Cheating in Videogames

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What if the purpose of the game is to cheat?

Cheating in videogames involves using one or more methods not allowed by the rules of the game to gain advantage over other players, by defrauding, deceiving, or eluding other players. Cheating may involve one player against other players or the game itself or multiple players coordinating to gain advantage. The forms of cheating include applying codes that have an effect not known to other players, modifying the game code itself, or using specialized scripts or guides. Single player or multi-player cheating affects all the players involved in a game, either intentionally or inadvertently. Game studies scholars have identified many reasons that players cheat in videogames, ranging from having fun to exercising power.

History

Cheating in video games has existed in widely distributed games since the early 1980s. Cheat codes placed inside a game helped developers rigorously test the mechanics of a game prior to commercial release. In early 8-bit videogames, game codes were stored in open accessible memory, where it was possible to modify specific memory addresses to gain advantages such as unlimited number of lives, currency, immunity, or invisibility. The specialized knowledge required to modify game code fostered an informal network of sharing tips and techniques, dubbed “cheats.” As gaming systems evolved, a cheat industry emerged through the packaging and sales of cheat books, game guides, cheat cartridges. Cheating through external guides was not universally accepted in the gaming industry. For example the gaming magazine Amiga Power condemned cheaters, taking the stance that cheating violated the fundamental value of fairness.

Forms of cheating

Code

Mostly found in single player versions of games, a "cheat code" is a cheat placed in the game intentionally by the creator. Cheats can range from 'level skipping' to player modifications that simplify the difficulty of certain levels, or even the entire game. If implemented, most cheat codes are activated via a specific combination of buttons or keys. Some games have a specific password screen and others require the user to know where to input the password, such as the start screen or a drop-down console. For example, in the popular video game Grand Theft Auto, players can input codes to make a helicopter or tank appear, making it much easier to escape from the police, one of the main goals of the game. In Sim City 4, users can simply type in a "cheat" to have unlimited funds to build their city and make it thrive.

Some games have cheat codes that do not affect the game play, but rather alter the aesthetics of the game, thereby personalizing and individualizing the characters, landscape, or the gameplay itself. In NFL Blitz 2000, a game for the old gaming system N64, there is a 10 second window before the football game begins in which the user is encouraged to enter codes for the game. Of course some include altering plays or increasing the abilities of the players, but there are several that are simply aesthetic and for the fun of the game. For instance, some non-consequential codes include making the football comically large, making the player helmets comically large, changing the field from a grass field to a dirt field, or even making the stadium a roman coliseum. These codes are all created by the game makers to improve game customization and the general entertainment value for its players.

Cheat codes provide a way to increase the satisfaction that players get from a game. In the PC human simulation game The Sims, for example, players typically instruct their sims to get jobs in order to help pay for bills, food, and other expenses. A popular cheat code enabled players to bypass this necessity and accumulate money without any work whatsoever. Examples include "rosebud", "motherlode", and "familyFunds".

Modifications/Hacks

Wallhacks in Counter Strike 1.6.

Some cheats are carried out through illegal modifications of game code. These are called hacks. They work by hooking into a game's code and manipulating it in nefarious ways. Specifically, the program is run before launching a game's executable. Once the executable is launched, the hack finds the game's code in the computer memory. It then searches for specific variables, that pertain to game mechanics, such as opponent location data or wall colors. The objective is to give the user an unfair advantage within the game.

Aim Bots are programs that automatically detect enemies within a game and then moves the user's in-game crosshairs to a set location on the enemy's body. A user can set it to target an enemy's head, body, legs, or arms. An Aim Bot can also be set to fire automatically, so that the user only needs to move around the map, and the hack will do the rest. More sophisticated implementations can be set to miss the target occasionally, or produce generally-reduced accuracy. This allows the user to hide or obscure the use of hacks to outside observers.

Speed Bots allow the user to move through the map at speeds which are normally impossible. This means that the user could, for instance, nearly instantaneously move to the other side of a game map. All the other players would see is a blur, making it extremely difficult to kill the player, and thus giving a large advantage to the cheater.

