Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames

by Mia Consalvo

The widely varying experiences of players of digital games challenge the notions that there is only one correct way to play a game. Some players routinely use cheat codes, consult strategy guides, or buy and sell in-game accounts, while others consider any or all of these practices off limits. Meanwhile, the game industry works to constrain certain readings or activities and promote certain ways of playing. In Cheating, Mia Consalvo investigates how players choose to play games, and what happens when they can't always play the way they'd like. She explores a broad range of player behavior, including cheating (alone and in groups), examines the varying ways that players and industry define cheating, describes how the game industry itself has helped systematize cheating, and studies online cheating in context in an online ethnography of Final Fantasy XI. She develops the concept of "gaming capital" as a key way to understand individuals' interaction with games, information about games, the game industry, and other players.Consalvo provides a cultural history of cheating in videogames, looking at how the packaging and selling of such cheat-enablers as cheat books, GameSharks, and mod chips created a cheat industry. She investigates how players themselves define cheating and how their playing choices can be understood, with particular attention to online cheating. Finally, she examines the growth of the peripheral game industries that produce information about games rather than actual games. Digital games are spaces for play and experimentation; the way we use and think about digital games, Consalvo argues, is crucially important and reflects ethical choices in gameplay and elsewhere.

Genres: Nonfiction, Games, Video Games, Academic

228 pages, Hardcover

First published May 25, 2007

About the author

Mia Consalvo is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Game Studies and Design in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. She is the author of Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Video Games and Atari to Zelda: Japan's Videogames in Global Contexts, both published by the MIT Press.

Reviews

[Satu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Mia Consalvo ❤

[David Kirschner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally wrapped this up! I opened it last semester to use the chapter on how players define cheating in the deviance unit of a gaming-themed section of SOCI 1101. It was a useful chapter then, and the book as a whole is really interesting. I'm surprised I never got my hands on this while I was doing my dissertation.

Anyway, the book is a bit dated now (from 2007), and therefore raises so many questions about how cheating in video games, the cheating and anti-cheating industries, and the paratextual industries have changed since the mid-2000s. The most interesting part is the first section on the cultural history of cheating in video games because Consalvo describes the stuff of my childhood and teenage years: the Game Genie, the GameShark, Nintendo Power magazine--all the things my parents wouldn't buy me. She starts with the first Easter Eggs, and moves to mod chips, zines, and all sorts of things that are considered "extra help" while playing.

Part 2 is about the players who cheat and don't and about player and industry responses to cheating (e.g., PunkBuster). She ends the book talking about ethics of gameplay and game development. The framing concept she develops is gaming capital (cultural capital for gaming) and she here-and-there will discuss things from somewhat of a conflict theorist perspective getting into issues power, control, and ownership.

Today, I don't play too many online games but am aware of various forms of cheating and where it happens. What I'm more interested in is how other forms of player behavior are defined and negotiated, such as harassment. I don't recall harassment being much of an issue in the Wild West days of online gaming, back when people generally took the postmodern (nay, uninformed) view that what happens online is totally separate than what happens offline. Good book, recommended.

[Asa Hess-Matsumoto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this citation in a number of academic papers concerning anti-cheat development, so I picked it up to see what the fuss was about. It's a fairly quick read, with the paperback copy I received clocking in at about 190-or-so pages plus citations and endnotes.

The first couple chapters establish the author's assertion that there's a plausible narrative for how cheats as we know them today can be attributed to various forms of paratextual sources (namely: gaming guides/magazines, followed later by hardware mods like GameShark). I found these okay, but not really of consequence to the work I'm researching. By far-and-away, Chapter 5 (which examined cheaters more narrowly) was the most worthwhile. However, the book itself still remained too high-level for my liking.

Another issue is that this book dates itself repeatedly, be it in references to publications which have been shuttered for years ("Nintendo Power"), conferences that no longer exist (E3), or forms of anti-cheat which haven't issued updates in years (Punkbuster). While there's lots of good anecdotal examples to be found (e.g. games which have struggled with cheating issues), there's not really much left that's representative of the current day state of anti-cheat.

