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Hacks, Cheats, and Mods: Digital Rule-Breaking
When it comes to forms of rule-breaking incorporated into the design and experience of games, computer and video games offer a cornucopia of examples. Following are some sample instances of digital game rule-breaking, ranging from the timidly transgressive to the truly unlawful.
Easter Eggs
Easter eggs are secrets hidden in a game that players can discover. The first Easter egg was created by game designer and programmer Warren Robinett for the Atari 2600 game Adventure. In defiance of Atari's refusal to give credit to the creators of their games, Robinett programmed a secret room that could only be found with great difficulty. When players reached it, his initials were displayed. Hidden messages, images, and spaces are now a standard feature of digital gaming. In a mild kind of way, Easter eggs break a game's rules because they violate the otherwise internally consistent world of a game. Part of the pleasure of finding an Easter egg is a sense of transgressive discovery: by bending the rules of the game in just the right way, the player gets to see or experience something that more lawful players would not.
Cheat Codes
Although Easter eggs usually do not impact the strategic play of a game, cheat codes do. Like Easter eggs, developers design cheat codes into a game. Some of the best-known instances of cheat codes come from the first-person shooter DOOM, where a player can type special key combinations to gain weapons, health, and invulnerability. Sometimes a cheat code is a leftover tool from the game's development process, but often they are added just for the benefit of players. Although the name "cheat code" implies that these shortcuts to power are rule infringements, cheat codes frequently appear in game magazines and on official game websites, making them a form of officially sanctioned "cheating." The result is a rich culture of insider game knowledge, with fans scouring magazines and websites for the latest, coolest cheats.
Game Guides and Walkthroughs
Related to cheat codes are the sources of information that players turn to for help with a difficult or lengthy game. These resources appear on the web and in print, and range from elaborate color maps and strategy guides to fan-generated text files that cover every conceivable aspect of a game. Game walkthroughs are step-by-step instructions for finishing a game, particularly useful to players of adventure games and role-playing games that have a more linear structure. Some players view these resources as unfair techniques that breach the spirit of a game. At the same time, walkthroughs have raised the bar of difficulty and complexity in certain game genres. Many digital games are so challenging that they seem designed to require a guide.
Workarounds
The complexity of digital games often makes it impossible for designers to test or anticipate every possible permutation of play before releasing a title to the public. Furthermore, players are infinitely creative in finding ways of "legally" working around game structures. In "The Future of Game Design," Harvey Smith writes about how players discovered new ways to play Deus Ex. For example, the proximity mine object is an explosive device that can be "stuck" onto walls in the game space. After the game's release, players realized something that the game's developers did not anticipate. Exploiting the game's physics and interactivity, players learned to climb up on proximity mines, and using (or misusing) a series of these objects like a ladder, they could ascend the game's vertical surfaces, ruining many of the carefully designed levels. Workarounds are on the borderline between dedicated play and unsportsmanlike play, and include degenerate strategies. Is it cheating to purchase game power by buying an EverQuest character on eBay, or is it simply a workaround that converts labor to capital?
True Cheating
In addition to fuzzier types of "cheating"behavior, there is plenty of bona fide cheating in digital games. More than clever workarounds or sanctioned cheat codes, true cheating breaks the rules of the game. In a multiplayer environment, guidelines for what constitutes cheating are generally made known to all players; cheaters are usually removed immediately and permanently from a game. In SiSSYFiGHT 2000, the most common form of cheating is multi-sessioning, in which a single player opens up two game windows on two different computers, playing two characters at once and gaining very strong play advantages. Although it is difficult to spot, multi-sessioning is outlawed in the game, and there are vigilante fan websites devoted to maintaining lists of known game cheaters.
Hacks
Hacking into a digital game goes beyond simply breaking the rules—it does so through intervention at the level of code. A player might hack a high score list, for example, to place her name at the top. Or she might modify the code of a first-person shooter to gain an unfair advantage in a deathmatch. If too many players hack a game, all sense of fairness can be destroyed. Therefore, the administrators of commercial multiplayer games put great effort into eliminating cheating and hacks from their games. According to massively multiplayer online game designer Ralph Koster, tracking down cheaters and hackers can occupy approximately half of all of the resources spent on maintaining and improving an online game.
Spoil-Sport Hacking
Most hacking is done in the spirit of the cheat: players want to do well in a game and do not mind breaking the rules in order to get ahead. Occasionally, game hackers can take the role of a spoil-sport as well, bringing down an entire game or game network. In this case, the aim is to dispel the magic circle for all players involved, not to better one's own performance. Why are digital games so fertile a ground for these varieties of rule-breaking? First and foremost, code is a plastic and pliable medium. The complex processes that give digital games their uniquely automated quality leave gaps for hacking into the system, whether it is through officially distributed cheat codes, clever workarounds, or genuine code-breaking. The anonymous nature of digital game play, where computers and networks mediate players, encourages rule-breaking as well. The reduced physical presence of other players permits a greater sense of social autonomy, which can facilitate the surreptitious activities of rule-breaking. Lastly, digital games are pop culture with a rich fan base: game fans deconstruct and reconstruct the codes and structures of the works that interest them. Cheating and hacking in this sense is similar to the ways that Star Trek fans re-mix the narrative universe of the television show to invent new stories and characters.
The blessing and curse of digital gaming media is that they provide a pliable space in which to play. With so many ways to gently bend and forcefully break the rules of a game, in playing a computer or video game players must decide what constitutes proper game behavior, navigating the space of possible rule violations. Is it acceptable to download a walkthrough guide? Do you use cheat codes to short-circuit your way through tough game levels? If you were offered a cracked version of the game that let you cheat, would you use it? As a digital game designer, you need to decide what kinds of rule-breaking you want to engender and what kinds you want to outlaw. Can you foster fan communities by offering sanctioned ways to violate the game without letting things get out of hand altogether? Ethics and game design collide in this rich space of rule-break-ing possibility.
