TOPIC: CHEATING AND HACKING IN VIDEO GAMES

TEAM 5:
Hoàng Vũ Hải Nam
Lê Gia Khoa
Hứa Hải Minh
Nguyễn Trường Sơn
Time estimated: About 15 to 20 minutes
1. Intro
Have you ever met in real life, or encounter any cheater in video games ? If not, then either
you spent too little time, or you just haven’t recognized them yet. In reality, cheaters and
hackers not only appear in video games, but also in our real life. Have you ever wonder when
and where did cheats come from, and how they impact video games ? Yes or no, whatever the
answer is, welcome to our presentation. Today, we’re discussing about cheats, how and why
people do such things.
2. Body
a. When and where were cheats originated ?
FIRST APPEARANCE
When cheat codes first became a thing in the early 80s, their sole purpose was to help
the developers testing their own games. In the 80s, developers needed to make sure
that their game is working as intended, but sometimes there were stages that require a
lot of time to go through, and the developers weren’t quite fond of that. And because of
that, they had included solutions to that problem like giving them extra lives or better
equipment so they could progress the game easily without having to restart. And then
there were other cases where they needed to play a certain part of the game to find
bugs, so cheat codes help them get to that area faster. (NEXT SLIDE)
For example, Manic Miner – developed in 1983 by Matthew Smith, the cheat code
unlocked a feature that would skip a level. Other example.. like Castle Wolfenstein
developed in 1981 by Muse Software, after 2 years of its release a trainer version of the
game came out that fixed every problem the game had before, it also can skip levels and
has many more utilities.
(NEXT SLIDE)
But the most famous cheat code of them all is Konami code, the code was first created
by Kazuhisa Hashimoto when he was developing a game called “Gradius” for the NES in
1986. While testing the game he found out that it was too difficult, and so he added a
code that allowed the player to gain 30 lives. Well, the code was added so he could run
 through the game without any difficulties to find bugs and glitches, it was supposed to
be removed from the game when it came out. But they didn’t have the budget to do so,
and the removal could lead to many bugs in game, so they kept it. Later, the game was
released and it was a huge success and even made the code more famous. The code was
used in another game called “Contra” and since then there has been a numerous
amount of games that used Konami code, (NEXT SLIDE) some of which include: Metal
Gear Solid, Just Cause 4, Dead by Daylight, Bioshock: Infinite, etc… (NEXT SLIDE)
So, getting a bit closer to the present day, in the mid 90s, cheating was so popular in the
gaming community, people were so upset because of the limitations that the developers
implemented in the game. And so came the birth of cheat cartridge – a device that can
input cheat codes into a game that is not intended by its base game, this excited the
players. (NEXT SLIDE) This device started to pop up everywhere in popularity…. For a
time, then due to the explosion of the Internet in the 2000s, this device quickly lost its
reputation, I mean why do you need to buy a cheat cartridge when you can already get
the codes on the internet for free, right? (NEXT SLIDE)
Also, during this period, online games are getting more and more attention of the
players, so cheating is viewed as bad more often. Even in offline games cheating getting
less and less popular, well that’s because of the achievement system. Achievement
system is installed by the developers to reward the players for achieving certain things,
so if you use cheat then this feature is basically useless. That aside, cheating nowadays
is more difficult than ever and when you download cheat on the Internet then there’s a
good chance of it has viruses.

b. How cheats affect video games aka Is cheat good or bad ?