It's okay; I've earmarked a bunch of the citations/endnotes for follow-up review.

[Flávio Sousa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cheating in 50 words (13 + 37): *“Cheating” offers a fascinating exploration of how humans bend rules across history — from clever loopholes to audacious scams. Rather than moralizing, it treats cheating as a cultural constant. The writing is light, rarely lapsing into Engi-splaining, and the curious episodes make for an engaging, witty, and thought-provoking read.*

[Steph Orme · Rating 3 out of 5]

In "Cheating," Consalvo traces how gaming industries such as gaming magazines and strategy guides play a role in shaping the "ideal" gamer. She introduces the concept of "gaming capital" (inspired by cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu's cultural capital) to refer to the cultivation of a vibrant, economically viable gamer culture. Through her analysis of gaming industries, she demonstrates how gaming capital - in-depth knowledge about certain aspects of gaming culture - is transmitted via paratexts (media beyond the game itself). She devotes specific attention to the phenomenon of cheating, a practice that has a tenuous relationship with the larger gaming community. Consalvo teases out the various forms of "cheating" as they are defined from within the gaming community (e.g. for some, strategy guides are considered to be cheating) and explores how cheating can both bestow and deprive a gamer of gaming capital.

Although the book has already become a bit dated, the legacy of historic gaming publications such as Nintendo Power is still visible in gaming culture today. As such, Consalvo's analysis still holds valuable implications for how we conceive of gaming culture and who is permitted to be seen, to speak, and to act in certain ways in gaming culture. This book is an indispensible read for anyone studying the phenomenon of cheating in gaming culture, as Consalvo grounds her understanding of cheating in the perspectives of actual players she interviewed. My one criticism - as someone who picked up this book looking for a fleshing out of the concept "gaming capital" (which I am using in my own work), I was disappointed not to find the term woven in a bit more throughout, when at the outset of the book it seemed to be the central premise, explored through the practice of cheating. Of course, this being the book where Consalvo coined the term gaming capital, it is understandable that more fully articulated versions of the term would come later (as she has expanded on it in blog posts and other writings). Overall, a great read for game studies scholars and those interested in the development of (sub)cultural capital.

[Sanalith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for work, mainly because we have (as far as I know) the country's most comprehensive collection of video game strategy guides available to the public. The author talks about various forms of cheating in both single and multiplayer games, and gives examples as to why people cheat. The most interesting part for me was the idea that what defines cheating is almost completely individual. Once person may think relying on anything other than the game and one's own mind is cheating, while other players are fine with using strategy guides and internet walkthroughs, and still others are even ok with using hacks and mod chips. The fact that we'll never have a true consensus on what cheating means makes it very difficult to combat it. I also got a very personal enjoyment out of reading one of the final chapters in the book, which was an in-depth look at cheating in the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI, which was a game I played for around two years. Lots of lovely flashbacks! :D At any rate, the book is well-written, well-researched, and would be of interest to video game fans.

[John Carter McKnight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding, readable work, an excellent multi-faceted analysis of cheating that includes issues of governance, power relations and economic factors beyond a core approach of games-as-texts.

The only thing in the way of a 5-star rating is the author's relegation of player-created media to a few pages at the end. Her thesis is that a "paratextual industry" of corporate content producers is shaping gameplay - which requires her to neglect the power of user-created content.

Given that the experience of contemporary MMO play is founded on the requirement of high-level mastery of user-created tools, from raid videos to user interface mods, this neglect is a significant shortcoming in an otherwise outstanding work.

[Mjhancock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consalvo takes a cultural studies approach to examining cheating in video games. Her paper really covers a lot of ground: there's everything from the early Nintendo Power magazines to GameFAQS.com. The only omission I fault her on is a lack of attention to mods and user-generated alterations in the early PC years; it seems like an unfortunate absence, especially given her "cultural capital" focus and the rather complex body of gaming capital found in the mod scene. The book is written at a very accessible level, but never seems dumbed down. I would have liked to have seen her push the discussion of normalizing behavior and digital communities a little further, but what's here is very good.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another "for class" book, however I really enjoyed this book. This was an interesting analysis of cheating from many different perspectives.