Cheating In Online Games Research Articles

Analyzing the “Intrusiveness” and “Destructiveness” of Different Types of Game Cheating Programs

According to China’s criminal law, the production and sale of online game cheating programs are often charged of “providing special programs specially used for intruding into computer information system”. And they are also sometimes charged of “deliberately creates or propagates computer virus and other destructive programs”. Some types of game cheating programs such as “injection game cheating program” meet the criterion of “intruding into computer information system” in the Criminal Law, while other types of game cheating programs such as “offline game cheating program” do not. The “Destructiveness” of game cheating programs should be analyzed according to specific game cheating program and the legal interests it embodied in computer information systems. It should be determined on the basis of legislator’s intention, rather than directly use the criterion of evaluating the “destructiveness” of programs in computer science.

Bad Apples Spoil the Fun: Quantifying Cheating in Online Gaming

Understanding and quantifying the factors that lead to cheating in society is problematic, due to the inherent desire to hide socially unacceptable actions. While significant progress has been made in the understanding of unethical behavior via in-lab experiments, little was measured at scale, in the wild. By analyzing cheating in online games, this paper verifies at scale and in the wild a number of previous observations drew from controlled, in-lab experiments. We verify empirically that cheating behavior is contagious, and identify some of the factors that encourage cheating and some that limit it.

The rationalization process of online game cheating behaviors

ABSTRACTOnline deviant behaviors have been prevalent since the Internet became ubiquitous, but research in this field is relatively scarce. The present study investigates a unique deviant behavior in online video gaming communities – game cheating – to further understand the scope of online deviant social behaviors. This paper aims to uncover how game players actively create and negotiate new meanings of game cheating in online games. Six focus groups were conducted to explore the rationalization process for engaging in game cheating among players of different online video games. It was discovered that elements of intentionality, utility, core gaming goals, evolving gaming norm, and social ties to gaming communities serve as important rationalizing process to justify game cheating behaviors. Through the discovery of these mental schemas for online game cheating, the paper discusses how online deviant behaviors are connected with social life online and form a unique online culture.

Group identification as a mediator of the effect of players’ anonymity on cheating in online games

This study aims to add to the discussion about the applicability of the classical deindividuation theory and social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) in explaining online behaviours. It explores the effect of anonymity in facilitating social influence of group identity in online game cheating. A nationally representative survey was conducted face to face. Results from the survey administered in Singapore confirm predictions derived from the SIDE and challenge the classical deindividuation theory. Specifically, it was concluded that the frequency of gaming with online strangers (anonymous gaming) significantly predicted the frequency of cheating in online games. The effect of anonymity on game cheating was found to be significantly mediated by the group identification with online gaming communities/groups. Gender differences were found. Male gamers cheated more frequently than female gamers. Female gamers are more likely to cheat as a consequence of group identification than male gamers. Implications and future research are discussed.

A social-cognitive approach to online game cheating

Drawing upon social cognitive theory, the present study constructed a conceptual model to provide an in-depth understanding of the key psychosocial factors shaping the cheating behavior in online multiplayer games. An online survey approach and structural equation modeling were adopted to investigate the hypothesized relationships and to assess the fitness of the model. The findings of this study provided support for the research model and the social cognitive theory perspective on game cheating behavior. The cheating behavior was found to be influenced by both external and self-generated factors. Specifically, individual gamers’ social environment (peer influence), their own attitude towards game cheating, and evaluation of cheating outcomes played an important role in shaping this problematic behavior in online games. Game cheating self-efficacy was interestingly found to be an insignificant factor for the game cheating behavior. The study fills a gap in the current literature on games and cheating, specifically on the social cognitive mechanisms of the cheating behavior in online multiplayer games.

An Investigation of Cheating in Online Games

Cheating is rampant in current gameplay on the Internet but not well understood. In this article, the authors summarize various known cheating methods and define a taxonomy for online game cheating to help security experts and game developers alike.