has been permanently banned.

I have no vested interest in any of what was mentioned and normally I would not mention something like this to the forums publicly, but Mike has been an immature, impulsive, rage poster for much of the time he has been on these forums.
Like several other egomaniacs that this community has suffered over the years, he thought that any subject he chose to create mods for was his personal territory and nobody else should have dared to try and create mods for.

Because of this and a couple other incidents over the past 2-3 months, unfortunately it became necessary to create a forum announcement to deal with. That can be viewed here : viewtopic.php?f=14&p=148937#p148937

I believe I've kept any other forum members names involved with this craziness out of this post. However, if anyone directly/indirectly involved desires to chime in, feel free. Otherwise, it is what it is.

[elguapo]

In my opinion, if you don't want your stuff stolen don't upload it to the internet. Once on the internet people will do anything with it.

"Yeah but files are like books..." Although it's wise to buy the book some people will photo copy a book.

[TheRareButter]

Now that this is settled I'd like to share my side of the story. I'm the one MikeWest502 accused of theft.


I've been on this site for awhile now. I've seen the footprint of banned members, and heard the legends of past dramas on here. Learned quickly that people take their work seriously and have not/will never use someone else's work without their permission.

I'm not a franchise guy like most of you, I play Superstar mode or NFL Head Coach exclusively, so basically with the RPG aspect as either a Player or a Coach.

During a few of my Superstar careers with a previous version of the FF/FI mod that included Mike's playbooks I noticed that the overwhelming majority of his project had a bug where the WR icons at the LOS would change immediately post snap. All of a sudden the WRs I check for pre snap would be assign new and random buttons as soon as they began running their route. As a coach mode player this is completely fine, as a superstar QB it's extremely frustrating and for me it was unplayable.

I commented on his thread and told him about this issue and he said basically that he knew about it but was done with his project and "it is what it is." I don't think he ever knew the severity of it within his project, it is literally everywhere and the fact that I was only the second person to mention it on his thread makes me think most of this site consists of coach mode guys.

So my thoughts were this; there are no options for updated playbooks for a superstar player. MikeWest502 is done with his project and has no intention of fixing it. I have some spare time, so why not just make them myself?

My first thought was to work with Mike since he was the playbook guy, I thought his expertise would be helpful plus playbook projects are extremely tedious so having someone else would've saved some time. I sent Mike a message asking if he'd be down to collaborate with me on a new project. He seemed ok at first and declined but his second response when I told him I'd be making them solo then was something along the lines of:

"Is this a joke? I spent 2 years working on my project and now you want to come in with your books? Sheesh, good luck. I'm not interested in collaborating."


A few days later I posted my first playbook, the 2023 Cardinals. The next morning I woke up the a message from the moderators saying MikeWest502 claimed I stole directly from his project and to hold off on any new releases. I was completely shocked.


Here are the facts of this situation:

1. MikeWest502 knows everything that's been discovered about playbooks, including how to check if a play was stolen via the direct coding (click on any player on any play> advanced> edit PSAL> undo all changes> the coding will pop up) or otherwise.

2. He knew that I was working on my own project.

3. He knew for a fact that none of his work was in my project, he could've easily verified that by either just looking at the play art or the method above.

4. He tried to get me banned, ruin my reputation, and derail my project anyway despite having no evidence of wrong doing.



From my POV it seems like MikeWest502 had a premeditated plot against me for steering too close to his lane or stealing his "shine". I felt backstabbed like no other due to our previous conversations. He told me "good luck" on my project then tried to have me banned as soon as the first release dropped. Normally I wouldn't have began a project so similar to an already established one, but since I deemed the project unplayable for USER vs CPU play I didn't think it'd be a big deal. I even suggested he could use my offensive books with his defensive ones for his mod.

