Rules.of.Play.Game.Design.Fundamentals [Electronic resources]

Friction on the Playground

The sidebar text on this page and the next is excerpted from sissyfightnews.com, a fan site devoted to the game SiSSYFiGHT 2000. The text is a manifesto against cheating; it details how to identify and combat rule-breaking in the game, and is directed toward resisting those who would bend the system too far out of shape by conspiring to cheat. There are competing ideologies in the game (resist the game through cheating; resist cheating by policing the cheaters) and the manifesto therefore represents an act of double-resistance. On one hand, cheating exists as a form of friction against the authority of the game, resisting the public chat that is a key game play element. On the other hand, there is resistance to this resistance, a vigilante group working to raise the consciousness of the community and eliminate cheating. These double-movements become part of the larger culture of the game.

How do you know a cheater when you see one? Let's use a working definition. You can identify cheaters as:

Two or more allied characters who perform extremely coordinated attacks in succession, with little or no communication within the SiSSYFiGHT word bubbles.

Let's take this apart piece by piece, to clarify. The important thing to remember is that all of these elements together must be present to identify cheaters—otherwise, you might just be dealing with a perfectly legit team.

Two or more allied characters: The first sign of cheaters is that they never attack each other. Usually cheaters will work in pairs, although there are some who actually try to coordinate more. Please remember that there's nothing wrong with having allies or teams alone! One of the main points of the game is to build up alliances.

Who perform extremely coordinated attacks: Coordinated attacks are a result of good strategy and communication. In a two-person team, these combination moves can be mapped out like this:

Again, please remember that if any two players perform these actions, that does not necessarily make them cheaters…yet. Up to this point, we're still talking about fair gaming and good strategy.

In succession: This is the point where we start to draw the line between honest players and cheaters. If you see two characters performing several coordinated attacks in a row, something is up.

With little or no communication within the SiSSYFiGHT word bubbles: This is the kicker, right here. The big giveaway to pairs or groups of cheaters is that they never communicate their moves in the SiSSYFiGHT window. This provides them with a distinct and unfair advantage over honest players, because there are no signals (either direct or indirect) for other players to attempt to read. Note, sometimes cheaters will actually talk smack in their word balloons, but they will never actually give any indication to each other as to what their next moves will be.

There are two ways to cheat in SiSSYFiGHT: external communication and multiple sessions.

Cheaters who use external communication basically resort to some form of telegraphing their moves to each other by any means outside of the SiSSYFiGHT window itself. This most often takes its form in either AOL Instant Messaging or ICQ, but may also include phone conversation or two people sissyfighting at adjacent workstations in a computer lab. Cheaters who use this method are so insecure in their strategic impotence, they would rather subvert the integrity of the game than use what few brain cells they have left. If you're ever beaten by one of these external communicators, you can rest assured that in real life, they're probably overweight drooling idiots who still live with their parents and can't actually make any real friends.

Cheaters who use multiple sessions are even sadder creatures on the social pecking order. This kind of cheater is a single person who runs SiSSYFiGHT from one workstation in two or more separate browsers. These people are so socially inept that the mere thought of actually communicating and working with someone else sends them into panicked spasms. They've never kissed anyone, and spend a lot of time breaking into password-protected porn sites. Rest assured that if you're ever beaten by someone coordinated enough to run multiple sessions, they've probably also developed the enviable talent of typing one-handed. (Oh, NOW you get it.)

Breaking the Rules was a RULES schema—a formal way of understanding a game. What is rule-breaking in the context of CULTURE, particularly in a schema on cultural resistance? The broken rules identified in the SiSSYFiGHT manifesto are implicit rules, the violation of which most often represents unsportsmanlike conduct. But the emotional force with which this manifesto was written implies that something deeper is at work. Indeed, because of complaints about cheating, the game's developer Word.com, posted a "code of ethics" on the game website which explicitly defined and banned cheating. As a result, the ability to chat in private was recategorized as a true rule infraction: private chat became an operational rule breach. So-called cheaters bending the rules led to this structural transformation, a process in which cheating players, vigilante players, and game designers all took part.

In the complex case of the SiSSYFiGHT cheating manifesto, factors both internal and external to the game drove resistance. The alleged cheating represents a form of resistance that seeks to undermine the experience of play in undesirable ways, transgressing the magic circle from within. When this violation came to the attention of a few astute and passionate players, a strategy of retaliation was formalized, an act of resistance that came from outside the magic circle. The resulting solution is both elegant and inspiring: as a cultural artifact created and disseminated by players of the game, the manifesto represents a wonderful example of player-production; as a strategy of resistance, it demonstrates that meaningful play can be brought into the game from contexts beyond its permeable edges. And in this instance, the story had a happy ending: the designers intervened, reaching the entire community of players through the game's official website, revising the rules of the game and raising the consciousness of the player community as a whole.