Arcade Golf Game Fraud Scandal Revealed, Probed

Thanks to Highway Games for reprinting The Stinger Report articles on further developments regarding revelations of tournament fraud in arcade game Golden Tee Golf. The situation developed after "Incredible Technologies... ejected eight ranked players following investigation into the manipulation of scores... [following the discovery of] either a software or firmware system to deceive the ITS [networked arcade golf] network." The piece notes that "Over US$12 million in cash prizes has been awarded since the International Tournament System (ITS) [for Golden Tee] began in 1995", although the amount involved in this fraud is rumored to be closer to $20,000, and it's also mentioned: "Efforts to exceed this interface's limits has led to a series of bizarre experiments on personally owned machines ranging from a Belt Sander or even the drive wheel of a motor scooter employed to max out the track ball." In this case, it's theorized that "...fraudsters may have created a firmware mechanism that emulates the movement of the trackball and talks to the game board, so able to generate the optimum power and direction for shots."

Comments

Bummer

[NanoGator]

"Efforts to exceed this interface's limits has led to a series of bizarre experiments on personally owned machines ranging from a Belt Sander or even the drive wheel of a motor scooter employed to max out the track ball."

I wouldn't dream of cheating at the game using a belt sander or a motor scooter... but man I'd sure love to try that on the real thing!

Do people have to cheat at everything?

[josh glaser]

I mean, if you're playing a game alone it's OK, but everybody is sick of cheaters in online games and now this? Come on...

Play fair. That's an ORDER!

Re:Do people have to cheat at everything?

[BoomerSooner]

This is pathetic. What kind of loser would waste their time to make a firmware patch to assist in playing golf! Lol, the world never ceases to amaze me.

Hell they should try Tiger Woods Golf 2004, it's easy as can be.

Re:Do people have to cheat at everything?

[iainl]

True generally, but you can't get $20,000 from EA because you broke the high score table.

This isn't about cheating just to prove what an immature idiot you are, but an attempt to defraud the arcade maker.

Re:Do people have to cheat at everything?

[gl4ss]

the kind of pathetic loser that sees it's time for some $$$.

this doesn't really surprise me at all, rather I'm surprised they would allow such a system in the first place.. it's just asking for some 'improvements' because the game changes at that point, instead of being a game of who's best playing it, it becomes a game of who's best at making the servers think they've won fair and square.

so instead of skill sports it becomes technical(motor) sports.. which wouldn't be that bad if they were open about the possibilities of it. if they don't want that then they can just forget the multiple location playing and hold the tournaments on site, because really that's the only way.

Ancient Chinese Wisdom:

[Anonymous Coward]

Where there is money, there are criminals.

Belt Sander

[MRe_nl]

i wonder what the actual life expectancy is of a belt-sander driven track-ball is!

Re:Belt Sander

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that an African or European belt-sander driven track-ball?

Re:Belt Sander

[MRe_nl]

BRIDGEKEEPER: Hee hee heh. Stop! What... is your name?
ARTHUR: It is 'Arthur', King of the Britons.
BRIDGEKEEPER: What... is your quest?
ARTHUR: To seek the Holy Grail.
BRIDGEKEEPER: What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
ARTHUR: What do you mean? An African or European swallow?
BRIDGEKEEPER: Huh? I-- I don't know that. Auuuuuuuugh!
BEDEVERE: How do know so much about swallows?
ARTHUR: Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
[suspenseful music]

Re:Belt Sander

[WorkEmail]

I should have recommended the belt sander idea to my crazy friend, who, while playing Golden Tee drunk and attempting to take a few steps back and really hit that white spinning ball as hard as he could, broke his wrist when he slammed it into the thing trying for a record drive.

They should have known...

[GregoryD]

what did they expect when they saw [myg0t]l337ha}{0r0wn3djoo atop the leader board?

When you mix money and video games...

[PeeweeJD]

This is bound to happen... Need to have punkbuster installed on golden tee machines now...

This is not new either. Back in teh 80's I used to have a plastic comb in the inside pocket of my jean jacket... this comb had all the teeth removed (except at the end)... it was for track and field... I could make my guy run hella fast with that comb... A friend made a battery powered thing to push the buttons that was cool, but did not work to good...

