Cheating
Certain Programs
like "Punk Buster" assure that people playing on Counter Strike are
not "cheating". Cheating implies that users are putting in
"cheat codes" so that they can shoot through walls, auto-aim, take
more bullets before they die, etc. "Punk-Buster" will eject anyone
form the game who is caught using these cheats, although, not all servers make
this a requirement. This means that people can use their cheat codes on some of
the servers in order to "cheat" on the games. These cheats are made
from reverse engineering the code so that programmers/hackers can modify the
code to give them abilities on the game outside of what the original programmer
intended. There is a debate that stems as to whether not this adds to the video
game culture.
There are some
legal issues over cheating. Game
publishers are threatening to sue companies for reverse engineering their code
in order to find out how to make the cheats.
This reverse engineering of software is explicitly prohibited under the
Digital Millennium Act. Here is how
MegaGames.com, a company that provides cheats on their website, responded to
law suit threats:
(http://www.megagames.com/trainers.html....trainers)
The Business Software
Regarding Video Game Emulators, they are
independent programs that do not violate any copyright laws. However, the usage of ROM's are illegal. We do not provide any ROM's on
this site.
In conclusion, all material on MegaGames is fully legal in the
There is a middle ground to the question of: is cheating wrong? The middle answer is: play the game first all the way through without cheating. Once the game is beat it is demystified, the story is no longer a mystery, you have defeated the challenge posed by the game. There is no longer a mystery of how Cecil eveolves as a character as the plot progresses, there is no longer a mystery of how to beat the 4th level boss and what the level after is like.
Cheats at this point are acceptable for added game play. For example, with a level warp cheat, you can relive the battle with the level 4 boss, you can figure out new fighting combos to without the annoyance of dying with an “infinite health” cheat, or you can now afford to buy the Excaliber sword to defeat your enemies quicker with an ”infinite money”. An example of a game that had added value with cheat mode was the revolutionary game Doom by ID software. With entering a cheat (http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~nsaa/doomcheat.html) which required the user to simply type IDDQD to enter “God mode” which allowed the user to be invinsible. This meant all of the monster-gore that you desired to see could become a reality without the dear of dying (God mode makes you invulnerable). God mode when coupled with IDKFA, which gave the player unlimited weapons ammo, and keys, allows the user hours of fun of killing and carniage without having to worry about the logistics of the game (like dying or running out of ammo). This lends to hours of fun even after the player has beat the game. The player now has the ability to forget about all the puzzles and trials that they spent so many hours facing and just kill and blow things up. Some argue that this is the best part of the game!
Hardware Cheats:Gameshark
There is another side to cheating and that is cheats that involve hardware. These hardware pieces are sold in retail stores all over the world. This is generally done for console game systems like Nintendo or the old Saga Genesis. These hardware products like Game Shark or Game Genie ( I will be using Game Shark as my example of hardware cheating enabling devices) allowed the user to plug their game cartridge into the hardware piece, which then plugged into the game system. Sometimes the little hardware pieces are plugged into the system’s cartridge memory port. They are also sold as discs, which are loaded into consoles before a game starts and allow players to enter cheat codes. When the player turns on the system, they are presented with a screen that prompts them to enter cheat codes. This screen is generated by the Game Shark and is not a part of the original game. The Game Shark comes with a little book that provides cheat codes to get the user started, but that is just the beginning. Other cheat codes are found in game magazines like Nintendo Power or in online web pages (http://www.hotcheats.com/).
One such company that provides
cheat codes is Interact Accessories Inc., a company
with $200 million US in sales. So far this group of a half-dozen programmers
has cranked out more than 23,000 codes that cover almost every game on the
market with as many as two million visitors a month logging in to get the
latest cheats from the company's web site according to the
The same newspaper article quotes Jay Philbrook, an employee of Interact Accessories that is the Project Manager for Game Shark cheats, as saying “It's also a contentious arena at times, because game publishers aren't always thrilled at having their creations "hacked" and played in ways they didn't intend”.
Video
game companies do not like the fact that their video games are altered from
their original state. However, some game compamies claim
that it is illegal for these cheat companies to use modified versions of the
video game systems in order to see the code of the game as it is being played. From there these companies figure out which
pieces of code they need to alter to create cheats (Interact calls cheats
"game enhancements"). The
"The bottom line
is the game isn't supposed to be played that way, and it helps people have an
unfair advantage in online games against other players who didn't pay 40 bucks
to buy a GameShark," said Kenny Harris, 19, a
college student in Los Angeles who plays games with his Sega Dreamcast online.
"I'm always bringing up the rear in Phantasy
Star Online, and I know it's because other guys have
cheat codes."
Cheating Hurts Video Game Companies: The Pokemon example
Game companies are figuring out
ways that to block or destroy the ability of the Game Shark.
The biggest example is Nintendo of America.
The Pokemon series of games have been some of the biggest selling titles
of all times. The point of the game is simple, collect and
train (make them stronger) Pokemon. Let’s
begin with the logistics of capturing all of the Pokemon. The game series started on the Game Boy in which
only some of the Pokemon could be captured on certain games. For example, kids who bought the Blue edition
of Pokemon for $40 could not possibly beat the game, “Catch ‘em All” unless the also purchased the Red Game for $40 as
well. But even then the Yellow edition
had some extra Pokemon, not to mention the
With the Game Shark, kids are able to obtain Pokemon without playing the game in which they have to find and defeat Pokemon in order to “Catch ‘em”. Nintendo has put a block on the Transfer Pak which allows players to transfer the captured Pokemon from their Game Boy games onto the Pokemon Stadium for the N64. This means that if the player has already cheated on their Game Boy game, their cheating cannot be perpetuated onto the new N64 gamming console. If the player has cheated, the have to start over and “naturally raise” their Pokemon.
http://www.pojo.com/news/March022000News.html
"Our area Nintendo representative came
into Toys "R" Us and informed me of an important piece of information
about Pokémon Stadium that I thought I’d pass on to fellow Pokémaniacs.