Wall Hacks allow a user to see through apparently solid walls by making them transparent. Thus, the cheater would be able to see enemies anywhere on the map, without actually having an in-game line of sight. A Wall Hack is a subtle cheat -- more difficult to detect -- by in-game players, observers or cheat-detection software. These can be implemented in two ways:

• Directly though a game hack that modifies game variables in memory. This makes detection more likely, however, since any cheat detection system can see the hack running.
• Manually editing the wall textures to be transparent. Since many games allow user modifications to game skins (ie: how maps and in-game objects are displayed), a wall texture modified in such a way would basically be indistinguishable from any other "modded" wall textures.

Scripts

Players can also use scripts to assist with gameplay. An example can be found in older shooters like Quake and Team Fortress Classic where the game engine increased the speed of the user if they strafed in the air. With sufficient practice users could learn how to "Bunny Hop" to greatly increase their speed. Scripts eliminate the need to practice the required timing techniques, because they automate most of the commands. Players could bind a series of commands to a single key, and when pressed, their character would auto execute the entire series.

Example of "Bunny Hop" code::

:alias +hop "alias _special h_jump; h_start; slot10; alias hop_t -hop"
:alias -hop "alias _special h_stop; alias hop_t +hop"
:alias h_jump "+jump;wait;-jump;wait;h_start"
:alias h_start "+attack2; -attack2"
:alias h_stop "slot10"
:alias hop_t "+hop"
:bind "some_key" "hop_t"

In some games, such as Sonic the Hedgehog or Half Life, users are able to access developer debug tools which allow them to alter various aspects of the game environment, like weapon or item placement, and attributes of the player themselves, like invincibility or the removal of character clipping.

Exploits

An exploit is a game bug that gives the player an advantage not intentionally programmed in by the game creator. For example, the effect of a grenade might not be fully canceled by a wall, allowing players to use a grenade to kill enemies through walls if they are close enough to the blast.

For example, in the late Nintendo Game Boy classic Pokemon Red/Blue, players could take advantage of a code error in the system by battling the non-Pokemon "MissingNo" (Missing Number). This cheat would grant infinite supplies of whichever item is in the 6th slot in the player's item menu, such as the Rare Candy item (which automatically boosts a Pokemon up one level) and Master Balls (which can capture any Pokemon in the game).

Players who benefit from an exploit are initially only inadvertent cheaters. Exploits are usually found by mistake when a player observes an inconsistency in gameplay. Upon further investigation the player might discover that the first strange outcome, while unexpected, is repeatable and consistent. This finding alone does not qualify the player as a conscious and active cheater. Only when the player with knowledge of the exploit uses that exploit to his or her advantage at the expense of other players is an identifiable harm done.

Guides

Game guides have many different purposes. The use of a strategy guide to gain advantage can be considered a form of cheating. Guides generally tell the user exactly how to play a game, where to find items or powerups, and give step-by-step accounts on how to beat certain levels. They may also include other hints and tips to aid the player that he or she may not have otherwise been aware of.

A popular website for game guides is GameFaqs, which features elegant text-based guides and walkthroughs, along with maps and other aids. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey and purchased by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by CBS Interactive. The site has a database of video game information, cheat codes, reviews, game saves, and screenshots. Nearly all of the content is submitted by voluntary contributors. The systems supported in GameFaqs include just about everytyhing from the 8-bit Atari platform to modern consoles like the PlayStation 3. Submissions made to the site are reviewed by the its current editor, Allen "SBAllen" Tyner.

Multiplayer cheating

See Also Online Cheating and Griefing

In the online environment, players enter a competitive world where the objective is generally to outplay others and win. Some players cheat to gain advantage and win the game, while others cheat simply to upset and interfere with other players.

Introducing a ranking system gives gamers another reason to exploit the system to rapidly rise over other players. This leads to a power-gaming mentality of accomplishing everything one can by any means necessary, or allowing a gamer to brag about their skills by pointing at their top ranking. With any game and any kind of competitiveness within it, there are going to be people who resort to cheating. With new technologies come new hacks, and new punishments and rules that must be made to enforce against them. It is becoming more common for players to report each other to the game's moderators instead of the game itself to track down hackers like these.

