Gaining Advantage: How Videogame Players Define and Negotiate Cheating

This paper addresses players’ uses of supplemental items during gameplay, how they define what is and is not “cheating” in reference to these items, and then, what actions they ultimately take in accordance with their beliefs and reasoning. To do that, an analysis of the results of in-depth interviews with 24 game players and an open-ended survey of an additional 50 players is conducted to determine their views on how they define cheating in games, including which elements they see as cheating, those they don’t, and why they draw the line where they do. Likewise the paper explores what activities they then engage in, and their reasons for various cheating behaviors. By doing so, this paper offers a more detailed exploration of how gameplay is experienced by some players, and what is involved in that gameplay, in terms of use or rejection of supplemental items and information. Keywords Cheating, cheats, walkthroughs, codes, players, rules

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: DIGRA
• Authors: Mia Consalvo
• Keywords: Additional 50 Players, Computer Graphics, DIGRA 2005, Paper Addresses Players, Supplemental Items