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Gamerscore Hacking and Its Underground Economy
An anonymous reader writes "There's a writeup on SpywareGuide that explores the world of Xbox Gamerscore hacking, and how high Gamerscores are proving to be a big target for hackers and phishers. It also talks about how a recent release of a Gamerscore-altering program onto forums for hacking & cheating is proving to be lucrative business for both eBay sellers and those who want to artificially inflate a Gamerscore before selling that account, or trading it for credit card details."
Yet another reason that I cannot take console gaming community seriously.
...are taking this thing seriously, too. I can't imagine why anyone would steal accounts if people wouldn't buy them. But I still can't imagine why people would buy them either.
I used to play games to have fun, and achievement was part of the fun. If I just stole other people's achievements, that wouldn't be fun. Or maybe it's all just about the brag factor?
Every harsh word you utter has the right address. It only sounds harsh because the one on the envelope is the wrong one.
It doesn't target anybody I could ever imagine caring a whit about. Still wrong, I suppose, but hard to get worked up about it.
If I see someone with a ridiculously high gamerscore, then I can assume that they've used this hack. I'm only about 3500, and between me and my close friends it's not a matter of who has the most, but it's really useful to see who's been playing what and when. If you notice their gamerscore hasn't changed, then either they're stuck, cbf, or haven't played a game in a while.
The Internet, it's serious business.
I used to make the same argument, but it seems to me like that isn't true any more.
Ever since they got hard drives, console games routinely get installed to hard drive first. I.e., there goes that "just want to put the disk in and play." It's only true in the same way as for a PC game.
Second, console games routinely get patches too nowadays.
Third, since a heck of a lot of games are launched for both PC and consoles nowadays... if you think your XBox copy of Fallout 3 is somehow magically better quality than the PC version, no offense, but then I have some logging rights in Sahara to sell. They're the same codebase, with the same bugs, and if you're lucky they'll get the same patches.
Fourth, you may not have heard about it, but PC drivers have gotten a lot more stable in the meantime. The days when you had to muck with different driver versions for different games are over, and have been over for some years now. E.g., I don't think I actually installed any new drivers on my gaming rig since I put the GTX 290 graphics card in it. (And I'm not saying that in the sense that I had to do it with the old ATI card either, but merely that that change was a point where I had to install a new driver.) I've yet to see any game which shits itself because I don't have the latest beta +0.0.0.1 driver release.
Fifth, you can hook a PC to a big screen TV or beamer too, if that's what floats your boat. TV out connectors have been pretty much standard for some years.
Sixth, it's not the size that matters, it's how you use it. At least that's what my SO keeps telling me;) Ok, joke aside, what matters isn't how big your screen is (except maybe for willy-waving rights), but how much of your FOV it feels. A 20" TFT screen at 3 ft distance fills just as much of your FOV as a 60" screen at 9 ft distance. Things look exactly as big. It's elementary geometry, see?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
bigger problems in life than getting caught or what people think of you. First of all gamerscore is just a con job by the video game companies to give the illusion of more content without creating content. I mean if you are really worried about your gamescore i'm sure you could use a bit of sun, and maybe a few more friends. It's an imaginary score that has absolutely no meaning!
Results guaranteed!
I think a lot of people are missing the real point of Gamerscore - to keep gamers playing a game. It's a surprisingly effective way of adding replay value to a game without actually adding extra content - earning achievements is akin to collecting baseball cards or Pokemon. Developers can also use multiplayer achievements that take time to unlock so that there's more people playing online. That having been said, the word "achievements" for these things is rather inappropriate, since most of these goals don't require any skill whatsoever. There's no skill involved in running around and collecting things in a 3D world like some of these goals entail. And of course, you can't translate gamerscore into any tangible, real world achievements.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
Isnâ(TM)t the whole point of owning games and having fun is actually playing it rather cheats your way through the games. I could never understand how someone could find enjoyment out of cheating their way through an online match.
If you take sport seriously, can you still call it a game?
I hate it when people say this, I hear it all the time (along the lines of "it's just a game").
Ever play poker for 'fun'? As in m&m's or peanuts instead of money?
It doesn't work. It's not fun because there is no risk, no 'seriousness'.
Games are meant to be taken 'seriously'. Competition is what makes them fun.
I think I understand what you're saying, but that statement is just way too broad.
Failing at having fun. 50G
I've been wondering what that number was.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-achievements.xml?r=Aegwynn&cn=Zoltan&gn=Refuge
Hacks.
1: MY XBOX HAS 10000 POINTS
2: YA WELL MY XBOX HAS 20000 POINTS!
3: Umm. Hey guys, can you like... DO anything with those points?
1 & 2: ???
why would you EVER purchase an account for its gamerscore....
In those things you can finish every sidequest, beat every optional boss, find every item and anything else you can think of gameplay-wise, and still only have 150/1000 points. I remember Blue Dragon had achievements for getting each character to level 99, something I think I'd still be doing 18 months later if I attempted it.
I am amazed at the amount of vitriol directed at Microsoft from some slashdot readers as opposed to the amount of admiration for the XBOX.
math is fun.
I must admit to a healthy dose of schadenfreude when I read about a cheat program getting cracked. :)