Re:When you mix money and video games...

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap, did everyone do that comb trick? I totally remember that. I also remember the arcades/manufacturer learning of this, so they installed buttons with walls to prevent it.

Re:When you mix money and video games...

[Anonymous Coward]

We used a battery powered lego motor and a lego gear with it's teeth hitting the button in Track & Field. You could get insane speed levels this way!

Re:When you mix money and video games...

[jesseward]

spoons.. are what we used for speed in track n field...

Re:When you mix money and video games...

[cybergrue]

I saw people doing this with disposable lighters.
The irony lost on them.

Re:When you mix money and video games...

[PeeweeJD]

that was why you hade to break out the teeth... to get around the walls... at first we used the comb as is...

course design?

[h0mer]

I've never played Golden Tee, I'm curious to know how the holes are laid out and what the maximum power is. Is it possible to drive the ball 400 yards if you can hit the trackball the right way? And if so, is hitting a long ball beneficial? Depending on the physics, seems like the ball should bounce right off if a player tried to drive the green.

Either way, I don't see why anyone is surprised by this. Money - supervision = People taking advantage.

Re:course design?

[vitaflo]

I've never played Golden Tee, I'm curious to know how the holes are laid out and what the maximum power is. Is it possible to drive the ball 400 yards if you can hit the trackball the right way? And if so, is hitting a long ball beneficial? Depending on the physics, seems like the ball should bounce right off if a player tried to drive the green.

Yes the faster you spin the trackball, the further the ball goes. This is why you see guys beat the hell out of these machines. For most of them I think it's a macho "look how hard I can beat on this piece of plastic" thing, which is rather stupid, simply because there are much better ways to get the trackball to spin fast than pounding the thing (two thumbs on the ball w/ a quick motion works extremely well). And yes, I have seen drives well over 400 yards.

Thus, the long ball is very benefitial. There are many shortcuts in the game that can get you to the green faster, or on the green in one shot, and many of these you need to be able to hit the ball very far. But they're high risk/reward shots. If you don't shoot far, or accurate enough, you usually end up in the drink, or some other not so nice place. As for the physics, you'd think the ball would bounce right off the green from a drive, but there's a backspin button in the game, and, as unrealistic as this sounds, you can backspin the ball off any club, including the driver, making the ball slow down on the green very quickly.

Re:course design?

[Ralph Wiggam]

"the faster you spin the trackball, the further the ball goes"

Not true. When Golden Tee Fore came out in 2001, they changed how trackball speed translated into club speed. Before that, people would beat the hell out of the machines and break them. The in-game announcers still say "He's breaking out the Rusty" in reference to an old tournament player that could outdrive everyone else with the unrestricted trackball (over 400 yards regularly). 400 yard drives are still doable, but you need the perfect hole with 13+ mph wind behind you. An average "slam" drive is now 340-360 yards. The guys that hit it the hardest (mostly using technique, not power) get 5-10 yards farther than average. That can make the difference between the green and the water, but not enough to drive a par 5 or anything.

Yes, you can backspin any club, and even hit a 3 wood out of the sand. But backspin greatly decreases in strength as you go to longer clubs and the rougher the lie. It's based on real golf, but changed to be more fun and competetive.

Check out GolenTeePlayers.com for several good FAQs.

-B

what?!?

[randomdef]

I've lost to a belt sander, awww. stupid belt golfing beltsanders.

Anyone with personal experience?

[kathgar1]

After reading both articles I am still somewhat confused. It seems that initially that the harddrives were not encrypted at all and were easy to hack. Then with the someware updates (that seem to be quite costly I might add) this was changed.
How is the interface designed? They keep refering to a trackball, which I assume records your swing somehow but it is lax on the details. I guess google and eBay might have some information. I wonder if they even encrypt the data down the line.
Frankly I am not sure they can have a secure system. Even if you get rid of the home ownership, what about the bar's owner messing with it? The users control the client, and when there is money to be made people will try to cheat. Even Las Vegas has problems with people cheating their slot machines and they have a government agency and inspections.

Re:Anyone with personal experience?

[kathgar1]

It seems that it is just that, a trackball. You just give it a spin with your hand apparently. I would certainly put my trust in something that looks as well put together as a 486 thrown in a cardboard box to be someone's router. Then again, the only pictures of the insides I found were from homeowners on eBay that had admittedly replaced things.

