Background
Cheating, regardless of who, where, when, why, or how should never be tolerated as those who cheat once for an advantage will do it again (Hillman, 2013, p. 160). In video games, cheating is the act of manipulating game codes, strings, and files beyond the creators’ intentions for advantages (), ruining the experience for other players and causing monetary losses for players and the companies behind the games (Blackburn et al., 2014). It all started with the very first cheat code that can be traced back to Computer Space (Bushnell & Dabney, 1971), where the arcade game could start with 14 points by inputting the cheat when the machine was powering up (PCL Publications, n.d.). Originally, cheat codes were implemented for developers testing the game rather than to benefit players (Pickford & Sorrell, as cited in McFerran, 2016), yet players would exploit them to the point where virtually every game’s cheat codes could be found en masse in gaming magazines and websites (Kücklich, 2008).The usage of cheat codes for cheating even made its way into mainstream media on the silver screen in the action, comedy, sci-fi, fantasy, video game action movie - Pixels (Columbus et al., 2015), in which actor Peter Dinklage cheated using a code that increased movement speed multiple times in Pac-Man (Iwatani et al., 1980). Although modern game consoles and (most) games do not have built-in cheats, and that they have cheat detection in the forms of anti-cheat such as BattlEye (Suter, 2004) and manual reviews such as Overwatch in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve, 2012), over 700,000 cheaters are still able to bypass these securities (Blackburn et al., 2014). As cheat makers hacks games to create cheats (Carpenter, 2024), the term “hacker” is often used to replace “cheater” (VarsityGaming, 2020).
Process
The creative works I’ve made showcase a few forms of cheating that can be seen in modern gaming, being XIM, aimbot, and spinbot, respectively, with a portion of the soundtrack from Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (Ubisoft, 2015) to build tension.
XIM is a device that allow cheaters to plug in a mouse a keyboard to a system disguised as a controller so that they gain the advantage of controller aim-assist (Saha, 2024) in games like Apex Legends (Respawn Entertainment, 2020) and Overwatch 2 (Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., 2023), as well as reduced recoil in games like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (Ubisoft, 2015), whilst having the movement benefits of using a mouse and keyboard (Warren, 2023). As such, I used the anonymous mask to represent hackers, combined with a mouse in both a literal and figurative sense, to make a mouse-using cheater get away through a cartoonic mouse hole.
Aimbot is a cheat that automatically aims at enemies by reading game memory, and may also come with a TriggerBot, making it automatically aim, and shoot at enemies the moment they become visible, killing enemies with extreme efficiency (HackerBot, n.d.). The first section of the video was Team Fortress 2 (Valve, 2007), and due to its old age combined with the sniper class’ capability of killing players with a single bullet, was once rampant with nigh-impossible to counter aimbots that can instantly kill opposing players on sight. The section of video used only showed them all aiming at the sky, but later on in the full video, the player can be observed killing multiple aimbots using a sniper, and also getting killed by them (R4BID R4BB1T, 2022).
Spinbot is a cheat that spins the cheater’s server side model but not their view and client side model (Richman, 2024). By rotating their server side model at impossible speeds, they can essentially dodge bullets through causing desync and become very difficult to kill (Ali & lines, 2017). The second section of the video was Counter-Strike 2 (Valve, 2023), where a spinbot can be seen in action (Dane G, 2023).
As for the third section where I used the 3D animation software MikuMikuDance (Higuchi, 2008) along with the MikuMikuEffect (MMEffect) plugin (舞力介入P, 2010) that allows usage of in-engine effects and shaders. I applied Diffusion7 (Soboro, 2010), ray-cast (Rui & Guan, 2017) and XDOF (Soboro, 2012) onto Silver Wolf (miHoYo, 2023), Belle and Wise (miHoYo, 2024), a gaming chair (HR-01SuR, 2020), a wooden desk with a desktop computer and monitors (RedialC, 2017), 2 couches from The Sims 4 (Maxis & SnowEmbrace, 2018), a bubble of gum (imbapovi, 2017), and a Samsung S21 Ultra (DatSketch, Hunkey & Tang, 2022). I animated the models by hand and compiled the rendered footage using Shotcut (Dennedy, 2011). The three characters were chosen because they canonically are hackers in their games.
As the creative works are not intended for, or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation to myself or an organization (Art UK), I am allowed to use these assets under their rules.
Scrapped concepts
Prior to choosing cheating in video games, I have considered a few problems such as game preservation, involving Bloodborne (FromSoftware, 2015), Deep Rock Galactic (Ghost Ship Games, 2020), and the home gaming giant Nintendo (Yamauchi, 1889); the virtual YouTuber (VTuber) industry regarding hololive (Tanigo, 2019), Nijisanji (Tazumi, 2018), and more importantly Dokibird (2012) and Selen Tatsuki (2021); and Japan’s stalker epidemic particularly in relation to victims who are foreigners (Mujin, 2024).
I ended up choosing cheating in video games, as companies like Nintendo and Sony don’t put much effort into game preservation, but game companies have recently started to punish cheaters with methods other than banning, such as the lawsuits involving Activision on EngineOwning (Chalk, 2024) and Bungie on AimJunkies (Carpenter, 2024), or Team Fortress 2 (Valve, 2007), which was one of the games shown, recently responded to #FixTF2 and banned 16000 bots in a single wave (shounic, 2024), so it is possible for companies to put more effort in dealing with the root cause rather than reacting to cheaters like a game of cat and mouse. In addition, cheating in video games is an internationally occurring phenomena, in contrast to the VTuber public relations catastrophes and Japan’s stalker epidemic, making it more relevant to bring up and easier to call for action.
References
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Blackburn, J., Kourtellis, N., Skvoretz, J., Ripeanu, M., & Iamnitchi, A. (2014). Cheating in online games: A social network perspective. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT), 13(3), 1-25. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2602570
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lines. (2017, January 15). A spinbot is changing your server sided aimangle [Comment on the online forum post How do spinbot works?]. Steam. https://steamcommunity.com/app/730/discussions/0/144513248280284252/
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