The Bottom Line

Issue date: 9/27/06 Section: The AT Wire

Media Credit: Kaiti Robinson They wouldn't cheat, so why would you?

Cheating, hacking, modding, exploiting, whatever you want to call it, has been an issue for multiplayer gaming for a long time. While there is still some debate over the legitimacy of cheating at a single-player game, it is looked upon by a majority of gamers as "acceptable." They deem it so because the cheating doesn't affect another player. When it does start affecting other people, however, it is a different story.

Cheating is a huge topic of discussion when you're talking about video games. Whether you are reminiscing about your old Game Genie and Game Shark codes or using a wall hack in Counter-Strike Source, cheating at video games has been around since video games were invented. It is not my goal to define cheating or go into detail about the ways in which people cheat, but rather to give everyone an inside look into the mentality (or lack there of) of someone who cheats at multiplayer games.

Not more than six days ago there was an article posted on Aeropause.com titled, "An Interview with a Cheater." The article was written by someone who managed to conduct an e-mail interview with a known Halo 2 modder. The interviewer referred to the cheater as "Schmuck5000" which, hopefully, wasn't the kid's real alias. The interview was meant to be funny by asking ridiculous questions. For example, one question asked, "Do you have a girlfriend?" Schmuch5000's response reads, "What kind of freaking question is that for this kind of interview? How does me having a girlfriend relate to cheating?" The interviewer made a note in the transcript that stated, "We will take that as a NO!"

On the other hand, some of the questions were, in fact, relevant to the topic. Simple questions like, "Why do you cheat?" and "In your opinion, what should game developer's do to prevent cheating?" to name just a few. The interviewee's responses were, for the most part, predictable. He cheats because other people do to, so why shouldn't he? He makes sure to justify himself by saying he is just leveling the playing field. Then he says that he cheats because it makes the game more fun. He is even ignorant enough to claim that he cheats because he has the guts to do it and that everyone else is just jealous!

Continued...

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