» Sun Oct 10, 2010 8:20 am 
Cheating Is Good For You
Mia Consalvo 12.14.06, 9:00 AM ET
Most of the time, we think of cheating as despicable. Cheating is what lazy people do. It's the easy way out. Calling someone a cheater is rarely a compliment, and being cheated is never a good thing.
At least, in everyday life it isn't--outside of the occasional "cheat day" on a diet. But what about in the world of videogames? After spending the last five years talking with game players, game developers, security experts and others, I've learned a few counterintuitive things about cheating.
First, everybody cheats. Some may justify it, others proudly proclaim it, and others will deny their cheating vigorously, but it's a common activity. Players use walkthroughs, cheat codes, social engineering techniques (basically being crafty and tricking others), hacks and other unauthorized software. Cheats are popular, big business and not going away anytime soon. Individual gamers set boundaries for what they will or won't do, and there are several general reasons why people cheat. But either way, can the activity be good for you?
When I first started examining the practice of cheating, I took it as a given that most people viewed it as a negative activity. Cheating implies that you aren't a good enough player to finish a game on your own, or that you want an unfair--and unearned--advantage over other players. Yet in researching why people cheat and how they cheat, I've found that, much of the time, cheating actually implies a player is actively engaged in a game and wants to do well, even when the game fails them.
There are four major reasons why players cheat in a game: they're stuck, they want to play God, they are bored with the game, or they want to be a jerk. The overwhelming reason most players cheat is because they get stuck. Either the game is poorly designed, too hard, or the players are so inexperienced that they can't advance. A boss monster can't be beaten, or a puzzle solved, or the right direction found. In such situations, players face a choice: They either cheat or stop playing altogether.
The next most common reason is that we all like to play God sometimes. We want all the weapons or all the goodies, and we want them now. We don't want to wade through 20 levels to get to the one we like best--we want to beam directly there. We don't want to drive around in a boring car--we want to "unlock" the invincible bicycle instead. In those situations, cheating is about extending the play experience for ourselves. No one is harmed in the process.
Third, we can get bored with games. But as with an annoying novel, we still want the option of flipping to the last page to see how things turn out. In a game, we may find the fighting tedious, or the storyline dreary, or the never-ending grind to reach higher levels in World of Warcraft just too much trouble, and so we use some sort of cheat to jump ahead in the game's timeline, maybe all the way to the conclusion.
And finally, some people just can't resist cheating others. We want to overwhelm others, not just defeat them. We'll use "aimbots" (programs that automatically aim and shoot for us) or "wall hacks" (programs that allow you to see and even walk through walls) to gain every advantage in an online shooting game. Or we'll intercept the data stream in an online poker game to find out what cards our opponent is actually holding.
But even if everyone does it, why is cheating actually good for us?
First, players get stuck all the time. It doesn't matter if you are a master at real-time strategy games--if it's your first action-adventure game, you might be really bad at it. Likewise, maybe the game developer rushed the game out the door with less than perfect directions or a less than perfect design. In those situations, cheating lets the player keep playing the game they spent good money on. It can mean the difference between completing a game and abandoning it mid-stream.
Imagine reading a book and getting to a difficult passage in chapter three. And then imagine the book won't let you skip to chapter four until you have signified you understand that passage. This is how many video games are designed.
Now imagine instead that players can consult walkthroughs (in essence, detailed, step-by-step directions to winning a game) on an "as-needed" basis to help them through the troublesome spots, or receive "hints" that help them figure things out on their own. Players who have completed the game create these walkthroughs for later players. In short, players are teaching one another and learning from each other, and getting only the information they need to keep going. Everyone is taking an active part in playing and learning how to play. This is a good thing for everyone involved.
Next, players often use cheat codes, which unlock special items or powers, to get the most value from a game. This suggests that players enjoy the game so much that when they reach the end, they want to play it more. That means more opportunities for interaction with the game. Cheat codes can be hidden in a game for players to find and then share with others. Or, codes can be awarded to excellent players, or given to newer, more tentative players to encourage them to keep playing. Cheat codes can keep the experience enjoyable in different ways for different players.
What about when players get bored? Game designers don't usually want them skipping to the end of a game. Yet does the game need to have a linear progression? Could players choose where in the game to go next, or the elements they want to tackle? Are there different ways to succeed--through battle, through puzzle solving, through dialog? Different players have different skill sets, so giving everyone an equal shot at doing well is preferable. As is allowing players to more quickly get to the sections they find rewarding.
But what about the jerks? Everyone wants a perfect opponent like Lisa Simpson, but more often we end up playing with her brother Bart. In EVE Online, for instance, one player, Nightfreeze, allegedly cheated his in-game friends and rivals out of hundreds of millions of in-game "credits" using nothing but fake accounts, a public library's telephone, some help from friends, and his wits.
In such situations, the value is found not in the cheating itself, but in our reaction to it.
There are a couple of things that can be done to either stop this sort of cheating or make it a positive aspect of play. Users themselves often encourage a culture of non-cheating, making cheating not cool. Most commonly, player communities can take an active role in deciding what happens when people are discovered cheating. Psychologists have found that when playing games, if players aren't allowed to punish others they suspect of cheating, the game community falls apart. People will even pay money out of their own pocket to punish cheaters. So figuring out ways to keep the larger community involved in dealing with cheaters can keep the group engaged in ways that "regular" game play might never allow for.
As counter-intuitive as it may seem, cheating can sometimes be good for you. It can keep you active and involved in a game, reward game play and allow expert players to teach others. It can indicate to developers when games are too hard or flawed, and it can even help a community form. We will never get rid of cheating, but at least in games, we can make it a positive thing, even a way to teach and learn.
Mia Consalvo is an associate professor in the School of Telecommunications at Ohio University. Her current research examines women's game play, the economics of the videogame industry and pedagogical uses of games. She has just written the book Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames , to be released by MIT Press in 2007.
