Video Games Cheats – The Mechanics of Video Games Cheats
Video game cheats are a constant struggle that compromise fair competition and disrupt immersive gaming experiences. While developers are working hard to continually patch and improve anti-cheat systems, cheats still persist in a variety of forms from aimbots to wallhacks, scripting and ghosting hacks. This article will explore the mechanics of these common video game cheats to help gamers understand what they are and how they work.
Cheats are typically created to either give the player an unfair advantage or provide a more enjoyable experience. They can be used to modify gameplay mechanics, such as enabling burst fire mode on a weapon in Call of Duty. Or they can change the game engine code to bypass a game’s anti-cheat system, as is the case with the recently released Fortnite aimbot. Cheats can also be used to alter a player’s appearance or level of difficulty, as is the case with the popular Big Head Mode in Minecraft.
In order to create a cheat program or application the developer will first need to know how a game is coded and what security measures have been implemented. In order to do this they will first need to research the game, looking for vulnerabilities within the underlying operating system and game software. This process is called scouting and it is done by looking at the size of the game code, finding patterns in the way a game functions, using data logging tools to analyze the game and even modifying a games underlying system drivers to circumvent protections such as obfuscation and memory dumping (hex dumping).
Once the researcher has found the correct vulnerability they will begin programming their cheat. This process can take a lot of time and may include creating hooks for the desired functionality, decompiling the binary code into assembly instructions to identify sensitive areas and using static analysis to ensure they are properly patching the code. During this process they will use graphical visualizations such as control flow graphs and call graphs to better understand the logic of the game.
Finally they will test the hack by running it in a virtual environment such as VMWare or VirtualBox to make sure it is functioning correctly. Once they have completed their work and the cheat is working as intended they will then release it for the public to use. This is often the point when many game hacks become public knowledge as people will talk about them with friends and family who haven’t heard of them before and they spread like wildfire.
Cheat programs are developed to allow players to access certain in-game statistics, such as health, ammo or a player’s skin kit. These values are stored as memory addresses and can be changed by using a special type of code called a POKE command. This was a popular activity in the 1980s and resulted in third-party cheat programs such as the Nintendo Game Genie. However, modifying game code and introducing external hardware violates copyright law.