What started as an innocent way to assist a player to complete a game, has become a threat to a multi-billion dollar industry. With both Microsoft and Sony having recently launched their online console services in the U.S., the threat posed by cheaters to online gaming, is being re-assessed. Having learned from the many problems faced by online PC games, both console makers have created their own, different strategies in order to deal with online cheaters.
Online PC games begun, based on the naive premise that participants themselves would not want to diminish the gaming experience for themselves and for other gamers. That premise was, almost instantly, proved wrong. The list of online game swindles is almost endless and as many Team Fortress players have already found out, supernatural powers of aim, are not a natural human attribute.
In a business expected to reach 10 million households by 2005, such threats are taken extremely seriously. Sony claim they have used their vast experience from projects such as Everquest, in order to devise strategies against online cheating. The almost half a million players involved in Sony's virtual world, have provided great insight into the workings of the cheat culture.
The key to foiling cheaters is a responsive community like the one in EverQuest, which always alerts us to new hacks, cheats and exploits, said Sony spokesman Scott McDaniel.
Fostering a sense of community may be key to derailing cheaters, given that the anonymous nature of online games often is what entices people to cheat in the first place, said Peter Crabb, associate professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University.
The player is - and feels that he or she is - alone and is not under surveillance by other players or the game hosts, Crabb said.
Microsoft have also adopted an alert community, warning system which they call a reputation system. Similar to ebay's warning system, the idea is that participants will rate each other. Those who don't play by the rules will find it hard to locate online partners, said Cameron Ferroni, Xbox product manager.
It creates its own social upward spiral, which is a really cool thing, he added.
Microsoft however, have gone the extra mile in order to better safeguard their investment. The number one thing we worked really hard to prevent is anyone from running code that we haven't authorized, he said. You can't just go in like you can in a PC. said Ferroni.
All this, of course, until someone comes up with a new idea.