Re:Anyone with personal experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

Software updates? Costly? They update the systems all the time for free, to fix bugs, close loopholes, lock out cheaters, etc. Those updates are done over the same phone call that is used to send/receive game statistics.

If you want new courses, you have to pay. If you want to have a tournament-ready system, you need the latest courses. The average operator makes back the money they spend on the course update within a month or so. Yeah, I know, 2-3 weeks, you want money NOWWWWWWW... and tournament courses are only released once a year. Oh yeah, that's SO HORRIBLE.

Bar owners rarely own machines. Operators typically own the machines. Operators rarely are happy when someone gets inside their property, no matter who owns the location it's in. And there is a skill testing system, so if you go from #500000 to #5 in a month, and stay there consistently for a couple tournaments, expect a visit. If you're consistently shooting -25 and shoot a +15 on the test, sorry, you're barred from the tournament.

Re:Anyone with personal experience?

[jjhlk]

http://www.happcontrols.com/industrial/trackballs/ trackballs2.htm

I haven't used one personally, but they are supposed to be quite durable.

Tournament Standards?

[mdielmann]

Although cheating like this is deplorable, it also raises the question of how this tournament is run. Don't they have officials supervising the game play? I mean, can you imagine what would happen in any other tournament if you could bend (or break) the rules?

a belt sander?! that seems kinda extreme

[enrico_suave]

An arcade trackball is very much the same technology used in analog mice (i.e. the ones with the balls, lol!) They just make them out of better/stronger parts to take abuse of bar play/patrons (i.e. steal rollers and good ball bearings instead of plastic rollers and bushings).

With that said, I don't see why one couldn't make a very simple electronic interface (instead of bullying yoru track ball with a sander). It's just light choppers blocking a signal from an ir led to a ir reciever led... bypass that and send your own pulses... and wooooooosh (without the physical wooooosh).

Like the previous poster mentioned using spoons/pencils on track and field... I always wanted to hack an atari2600 controller and make a turbo (left right left right) button to conquer Decathalon... my palms are still scarred =P

e.

Re:a belt sander?! that seems kinda extreme

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Decathalon...

You didn't miss much. I remember disabling sprite collisions using 'The Final Cartridge III' on a Commodore 64, so that I could win at Decatholon. Every high jump, my player went right through the bar, but it just kept getting higher. Eventually, it just stopped incrementing. No thunderous cheer, no graphics, no nothing.

Similar story...

[Hamster Lover]

I was at a party with my girlfriend and much to my delight they had a air hockey table.

We just got a mini tournament started when one really scrawny guy was playing my girlfriend when he lunged for the puck, glanced his arm of the side of the table and broke it.

It's one of her favorite party stories; she loves telling people how she broke a guys arm.

Re:Similar story...

[WorkEmail]

Breaking your arm playing AIR hockey...lol. That's hilarious. I bet he feels about as bad ass as the guy who was put in prison today for secretly smuggling rare Orchids into the country from Mexico. (one prison inmate to the other...)"what are you in for man?" "I strangled 3 guys with my bare hands, what about you." "I was caught smuggling rare flowers into the country." lmao.

Yeah we will forever be making fun of my friend for breaking his wrist playing Golden Tee.

Get rid of Golden Tee

[V_M_Smith]

I'm so sick of seing this stupid game at *every* *single* *bar* I go to! Guys taking running jumps at the trackball... It's ridiculous. Forget the belt sander; I want to see these things sent through the wood chipper.

Re:Get rid of Golden Tee

[baxt3r]

If you don't like the game, good for you. Some people enjoy this game, are also good at it, and are NOT the drunk who takes a running start to hit the machine. I am one of the people out there that play GT and make money while doing so. I don't feel I have to cheat to do well. And, who in the hell would use a beltsander on a trackball? Unless you have a large amount of trackballs that were given to you, that is a bad idea to try. Also, remember that the trackball has a speed governor on it. So, the moron who thinks a running start is going to do him a lot of good is just that; a moron. As far as anyone knows, the hard drives have always been encrypted. Why would a company such as IT leave the door open to hacking when there is a lot of money involved. Seems kind of foolish if you ask me. Another thing to take into account is that most of the information you gathered from the TSS is probably quite inaccurate and should not be taken seriously. Most of that information was gathered from Underdog and IT's own message board. If you want the truth about cheating and encryption of the GT files, you're not going to get it for 2 reasons. Most of the players do not know the truth and IT is not going to say a word. And, for goodness sake, get your facts straight before you go and write an article about something. I don't care if it's underwater basket weaving you are writing about, just know what you are talking about before you open your mouth or pick up a pen.

