Day 4

A bit grumpy today so this topic was on my mind:

Why do hackers exploit the game that they apparently love?

I know it sounds like a silly question but really, what’s the point? No – I mean really, why do they do it?

So, I understand the profit angle where people exploit to get rich on virtual gold – that’s pretty much a given, but I consider those people a bit more higher end in their hacking, they don’t see the game as a game but as a business venture, so to me they are in a different category. (Still jerkfaces though!)

Then, I also understand the competitive nature of the human race, always needing to be #1 and not afraid of doing what it takes to get the glory.  Athletes cheated the system for years with steroid abuse, it is not shocking that the same behavior appears in other forms of entertainment.  You want to win and you don’t care of the consequences if you get caught.  These folks too are in a different category, they love the game but they see it as a competition rather than a friendly who can beat who.  Perhaps low self esteem caters to this category, maybe to all the categories really.

Of course we have to mention the attention getters. “Hey look at me, I’m up top this building hopping around like an idiot, look at me while I kill you and you can’t touch me.”  These would be the watch tower folks, eventually they go too far and their fate is determined by their actions. (Either someone kills them, they fall off or my personal favorite a grand GM will come and boot them. Back in the day they would even drop them from an even higher spot for that extra punishment and theatrics.)  This category is the “I’m bored, lets see if I jump 100 times if I get up this mountain.” usually small time, but hurtful to the game just the same.

Lets not forget the secret sploiters, these are the ones that scare me.  They love the game they are playing, they are addicted to it, just as they would with any narcotic.  But one day they find or they are shown a wonderful way to make money or farm something or what have you.  They use it to their advantage in a secret way, no one really catches them usually and unless a guilty conscious finally gets to them and they report the bug so it can be patched up they will continue doing it til the proverbial cows come home.  Sure, it’s just a few people but it can be damaging to the overall health of the game, whether it’s economy, item availability and so on.  This person usually thinks pretty much in terms of his/her benefit not their precious addiction.  Seriously, report the damn things.

Secret sploiters #2 – these guys don’t really scare me, but I do have a some pent up anger towards them.  They are the honest secret sploiter, they found a bug and decided that indeed it needed to be reported so that others cannot benefit from it.  They report in detail how to achieve the prize in the game, file a report (usually without needed info to investigate sadly) then wait all about 48 hours for it to be fixed, then because it wasn’t fixed they think that it’s okay to use this gem because well if the devs didn’t fix it, that means it’s not a bug.  Oh man, these people – bugs are investigated entered into a bug tracker and depending on the severity can take a long time to fix.  Rarely are bug fixes done immediately unless it’s such a bad bug that it is breaking the game.  Now, if these people would learn how to explain the bugs with exact locations points, they would realize that if it really is a severe game breaking bug and they are the first to report it – chances are the gaming company just might recognize you as a helper of the Devs and might ask for help for other things or even bestow free game time.  A good guy can be rewarded sometimes.

Then it’s the “everyone is doing it, therefore it’s alright.”  I was playing a game the other night where this guy was on top of a building (clocktower type) and was like “LOOK AT ME!” then he took it even further, he showed people (including me) how to get up to where he was and while it wasn’t easy it was doable with the right amount of jumping.  Me and my integrity asked him, “Wow, thanks for showing this, did you report it?” his response was, “lol it’s not a bug, everyone can do it.”

That’s when I /facepalmed in real life and bug reported it – strangely enough about a week later it was fixed.  Please note, I have no affiliation with the company in question, I simply filed a bug report with information needed to be investigated.

Is everyone doing it now buddy? :)

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