Crime and Punishment - Cheating in Video Games (Topic)

Imagine a picture that luck is on your side and now the fourth skating rink in a row is given to you as easily as cracking nuts. You kill crowds of enemies: mages, archers, stormtroopers, Nazis - no matter who you play against, the main thing is that their deaths continue to fill your kill counter. Your team saw a real leader in you. Together you are invincible and again you are approaching another victory, when suddenly he appears - an immortal, super speedy, omnipotent and smelly cheater ... Bullets fly through him and he takes you off. And so you think, "What the hell?" Today we'll take a look at cheating in games.

Gaming mauvais ton

Earlier, in ancient times, toy libraries and the first computers, cheating had a specific character. The problem was a poor internet connection and many gamers had to be cunning in order not to die of waiting. However, over time it passed, but the problem remained, although it became less widespread.

Most of the gamers realized that it is much more interesting to develop their own style of play. So it’s better to play, and the skill is developing. Thus, cheating has become a rude tone in online games, but as always, there are enough rude ones.

The problem is also in the developers, who create these very cheats in games during testing or development. And when they hit the internet, they become what separates the players.

Sorry, what are you using in the game? Cheats? God ...

The modern gaming industry is less filled with cheats. And in fact, the fashion for using them in a single player is a thing of the past. And in principle, using them in the game for yourself is a bit stupid. It's like buying delicious food, which you rarely can afford, and with a magical snap of your fingers move it straight to your stomach without ever tasting it.

Of course, you can cheat to become omnipotent, collect all resources or items, defeat enemies with one shot, and so on, but you will miss the most important thing - getting to know the gameplay, learning the mechanics and the challenge that is offered to you.

But with network projects, everything is not so simple. Just get caught on cheating and you will become an enemy of the people, whom everyone will want to punish. Your only excuse may be that you earn by promoting accounts for sale, but even then, it will not make you innocent.

One Thousand and One Ways to Cheat

There are many ways to do this today, but we will tell you for informational purposes only about a few basic methods of cheating in the game, so that you can recognize this evil that can befall everyone.

Double game. This is the simplest, so-called "old-fashioned" method, which came far from games. The usual agreement between several players, when one merges the other round. For example, two friends came to play on the same server, and one of them, as a double agent in the opposing team, interferes with everyone or in every possible way does it so that it is not noticeable.

A bug to help you. An equally classic way is to use the bugs of the game itself in order to ruin the lives of others. There are bugs in every multiplayer game, the point is that somewhere there are few of them and they can be patched, but somewhere there are a lot of them.

The most recent example is (I'm sure you knew for sure that I would remember her) Fallout 76, where due to poor frame rates and rendering people could double their movement speed just by looking at the floor. Or, due to the same bugs, one player cannot die at all, since his life bar does not move ...

But it also happens that if one bug is used by everyone and everywhere, then people stop considering this bug as cheating (as was the case with the rocket jump), although in fact it is.

Get yourself a ping. If the game is based on peer ambushes, you can always increase your ping to defeat the enemy. And while someone suffers from the provider's problems, the cunning cheat will kill everyone. However, we note that this method has already gone down in history and was covered with a layer of dust. Hurray!

H ESOYAM ohm made. Many gamers are faced with just assholes using codes. The possibilities that they provide are as many as the castemization options in Marvel's Spider Man. The most arrogant way in my opinion, because what could be worse than when your sword just flies through the enemy without damaging him, or when his bullets fly through the walls right into you ...

Usually, the codes that were used in the development and testing of the game are merged into the network. There are also advanced informal ones who write to order and then sell. "Famous" among gamers and vaunted "trainers" - written programs that are installed in the folder with the game and help to break it.

Artificial intelligence. Especially lazy guys use bots written for the game. Bot can be taken as an assistant who is always ready to rush into battle, or you can simply make him play for himself. And then the question arises, why do this at all? Seriously, it's like buying a ticket to a movie, giving it to a stranger and saying: "Come on, go for me, and then you will come out in a nutshell, okay?" Why give play to a bot that won't even be able to taste the joy of victory - for me (I think, for you too) this is a secret.

Give me honest gaming!

I am very glad that today most people regard online combat as entertainment, recreation, and even competition. And it's good that the developers understand this, who somehow try to protect normal players with a fence from a few dishonest guys. It's a shame that the fence can often be jumped over easily, or it works as a trap for normal players.

Games began to "lick" more thoroughly before being released (calm down Todd Howard, this does not apply to your company). Ideally, however, this is difficult, so the second step is to fight against the cheaters themselves.

As a rule, cheating is punishable by demotion, removal from the service, penalty points and even bans. Sometimes they are branded for this, assigning a special reward for killing a cheater. In large projects, even special systems have been made to find and block too successful users. They encrypt the game package, check the code, analyze progress and the ratio of wins and deaths, looking for those who have a large spread between these criteria and ban cheaters. It's a pity that often the heads of just good players who have golden hands fall under this righteous sword ...

The second problem with these systems is that they can be used for evil. So in GTA Online there are troll cheaters who farm bags of money in large quantities out of thin air and drop them on the heads of other players. Poor fellows do not have time to dodge the rain of money and are dramatically richer by millions. The search engine for cheaters considers them as cheaters and blocks them forever ...

The third unpleasant thing is that these systems slow down the servers. Increasingly, all network games are ported to developers' own servers, and this requires a lot of effort during development, and the server itself is growing in size. Not everyone is ready to go to such lengths to prevent cheating in the game.

Scourging and lynching

When cheaters are caught, show executions are a necessary ritual. They are disconnected from the servers for life, and even if they bought the game, this is not an argument. And if one such player really wanted to be a true hacker, he can even be accused of hacking, which is already criminal responsibility.

The gamers themselves are not asleep, and often under the cover of a handsome trainer or an archive with cheats uploaded by them to the network, viral programs are hidden that can incinerate iron into collapse. Therefore, a lover of cunning should think several times before downloading something.

You are now knowledgeable and armed reader. Play fair and have fun. And as a bonus - the top 10 free online PC games.

The Topic of Article: Crime and Punishment - Cheating in Video Games.
Author: Jake Pinkman