Nike Reveals Half of High-Heat SNKRS Launch Entries Are Bots: Here's How It’s Beating Them

Love them or hate them (realistically it's likely the latter) but bots are an inevitable part of sneaker culture. However, when it comes to hyped releases the tech often has harsh consequences on fairness levels. For years now, brands have been trying to find ways to beat the bots and make drops fairer for everyone, but this is far from a simple solution. That being said, brands like Nike are working hard to make a difference, even if that means learning from some pretty big mistakes.

After a US restock of the “Lost & Found” Air Jordan 1 went wrong (it was allegedly affected by a third-party issue and couldn’t handle the traffic) the Swoosh took the opportunity to address the community on the steps it had been taking to improve its fairness and transparency. SNKRS VP and GM Lucy Rouse said that they were proud of the progress that Nike had already made within the space, and explained that for hyped launches like the aforementioned “Lost & Found” and the Travis Scott x Air Jordan 1 “Olive”, nearly half the entries are bots, and the releases will see millions of entries at a time. The Swoosh estimates that it could see as many as 12 billion bot entries each month.

Rouse then went on to say that Nike has a 98% success rate when it comes to eliminating these bot entries - largely thanks to the various methods they use to run SNKRS launches. Users may have noticed the ‘Verifying Submissions’ screen that now pops up after entering a raffle, which means the app is working to weed out dodgy entries.

Being transparent with this information requires a difficult balance. Rouse points out that the brand is working hard to provide enough info to make consumers feel confident, but not enough for it to result in being leveraged by the people making and using the bots.

Nike’s current launch methods often depend on its expected level of interest, but as it stands, SNKRS employs multiple tactics in order to increase its fairness. Alongside the famed SNKRS draw, the company has also introduced a few extra methods for release, including the elusive ‘Exclusive Access’, which goes out to users that fit certain criteria, and SNKRS PASS, which is location-based. The brand has also recently rolled out SNKRS Scratcher, where users have to scratch off an image within the app, and SNKRS Cam, where users have to take a photo of a specific image. These added steps both help to weed out bot entries.

What do you think of these tactics? Are there any you’d like to see other brands roll out? Let us know, and in the meantime, here’s the latest on the Yeezy saga.