I was going to do this earlier but real life comes first. I'm going to post this one last thing and leave it at that. In the end, it does matter because the roster is what it is and the people here aren't going to change their minds no matter what. The problem with the rumor is that people want to believe it that evidence get twisted or ignored.
When you analyze anything, you review the facts and date, and then make a conclusion. With this rumor, the stance has been to come to a conclusion then try to fit the evidence to the conclusion. You can see this in numerous situations. This is what we call
confirmation bias. What is confirmation bias you ask? Well,
In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias (or confirmatory bias) is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.
Confirmation bias is a phenomenon wherein decision makers have been shown to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their hypothesis, and ignore or underweigh evidence that could disconfirm their hypothesis.
So basically, confirmation bias is when you try to prove your own conclusion first and skew the rest. It's no surprise that when confronted with specific issues with the leak, that it's believers attempt to rationalize it away rather than look at it first. As I mentioned before, there are three major issues that this rumor runs into. One of the most drastic of those was the fact that the characters were not shown at E3 despite the rumor specifically saying they were to be shown. If we apply the same criteria that is applied to other rumors, you'd assume that it might not be true, as something he said would happen didn't. What many people did was assume that the characters were pushed back and they would be shown at a later date. While possible, it's not very probably as it is more likely that the characters were not to be shown at the event than Nintendo removing the reveals at the last minute. Not to mention that Pac-Man and Mii were not shown despite the fact that they would have been far enough along to show almost a year ago if we believe the rumor.
Still don't believe me? Consider the Greninja reveal. After it, many people here said "He got Greninja right!" That is actually an incorrect statement. He never said "Greninja" would be in. He specifically said "Pokemon from Pokemon X and Y" (
link if you don't believe me). This is very different. He didn't get Greninja right. He was right that there was a Pokemon from
Pokemon X and Y." However, what people did was assume he knew the character when he never specifically said that character was in the game. This is confirmation bias. People want to believe the leak is real, so they skew the information to fit their ideas. Here, he was assumed to have gotten Greninja right, even though he never said Greninja. He only said a new Pokemon from X and Y was coming. This is looking at the conclusion before the evidence. Instead, let's consider the evidence. He didn't state that a character would be added but a character from a group would be. With many of his other characters, he was specific. But here, he is not. Also, if he has a credible source, then the source would know the characters names. If he knew what the character looked like, then he would have been able to describe the character "He's a Pokemon. He's blue, a frog with a tongue scarf." Conversely, how would the leaker only know that he was from Pokemon X/Y and not know his name or what he looked like. He would probably have to know who he was to identify that he was from a specific game. Based on this, it doesn't seem very likely that he would have a source because he didn't have a name or description. In fact, it seems more likely that he didn't have any information, and "Pokemon from X and Y" was a safe guess. it would make sense because while you can be specific with Shulk and Plautena, it's hard to do the same with Pokemon. In the new game, it could be any one of 70 characters, and that's a lot of chances you could be wrong. It's safe to say there will be a new Pokemon, and it would likely be true because every Smash game has added a new Pokemon. No surprise he was right and no surprise everyone eat it up when Greninja was announced. So let's take a look at the three issues I brought up before
- He never stated he had a source until after the characters were revealed. It was a prediction up until that point.
- He stated the characters were to be shown at E3, but the characters were not shown at E3. Two characters have yet to be seen.
- He stated a Pokemon from X and Y would be included instead of saying a specific character (Here, Greninja)
Now, what you should do is consider these as a whole. What many people do is assume he was right and then add rational for the following. What happens is that you have three different scenarios to explain this. First, he didn't say he had a source because he wasn't sure that the source was credible. Of course, this is silly because all new sites post rumors regardless of their credibility. Then, the characters weren't shown at E3 because they were pushed back. Again, a little silly because it seem strange that Nintendo would show off so many characters (more than Brawl) and then half that. Not to mention that almost a year later we only know 6 characters. My favorite is that the information came from two different sources. Then, they say he didn't know Greninja because either him or the source doesn't know Pokemon (forget using Google or describing the characters). That's three different explanations to explain some of the issues with one rumor. See how it's more silly and preposterous. One could be possible. Two maybe. But three separate issues? It's like a bird with one wing. It just doesn't fly. Occam's Razor is the simplest answer is the best. So what's the simplest answer? He made it up. First he never said a source before because there was no rumor. No need to claim you have info until your right. Third, they weren't shown at E3 because, in the end, he didn't know anymore than the rest of us. And third, he gave a broad category because he doesn't have information. So it's safe to say a New Pokemon will be added. So I can explain all three with one answer. Because they are related, it makes more sense he made it up.