If you have used a Game Shark to enhance
your Pokémon in the Yellow, Red or Blue versions of Pokémon Game Boy titles,
those characters will not be able to be transferred via the Transfer Pack into
Pokemon Stadium.
Why would Nintendo do this to their players? The answer in my opinion is simple: money. Let’s not forget that the marketing hook for Pokemon is “Gotta Catch ‘em All”. So, cheating goes against the corporate marketing strategy. With the cheats, users are able to “Gotta Materialize ‘em All”. So, cheats actually defeat the money making scheme that Nintendo has created, for the players to have to buy all 5 games in order to get all of the Pokemon! Also, their marketing strategy promotes repeated game play by creating a sense of urgency, you “Gotta” do it. The cheats allow the user to simply relax and cheat their way to Pokemon heaven. This is not conducive to the kind of frenzy that Nintendo wants to create to get kids to become addicted and buy the new games. If the user can cheat, then they do not have to buy all of Nintendo’s games. So, in this case, cheating actually becomes detrimental to corporate strategy and even world wide sales.
Cheating and the Future of the Online Gaming World
Online Game manufacturers are also doing there best to prevent cheating. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) (http://camelot.mmorpg.net/) require that users pay a monthly subscription fee in order to play the games online. Games like Everquest and Ulitma Online require a $10 a month subscription fee. However, users get upset when they pay this fee, but are virtually unable to play because they are wiped out instantly when they enter the game. The game becomes less fun to people when they can never get ahead or beat people who cheat. Michael Gartenberg, research director for Jupiter Media Metrix said in an article for ZDNet News:
"We're going to see a lot of
investment in systems with military-grade security," Gartenberg
said. "Protecting the integrity of players who invested significant time
and money in these games is going to be very important. Nobody wants to pay a
certain amount of money each month just to be killed off by a troll the minute
they log in."
Game developers are most worried about the new gamers not coming back. After all, the experienced players know that cheating exists and you can just play on another server. Experienced players know that cheating comes along with the territory. In an interview with ZDNews Matt Pritchard, a game developer at Ensemble Studios, said that they are most concerned with newbies, especially little kids, who will instantly be turned off when some cheater or hacker destroys their online characters.
The latest E3 Conference unveiled some of the most anticipated online games soon to be released. E3 is the biggest gaming conference of the year where all the game developers show off all of the new products that they plan on releasing for the year. Announcements came for games like Star Wars Galaxies and The Sims Online. The game developers also announced that they will implement new security features the insure a fare gamming experience for all. Microsoft XBOX makers also announced that they are going to stress hack-proof servers when they roll out their online games. Companies are thinking of ways to prevent cheating to ensure that players subscribe to their network and come back.
Some online games like Counter-Strike have programs that can run to help to prevent cheating. First, the players who run gaming servers can install a program called CS-Guard that will scan players’ computers on a regular basis to look for any cheats, although the scanning is limited to only the game directory. However, some of these servers require that players install programs like Punk Buster and Paladin that actually run on the player’s computer. These programs run on the computers and scan for any cheats being used. If the program finds that the pleayer is cheating, then the program will kick the user from the server and not allow them back on until the cheat is gone. The problem with Punk Buster and Paladin is that they often make server unpoplular. This is because the gamers have to take the time to find that program on the internet, download it, and install it. Also, computers with low RAM may find that the program sucks system resources that they might need for playing the game. CS-Guard on the other hand runs on just the server, so players do not have to install anything. CS-Guard can also be configured to automatically permanently ban a player that is caught cheating from the server.
However, some
would argue that, cheating can add to the culture by changing the game to make
it less formulaic. It throws in a few surprises when the enemy can fire through
walls. There is also an added challenge as the enemy is harder to kill, while
you yourself have a modified gun that shoot 2x the bullets. It also has the
ability of changing the nature of the game as not just terrorists and
counter-terrorists (Counter-Strike) slugging it out, but a kind of "uber-human" fighting with the cheat codes.
Others insist that it takes away from the game. Some people chose to think of the game as a story. After all, 1st person shooters are designed to put players into the perspective of the character of the player. Alloying cheat codes were characters can shoot though walls some how destroys the illusion for the players. One might then make the argument that games like Counter-Strike are not real simulations anyways. Players can take several bullets without dying, which is very unrealistic. However, players get use to certain set of rules that they hold as true. There reality in the games has been constructed based on these rules; like you can carry 6 guns at once and you can get shot in the back twice and still live. Cheat codes break this gaming reality and ruin the immersive effect of the 1st person shooter.
Some communities have sprung up to promote fair game playing. Organizations like ECA (http://www.eternalcircle.org/eca/charter.html) have a charter and a membership system in which members have to pledge to not cheat on internet games and to fight cheating whenever they see it. Membership must be sponsored by a current member in order to be inducted. Members receive a membership number and they carry the right to carry affiliate memberships for other people in their online clan or guild. All in all, the best way to combat cheating is for players to police themselves. This involves reporting people who cheat, and speaking out against known cheaters. There needs to be some kind of grassroots social control over cheating to effectively thwart the problem.