Games Cheats

From the first string of letters that spawned an invulnerability code to the modern-day sniper rifle aimbots that let players fire with perfect precision, games cheats have been an integral part of video game history since the early ’80s. These commands and programs are no longer just fun gimmicks that make a game more interesting, though. They’re now a known source of malware infections that target gamers and exploit their gaming devices. In fact, it’s estimated that cheating is responsible for up to 50% of all malware attacks against gamers.

While many gamers have embraced cheating, the majority of developers are against it. It’s not surprising: Cheating spoils the fun for honest players, and causes a loss of player engagement, attrition, and revenue. Moreover, it can damage the reputation of a game, leading to less favorable reviews and fewer new players.

It’s not as common as it once was, but the cheating culture has evolved beyond the simple Up, Up, Down, Down commands of yesteryear. Cheat codes now come in the form of third-party devices and software, such as the Game Genie, and also as features built into a game itself. This type of game modification is called “cheats,” and it has a long history of controversy.

These cheats are generally found by hackers and coders who decompile a game’s million lines of code and search for them. Occasionally, a developer will leak a game’s cheat codes, but this is very rare.

In the past, games developers wrote cheats into their titles as a way to test features and speed up development. For example, a cheat code that jumps you to the end of the game can help developers test the final boss fight without having to play all the way through the story. These days, most game cheats are added by third-party vendors or found by independent game developers who hack into the game’s code and discover them by accident.

Hackers and scammers can use these features to steal data and gain access to other players’ in-game accounts and items, or even their real world identities. This is why it’s important for the cybersecurity industry and the games industry to work together on a common front against these kinds of threats.

While the games industry can’t stop players from cheating, there are steps they can take to limit this behavior. One suggestion is to ramp up bug bounties to encourage the good guys to find and fix the bugs that cheaters will exploit, just as the security industry has done with malware bounties. This can help slow the growth of these cheats and protect honest gamers from exploitation. It may not stop cheating completely, but it will make a difference in the overall gaming ecosystem.