"But Smashchu! What about Wii Fit Trainer? He got that right." That is true. However, it was likely a lucky guess. "How can you say that. Isn't it silly and preposterous that he just guessed this character." Not necessarily. It has been shown that Wii Fit Trainer was talked about somewhat. However, it's not unreasonable to think that someone got her right. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of predictions made. It's possible that someone got that character right. Also, when you look a all the other evidence, it seems more likely he made it up rather than he had a source and there are a lot of suspicious instances. Again, it's weighting the evidence. What happened is that him and others committed the Texas Shapshooter Fallacy. I've mentioned it before here,
but here is a quick refresher. It stems from a shooter firing at a barn. When he noticed the shots clustered, he drew a target on it. The same happened here. When he got an character not many people thought of, he drew the target. Just because he got something right doesn't mean he has inside information. Especially when you consider what I mentioned before. Also, it's not unlikely for people to guess characters. On 4Chan, minutes before, someone posted that "Suppose a new Pokemon was announced, who do you want." and he posted a picture of Greninja. Of course, he did better than Sal did, but no one thought he had inside information.
There are other things as well. One thing to look back is the Chaos Zero leak. He knew characters specific names and other content in the game (Final Destination, Stage Builder, and the Dragoon). Sal only said characters and nothing else which is unlikely because if someone had inside information, they would know more than just character names. Other rumors had similar information like character's abilities or other game content. Also, Sal's last rumor was done right before a direct. It seems strange that the guy would wait 10 months before giving more info, and do it right before Nintendo gives more info. Many people questions why he would lie. It would hurt his site's reputation. It's because it's click bait. Basically, the rumors exist for traffic.
Here is what I mean. The website is beat by GameXplain and Malstrom's blog for numbers of searches. Note that Malstrom hasn't posted much recently. In otherwords, Sal's website is very no name. How can you improve searches? Why, have a fake rumor of course. And since he got Wii Fit Trainer right, it's even better. Now you can drive hits to your site. Why did he get information before the direct. Because the direct would bring in more hits for Smash info. It's also why he had a lot of safe guesses. So long as none of those characters are specifically deconfirmed, it's no problem.
You may wonder where I'm getting some of these later ideas from. Again, it all stems for the fact that I considered the evidence first, then drew a conclusion. Even though he got WFT right, there were still a lot of other issues that didn't make sense. Weighting the evidence, it seemed more likely he didn't know anything and was able to guess. It them drew from there and I can explain some more of the other small inconsistencies (why doesn't he have other information, why did the last leak come hours before the direct and not any time else in the last 10 months). It also explains why he made an account on Smashboards to make 1 post after the characters weren't shown at E3. One of the things about confirmation bias is that it usually happens when emotions take over. It's no surprise that a lot of people celebrated after Greninja came out and they can claim "They leak is true. See. See." The people here want it to be true. This is also why there is this double standard where if the littlest thing is wrong, the rumor is false whereas when this was wrong everyone ignored it. Looking back at the Brawl leaks, everyone hated them because they didn't fit what they wanted for the game. So much so that mods actually deleted them. I suspect there will be more of an outcry when a real leak comes though. I also expect many of the people listening to this one would be upset if such a situation occurred. To close, don't jump the gun. People were smart with the Plautena leak because they tried to disprove it first. By being unable to do so, they gave it credibility. It's credibility was earned, not assumed.
Well, that's that. There may be some editing and other issues I missed, but I need to head to bed. I wont really reply to this unless there is a question. Again, people who believe the leak wont change their minds and the roster will be whatever it is regardless. Till next time!