Spawn Camping

Camping

Camping is a strategy commonly used in first-person shooter (FPS) games, where a player stays in a safe or hidden location to ambush an enemy or wait for certain items to appear. Camping is also a strategy in the online multiplayer environment. The strategy is considered by some to be cheating because if every player in a game uses the camping strategy, there wouldn't be any player-to-player encounters. This would cause there to be no game to play. It is also considered by some to be unfair for the non-campers who are playing the game as intended, as they might walk into a camper's line of sight and be immediately killed by the camper, giving the camper an easy kill. Campers therefore can get "kill streaks" to be on top of leaderboards, for example.

On the other hand, other players argue that camping is another strategy and way to play the game, and that "the only reason campers can rack up kills is [players] are dumb." The argument is that if multiple players keep running into a room and aren't careful about ambushes, it is okay to kill these people in a row since they are easy kills. It does not mean the killer is a camper if they manage to get 10 easy kills in a row, for example. This raises questions about how long a player needs to be sitting in one spot and killing others in order to be considered a camper.

In order to discourage camping, some games force campers who stay in one place for too long to move ahead, or they add penalties like health damage.

Ethical Issues

Motivations to Cheat

All users have their reasons for cheating, such as frustration, difficulty, time, etc. In the case of playing online, especially in shooters, all players generally want to have the highest kill to death ratio (KDR). When players cheat, they gain an unfair advantage over the other players that allows them to achieve the goal of being the best. It can also be seen as a lot more fun wreaking havoc on all your opponents, versus getting killed almost immediately every round. Some users may cheat because other users are cheating, and in interviews conducted by Consalvo, she found that players who cheat have few qualms about doing so. Others cheat just for the satisfaction they get from the frustration of other players.

According to Mia Consalvo, there are many possible reasons that may cause players to cheat, including:

• Players asserting agency
• Difficult scenarios: performing an instrumental action relative to gameplay
• Fun to play God: finding the complete gameplay experience
• Hitting fast forward
• Multi-player cheating

Types of Cheating

Cheating can be divided into different categories depending on the game environment. For example, cheating in a one player game has different ethical implications from cheating in a multiplayer game. For some, cheating has come to be an intricate part of gaming culture. For those users who employ hacks and other types of "home-made" cheating, the fun of a video game comes not from the games itself but the havoc they are able to wreak on other players and the system itself. Heavier consequences lie from these "home-made" cheat codes rather than those who put in a code when prompted at the beginning of the game. The former implies that the user is purposely changing the game to better oneself, and to put the rest at a disadvantage. This kind of cheating is what makes the game unfair and frustrating for the users on the other end.

Another type of cheating is, as referenced before, prompting the user with a box to purposely enter in a code. This can be considered to be not "cheating" because of the way that the creators have programmed the game. Because the game is asking the user for the code, and the user is not the one to alter the original code of the game, it is not necessarily frowned upon. Furthermore, since this is consistent between all games, and all users have access to this feature, it is not cheating because each player has the same opportunity for the same advantages; it is now up to the user to decide whether or not he or she would like to use this.

A third type of cheating is in a one-player game, which is the least harmful because the game is affecting the player who is using it, and no one else. In one-player games there is a purpose for the player to accomplish and using cheat codes, whether prompted or not, is only affecting the one person to help achieve the goal of the game.

Consequences

Cheating in video games may not seem like a problematic issue, however, it can have very dangerous consequences if the attitude of video game cheaters persist in real life scenarios. The video game cheater's mentality is especially problematic because it makes use of a moral framework which is commonly held online, but not widely accepted in real life. That framework includes the belief that it is morally acceptable to cheat via whatever means are available, so long as one is taking advantage of a flaw in the system. In this way, cheating in video games becomes a slippery slope when this same thinking is translated to the offline world. The consequences can be disastrous, as seen with users who abuse government programs and individuals that make a concerted effort not to pay taxes.

The opposing viewpoint to that of the "slippery slope" stance maintains that cheating in a video game does not imply in any way that a person will tend to "cheat" outside of video games. Additionally, there are many questions regarding the existence of harm done by video game cheating. For example, some would say that a video game cheater is not causing any harm to the players over which the cheater holds an advantage. Others might say that if a certain behavior (e.g. particular exploits) is not explicitly forbidden in a community's common standards, then that behavior is not cheating at all, but rather particularly astute gameplay.

See Also

• Online Cheating
• Cyberlaw
• Ethics in Computer & Video Games
• Mia Consalvo
• Mods

External Links

• Camping
• Cheating in video games
• Dictionary.com: Cheating

References

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