-Offline games
Most use of hacks and cheat codes in single player games will not be considered cheating. But,
why most and not all? Using third-party software in a single-player game can still be considered
cheating if you use scores, achievements, or game completion timelines to compare or compete
against other players. other players do not cheat. So, does using 3rd party software to interfere
with the game mean cheating? That's not really the case either. Mod game must be no stranger
to gamers. Games like GTA, Skyrim have a very long life with a lot of contribution from MODS
versions. It makes us have a completely different experience than the original game. If you like
it, you can mod it, if you don't like it, it won't affect you if others use it. Even cheat codes or
hacking software can be used to enhance the personal experience, as long as it does not affect
players who do not use it. So interfering with a game through 3rd party software should not be
considered bad as long as it does not affect the personal experience of other players. The use of
hacks and cheats to increase the attractiveness of a personal experience has never been
considered a bad thing.
-Online games
Clearly it’s bad. The ultimate objective of online games are to create the most equal and joyful
environment for gamers. Imagine, you’re an intensive match of CS:GO, then all of a sudden,
some dude from the other team just point his head to the ground and start spamming bullets
everywhere, and at that moment you realized: “Game over!” Your team got mad for losing
totally non-sense, and so did the cheater’s teammates, since they can’t play at all. Cheating has
destroyed many games, causing them to shut down. For example, Crossfire, Gunny, Audition,
PUBG(well PUBG’s still not closed yet, but you know what I mean). However, looking at the
bright side, there’s still some good things. We can look at how bad the cheating problem of a
game to see how much a game company takes care of it, therefore decide if it’s worth playing
or not.
c. Some example of cheaters/hackers
1. Word.exe
During the eXTREMESLAND ZOWIE Asia CS:GO 2018: OpTicIND vs RevoluitonVN, player
Forsaken has performed some magically precised gun spray, making people thought they
were watching 2.0 version of S1mple. However, the organizing committee started to realize
something suspicious. Only two case can happen: 1. He was hacking. 2. Definitely hacking,
no doubt. So they paused the match and checked his pc. Turns out he was cheating. And
what was funny is: all his cheating files are in a folder called: word.exe. OpticIND ended up
got suspended, and Revolution team won. Forsaken then got banned 5 years from any
CS:GO championship and became big joke for the cheating problem in CS:GO
2. Cheating on stream
Somewhere on Twitch, there was an Asian girl, streaming CS:GO like everyday, until the
viewers saw she turned on some suspicious software, looking like a custom file of some
hack tool. Then, when read the chat and realized she forgot to make that hidden, she
turned into a professional actress, blaming someone which wasn’t even real. She ended up
got banned for cheating anyway.
3. Part 2(But from a proplayer)
I can’t imagine anything more stupid than cheating, then post it on Youtube for everyone to
see. Jarvis from FaZeClan, has decided to test hacking the game Fortnite. Nothing too
special anyway, just aimbotting, wall hacking and sniping every other player from above.
The point is, he posted it on Youtube, publicly (pretty sure he forgot to make it private). Epic
games quickly spotted that, and banned him forever. A few days later, he went on Youtube
again, crying and asking for forgiveness from Epic, which of course, was rejected.
4. Hack a game….to save a game ?
It happened when the Chinese wizards have hacked the game Titanfall 2 so bad, making
gamers cannot play properly due to DDOS. Some people just couldn’t witness their game
become dead, so they hacked into Apex Legends’ matchmaking systems, add a link:
savetitanfall.com, which lead to a website where they criticized Respawn abandoning the
game. A few hours later, Respawn updated the game to remove that. A couple days later,
they announced that they had sent 2 people (among 315 employees) to fix Titanfall. Yes,
only 2.
d. The Psychology of Cheating/Reason why people cheat in video games
Why do people cheat in video games? That’s a question I’ve been seeking for forever. Now,
I have some information to share with you about the psychology behind cheating. May I
present to you the Cheating triangle

It’s consider Motivation; Opportunity; Rationlization which I’m gonna talk about this later
We summarize there’s 4 types of cheaters:
The Casuals; The follower; The vigilante; The Achievers
The Casuals: About this category, these are the people who find the game too difficult and
decided to make the game easier -> hacking
We going to make it easier to this group just because they to bad at the game and not
willing to get better.
The Second type is The Follower:
The follower will have been playing the game for a long time and just see how rampant the
cheating is and the game developer doesn’t do anything about these cheaters.
Well, what the next thing u expect them gonna do: They cheat.
“If you can’t beat them, join them” (slide)
so to avoid this kind of cheater becoming a big thing it's important that developers actually
care about cheating

A type of cheater that is kind of like the follower in someway is the vigilante
when the environment is just full of cheating somebody is eventually going to feel furious to
the point where they want to seek out revenge

The last one the is the most interesting type of cheaters: The Achievers
Unlike the casuals, the achievers willing to get better at the game even willing to win the
game at all costs, but they still use cheats.
 Why? Maybe because of honor and ego. We don’t really know.

To sum this up, we just have found the motivation and the opportunity for cheaters to
cheat. On the other hand, when I meet this kind of players my mind always has one
question: Why this people keep on cheating without feeling guilty or embarrassment.

And the answer for that is: Rationalization

What is rationalization
We define rationalization is the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an
attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate
When stealing, for example, fraudsters may argue that they are only borrowing money with
the idea of repaying it later. Cheaters in video games may also rationalize their behavior by
claiming that "everyone else does it," or that "it's only cheating if you get caught.".

So that’s the psychology behind the cheaters, lets recap what we just learn today.
3. Conclusion
The way we play games defy who we are. Though we may not be too good to never cheat in
life, we are, and we will never do such thing. Some people may criticize us and say we don’t
have the gut or will to move forward, that’s dead wrong. We want to win, to move forward way
more than we thought. Nevertheless, we go up by our own.
And that’s everything we want to say. Thank you all for paying attention.
*questions bla bla bla