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GameShark Backs Away From Online Cheat Codes
Thanks to GameSpot for its article noting that the GameShark and Xploder-branded console cheating devices will no longer release codes for online games. According to the piece, creators Fire International "...felt that some of its cheats for games such as SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs [for PS2] were ruining the experience for other online players." We've previously covered Fire International's boasts as "the first source of cheats" for SOCOM, but now a spokesperson for the company says: "We feel that the game enhancements we create are generally used to help individual users complete or get the most out of their games... We want to protect the integrity of online gaming for all who want to play in this environment cheat-free."
Cheating completly ruined Socom online. It became unplayable due to the excessive cheating, and the fact that there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.
My cats breath smells like cat food.
Companies dont just instantly realize that something they did was irresponsible. This sounds like a case of industry pressure behind the scenes being infintely more important than the integrity of online games. All comes down to $$.
Maybe software companies should stop releasing debuggers and tcp/ip logging software so that people can stop making cheats for online pc games... ya right.
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The devices will still allow you to cheat online, you just have to get your codes from somewhere else. And if there's one thing that holds true on the Internet it's that there are a heck of a lot of "somewhere else"s.
Read as '''We have been threatened with legal action because our cheats can reduce corporate profits! So no more cheats for you.'''
losers who couldn't complete a single level without using it shouldn't bother playing games at all.
I play Age of Kings on Zone, where there are hoardes of cheaters.
Few things are more infuriating than coming home from a long day of work and expecting to relax with a multiplayer game only to have your opponents come at you with four times as many
soldiers as allowed by the population limit while flattening your defenses with the click of the mouse.
I can't even begin to guess how much of my time has been wasted by cheaters who basically get their thrills by typing "own3d" after ruining a 2-hour game.
And yet Microsoft does nothing about it, so we're forced to rely on a third-party to issue patches, which I'm still not sure are safe.
I know this is slightly off-topic, but I needed to vent about cheaters...
Yes, I know there are other sources out there that WILL develop cheats for online games. The idea here is to just make it more difficult to cheat, because you will never completely remove cheating from online games.
I wonder if it is possible for Sony to do a check for a gameshark or other cheat hardware when you attempt to connect to their servers to play Socom..
http://www.tomandemily.com
I wonder how fast cheating in multiplayer games would stop when faced with the threat of a few months in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass-prison.
Obviously the big concern would be false positives. A concern so big this would never happen... I sure as hell don't trust VAC with that responsibility.
Discuss.
BUT.
Game companies could put together a EULA for online games that works something like this:
"We reserve the right to revoke your [CD-key/Xbox gamer tag] if we find that you are using third party cheating programs. That means we ban your ass and you are out $50. Remember, you were warned, so no whining."
Then, release patches periodically to update code/detect cheats and ban the losers. There are several benefits here:
Reduced resource drain on servers due to less cheaters
Happier legit players. Plus, a reputation for being tough on cheating will spread to other potential customers.
Some of the less intelligent cheaters will probably buy your game again (multiple revenue from a single source).
Of course the major con here is the threat of a lawsuit, but if the EULA is strict enough, that might be mitigated somewhat.
(I realize that Blizzard has taken baby steps down this road, but IMO that have not gone nearly far enough).
Am I being too idealistic, or this approach a possibility at all?
This is why I prefer to play games against AI instead of other players whenever possible. If I wanna cheat, the AI doesn't care, if I wanna fair game, the AI accomodates. Very good system.
True story.
Lets see, cheaters ruined the following games for me:
Warcraft II
Starcraft
Diablo
Half Life
CounterStrike
Unreal Tournament (s)
Halo (although it's better now)
and countless other online games. I don't care if it's a wall hack, or a "god" code, I hate all cheat codes in online games. Rampant cheating for game consoles has already proven it simply destroys the game. It's unfair to those who spent $50 and simply now cannot play the game due to rampant cheating.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Could this be extended to cheating? Sure, but cheating violations are something that I think would be a nightmare for the game company itself to keep track of, and a single false positive leading to a ban would be a logistical nightmare for the company (and once you get ONE proven false positive, every other cheater you've banned that professes their innocence, as they all do, are going to say theirs were false too). Even if you have something like PB integrated into the game, there have been cases in the past where it's come up with false positives due to various incompatibilities. They're usually fixed quickly, but they undermine the system in general. Things like this are more minor issues if you're only getting banned from that one server someone is playing on, but when you're talking being out the $50, you better be DAMNED sure that there isn't a chance they were legit.
It's easy to say that a CD key was in use by two IP addresses at once, and the odds of a false positive are low...but with cheating? I think it'd work, but it needs to be ironclad. If you're playing on the company's servers, or through a company system (see: Battle.net) then it's possible. But if it's like PC FPS games, played on random servers set up by random people, or even Xbox Live, where again, anyone can set up a server...it becomes much more of a challenge.
Finally, one of my most despised companies decides to step away from providing cheats for online games. It's about time they realized that their easy to access codes have ruined many games for other people.
I really don't mind cheating in games where you're not involved with others, but make others unhappy? To be honest, cheating devices can take away sales of some games, such as *coughs* PSO. While the latest versions of PSO are not hacked via a cheating device, before now that was a major problems and IMO ruined the first two versions. It may have also somewhat spawned the experiments into FSOD, BSOD, Card Wipes, etc that plagued the games.
Now, I don't really want to say that GameShark is totally at fault. Sega was quite lazy about cleaning up their act and patching the systems, but eh, they decided to just wait to start anew and lose a ton of money on keeping the servers running. Though, I do think that both should do their part. Game developers should take extra care to protect games from cheating in the online arenas. I've seen a lot of FPS PC games use PunkBuster and what not as a way to rid more common problems, and that's a step towards hope. Now, we finally get a major provider of cheats stepping away from online games. I'm quite happy.
Now if we can just figure out a way to screen players. XD
More than $50 is lost when you "cheat" on Xbox Live. When you get banned from Live, it doesn't ban your account. Oh no, there's a better way. It bans you're Xbox's BIOS checksum from Live.
Well this took a long time... I won't waste time in looking at why this is a good thing, because it's blatantly obvious... but why has this not happened sooner? Cheating has ruined online console games. Cnsoles do not have a reasonable way of patching against cheaters (Yes I know it's possible on the Xbox, but it's rarely done), so Consoles have always been the hardest hit with online cheaters. I remember the early days of PSO where quite litetally everyone was a cheater, using some hacked weapons or what not... making the game pointless... or worse, PK'ing or using a similar type exploit to wipe out a character and steal items. This drove Sonic Team to release Verion 2, which while better protected with the game regularly checking the part of RAM used to store the cheats, it was not immune. Even today we still have cheaping on the GameCube version, and given it was always Datel's supposed stance to 'enhance' the gaming experience, it's frankly chocking that this did not occur sooner. While people can make their own cheat codes, it is likely that the average cheater would not have the know-how, and the average techy would know better. This could be the start of an online console scene that is actually worth bothering with.