Re:Get rid of Golden Tee

[Look Sir, Droids!]

While I can't speak for Mr. Smith, I believe the bothersome issue of the ubiquitous Golden Tees is that of choice, not the game itself. Most or many bars have, maybe half a dozen to a dozen or so coin-op entertainment machines... a typical breakdown would include pool/darts/jukebox, maybe foosball, air hockey if you're lucky, a pinball machine if you're really lucky, two or three phony gambling machines with poker or blackjack, and then one or two arcade games. The arcade game is Golden Tee, 99.9% of the time. That's cool for people like baxt3r, but it's lame for the rest of us. (The other game, if there is one, is usually a sit-down racing game, where $1.00 = 1 credit.)

I was at a bar recently that had (in addition to the Golden Tee machine) another, MAME-ish type cabinet. It offered maybe 50 games, such as Street Fighter II Turbo, Final Fight, Rastan, and older Atari-ish classics. A great idea, and easy to implement, but certainly an exeception to the rule.

The Real Story

[Ralph Wiggam]

I am involved in the Golden Tee community. One of my best friends runs GoldenTeePlayers.com and I've known about this scandal since it happened a few months ago. The way these guys got caught is because on the national tournament results it shows your name, score, and longest drive distance, which is the third tie breaker. All seven of the top scores had an identical long drive distance. We figured they had opened their home machines, unplugged the trackball, and plugged in some kind of signal generator to create perfectly repeatable, exact shots. Apparently other people assumed that because it's mentioned in the story write up. The real story is much dumber. The trackball has two rollers, one for X and Y movement. If you unplug the Y roller, you hit a pefectly straight shot. That's all they were doing. It's obviously still against the rules and they were all banned for life. But it's not like they were Lex Luthor. There were two rule changes as a result. The 50 to 75 people who owned machines in their home have been forced to place them in bars. Also, the tournament conditions now change every 4 hours instead of every day. Yes, those seven guys won several thousand bucks by cheating, but there were still 3000 other prizes awarded each month. It sucked, but we're still playing.

-Barry

Re:The Real Story

[gary(0]

Hey, there is a serious lot of double talk going on here! and I am wondering how many of the bosses of Incre' Tech are trying some damage limitation!!? - are you a real player Barry? I'am a real home owners and I can tell you, there is a hell of a lot more of us than 50 to 75! try 300 to 450. Also I think it is really stupid to tell everyone the method used to defraud this and other company's machine Barry! Even the fools at TheStingerReport.com did not give the facts, but came up with two options. The whole "Yes, those seven guys won several thousand bucks by cheating, but..." and "But it's not like they were Lex Luthor!", stuff is defiantly down playing the facts. For a start there were eight, not seven, banned, secondly this seems to have been going on unknown to the company for MONTHS, and finally why are they just 'banned' - why no FBI or Police? The GTP.com group did not cover the story till Feb', and even then claimed it did not exist, then there was the guys at UnderDogSports.com and even IT claims who did not know about it till Jan, so either your one of the cheaters! or your trying to gloss over the facts! Why was it that this The Stinger! was the first to run this stuff publicly, where were all the trade magazines? Who is this Stinger anyway! Are they cheaters too? That's just my .02 anyway - later

Re:The Real Story

[Ralph Wiggam]

I am also suprised that ITS didn't sue those guys for violating the agreement you sign to collect your prize. Proving a criminal offense may be harder, but yes, they should have at least made a phone call. The strategy seems to try and let it blow over.

There's no way there are 300+ home players.

I described how they cheated because it's common knowledge in the GT community. Since home players can't play the tournament anymore, it doesn't do anyone any good.

I'm just a regular Silver player. I don't represent anyone.

-B