From there I worked with the moderators to clear my name. I provided the same step by step instructions I included above to check each of Mike and I's playbook "fingerprint". Keep in mind that EA isn't very innovative on their playbooks. His 2022 books contain some of the same football plays (like flood, slants, verticals, etc) as my 2023 playbooks, but it's clear that my style and his are easily distinguishable. My routes cross the entire field before receivers break off to get open and his don't, QB drop depth, WR cut angles and things of that nature.

I was granted permission to continue my project when the moderators saw the Mike was lying without ground to stand on. I've been going since Christmas day, and the project is almost complete, just need to code the PBAI and then I'll release it alongside the 2011 defenses. Not to toot my own horn but my project plays better than Mike's imo, there's not nearly as many missed handoffs, Jet Sweep FK Zone type plays have both handoff animations coded instead of just one, and I even got the CPU to run HB screens properly.

If you guys have any questions about this situation I'm glad to clear my name, just lemme know what's up.

[Austinmario13]

So MikeWest502 did the opposite of Slydways. Instead of stealing content, he cried wolf claiming some content was his. This is very similar to what's happening on YouTube right now.

[RevanFan]

I believe MikeWest502 was throwing my name under the bus too. I don't know for sure, but there were... signs. Which really bugs me if he was because I previously had a pleasant conversational relationship with him.

I hardly come here anymore, and a lot of the recent drama is a big reason why. But I think anyone who knows me or my record knows that I would never steal someone's work or use anything without permission. And I don't even ask people to ask for permission to use my work. I just want a mention in the credits, nothing more. I've offered my Cowboys rosters to many people over the years, without any issue.

I also directly investigated the playbook issue and too found no evidence that any work was stolen, and when I asked MikeWest, as the accuser, to provide evidence, he refused. TheRareButter should not have had to prove his innocence, MikeWest should have had to prove Butter's guilt, and he failed to provide any sort of evidence greater than "trust me, I know he's guilty." And Butter was extremely forthcoming, complied with all of our requests, and even sent us unreleased work of his to compare to Mike's work. He also had detailed records of his communications with MikeWest. MikeWest did not provide the same records.

I will also note that, considering my previously friendly relationship with MikeWest, I immediately contacted other moderators, including StingRay, when the issue was brought to my attention, because I knew I would not be in a proper position to review it all myself. StingRay can confirm that I immediately reached out when an issue arose.

[Austinmario13]

Well, this explains that fight Mike and I had a while back.

[Rixster67r]

I just wanted to say that I liked Mike..... In the past there have been several super talented people that were on this site and Freaks as well and all have the same issue..... On one side they are very talented but they have a side that just thinks everyone is out to steal their work and really I think it's a complex about someone taking their credit for some project away..... not the actual work

Everything I post on this site belongs to the community and the user can do whatever they want with it without giving me any credit..... I share my work because I want the site to grow but also other people to enjoy the game the same way I do and hopefully make some improvements of their own

I am going to pray for Mike.....

This site has been and continues to be the only website I visit daily and the people here are like my family......

[KeepinItTeal]

I just wanted to say that I liked Mike..... In the past there have been several super talented people that were on this site and Freaks as well and all have the same issue..... On one side they are very talented but they have a side that just thinks everyone is out to steal their work and really I think it's a complex about someone taking their credit for some project away..... not the actual work

Everything I post on this site belongs to the community and the user can do whatever they want with it without giving me any credit..... I share my work because I want the site to grow but also other people to enjoy the game the same way I do and hopefully make some improvements of their own

I am going to pray for Mike.....

This site has been and continues to be the only website I visit daily and the people here are like my family......

Great response and I feel pretty much the same way about my work. I don't visit often anymore because I just lost the fire for this particular game. But, like Rixster said above, I created works to share with the community to make this a better game and experience and am happy for anyone to use those works in any manner they see fit, particularly if they can take them and make onward improvements.

I hope everyone is well.

Best,

KIT

[Raston]

Interesting! From the comments he said in reply to my post years ago I figured he had a temper problem.