Dec 27
Things Aren’t Simple
I was very much not interested in getting involved in the RMT fracas, but a comment I was going to put up on Common Sense Gamer blew into something I had to put up here. Darren called out Raph on something tangential to that discussion. Raph’s observation on what cheating is or is not was spawned by a post over on Massively.
Look, we all know what cheating is when it comes to a game.
It’s not simple, though - as Darren says in a comment to his own post. Darren’s argument is:
Cheating is the introduction of an artificial game mechanic, both internal and external, that gives one player an advantage over another player or over the game itself.
By his own definition here, the stuff he refers to later (Prima guides, Thottbot) is cheating. The thing to keep in mind is that everything is a game mechanic. Having a second computer on your desk opened to Thott is a game mechanic - it’s a component of your gameplay. Having a guide on your lap while you play is a game mechanic.
Moreover, even if you don’t consider those gameplay mechanics, passing gold to an alt is (by this definition) cheating. It’s an external way of influencing your play. I’m willing to bet there are very few players that feel that way. “Hey, it’s all ‘my gold’ right?”
Except … having access to a high level character to farm gold gives a player an advantage over other players. That’s ‘cheating’. Apparently. By the same token, this definition makes SOP in games like MapleStory ‘cheating’. I have more money than a ten year old, and therefore my artificial advantage over them is immoral.
My view on this in theory (though not in personal practice) is: Cheating is an activity that gets your account banned. You only know you’ve been cheating after you get banned.The rest of this business about whether you’re cheating or not is personal moral opinions handed out by individual players. It’s a given within the MMOG community that selling characters or buying gold is immoral.
In reality it seems like the only thing that’s really immoral is to admit to buying gold.
Is this simple? No. I think it’s a very complex issue, one that has no clear answer. Devs and GMs make their own decisions about these issues, and those are the personal moral views for individual virtual worlds. Is double-boxing cheating? In WoW or EQ2 it might be (according to the devs) but in EVE it’s so encouraged they’ll give you a deal on it.
The best we players can do is hope we stay within those guidelines as best we can. Everything else is opinion and conjecture.
Update: Raph put up a post directly addressing some of the issues I raise here, including nailing why online resources are ‘cheating’ by Darren’s definition.
Information is absolutely a mechanic. Look, I knock game theory often enough, but this is one case where those guys have the terminology and the logic to back it up, too. The key thing to realize here is that games provide information to you, the player, about the game state. What’s more, they provide it under defined circumstances. Once you have that knowledge, it’s certainly “in the wild†and you can do with it whatever you want, but the game releases it on a schedule and in specific places, by choice.
Update 2: World IV follows up with this issue by saying the words I was grasping at, and failing to reach:
players don’t get to decide what constitutes cheating.
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I’m kinda surprised some organisation hasn’t tried cashing in on a ESRB style rating system for a “cheating” code of conduct for MMO products….maybe an “ITIL for Games” framework system :o)
I know for a fact there are a lot of people that would seriously look at it when they are looking around for something to purchase/play as the number of times “cheating” comes up in any given games “general” chat is pretty consistent across most of the games I’ve ever played (From AC Beta 0 through to Tabula).
Hmm…MOCAS (Massively Online Cheat Assessment Score)….even has a nice ring to it :o)
I’ve got to say that you’re completely right. I especially hate the notion that there is something inherently wrong with buying gold or getting power-leveled. For one, it still takes skill to play well, and that demands a decent time commitment in and of itself. But beyond that, this sort of point of view is extremely unfair to players who don’t have all day to sit around and farm for gold, enchants, and pots. Some people have full time jobs and families, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be allowed to spend some money on evening out the playing field a bit.
“In reality it seems like the only thing that’s really immoral is to admit to buying gold.”
That nails it pretty well. I think that RMT is less of a harmful practice than it seems to a community, honestly. I’ve purchased currency in a number of games before, and I’ll definitely do it again. I don’t make a habit of it, but when I’m looking at farming gold or platinum for something I want badly enough in game, and the time it will take to farm it is sufficiently daunting, I’ll buy the money because my time is valuable to me.
Games are designed to be time sinks right now, which is fine, but when you like to play and don’t have the time to invest, RMT is a good alternative. I think a lot of the stigma surrounding RMT purchase is less about the cheating (because, come on, I COULD farm it), and more about the fact that gold farmers are disruptive to play and it’s viewed as exceedingly geeky (although increasingly less-so) to pay real currency for intangibles.
I think a few of your characterizations are a bit off the mark. Comments below:
These are references, not game mechanics. While they could be argued to be lame (though I wouldn’t say they are) it would be difficult to argue they are cheating.
While this may give the lower level atl an advantage over other characters that same level it has nothing to do with player advantage. A player who has worked up a character to high level is at no greater advantage than any other player in the game as they have the same opportunity.
While cheating may get you banned, the two aren’t obligatorily related. Banning is just the age old “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” clause in just about every store out there. Getting banned doesn’t mean you were cheating.
Arguments about cheating are usually fairly pointless. Cheating isn’t a moral absolute, it’s a statement relative to the rules of the game as it was meant to be played. Everyone tries to invest the term cheating with all kinds of emotion in hopes of moving them from a subjective argument about why they thing someone is wrong to an absolute argument with some kind of universal law behind it. Worse still is it usually obscures the original points that were trying to be made and it spirals into an argument about symantics, like here.
I rather thought the problem with RMT is that it’s against the EULA for pretty much every game out there (all portions of this game are the sole property of blah blah blah, and may not be sold blah blah blah). Or is the legality not an issue in this discussion?
Setting that aside, I find the disruption, in the form if in-game spam, to my game-time intolerable. I think I had to use the /petition command in City of Heroes regarding a case of harrassment once before CoH grew an economy. Now I have to interrupt my relaxation time to send a petition about a gold-farmer spamming me with advertising tells several times a night. Are you telling me that if this sort of secondary market were socially and legally acceptable, that I wouldn’t get spammed about it while I was trying to play? Excuse me if I find that a bit hard to swallow.
No, if there’s going to be RMT, I want it to be the publisher peddling their wares to me, and not some third party leech who feels the need to declare his presence to me every fifteen seconds while I’m trying to enjoy myself.
As for getting power-leveled… I don’t really understand that one. If it’s a game you’re playing (and paying for) because you enjoy it, why would you pay someone else to play it for you and skip you past all the content? Not to mention how I’d never ever give someone the password for my account, even if it was a temporary one I changed it to for that purpose. I just don’t have that much trust of strangers in me. I suppose I’ll answer my own question here and guess it’s for people who want to do end-game raiding. I’m not one of those people. To each their own, though. Perhaps the developers should cut out the power-leveling middle-man and put in a Guild Wars-esque system to get an instant max-level character for people who just want to do the big end-game raids.
Summing up, I would say that, yes, RMT as it currently exists in games not designed to support it, is immoral. Aside from being against most EULAs, it fosters behaviors that are generally considered completely unacceptable. This is not to say that I think buying gold or power-leveling services is innately “wrong,” like, say, killing a man to just to watch him die would be. If everyone were to suddenly decide they liked RMT ad spam and didn’t mind gold farmers cluttering up their favorite hunting grounds, then the “immoral” tag could be handily dropped (well, assuming the EULA supported it; if not you’re still in an ethical quagmire!).
“By his own definition here, the stuff he refers to later (Prima guides, Thottbot) is cheating.”
Then you don’t understand the definition. Everyone has access to Thottbot and Prima guides, therefore no one player has an advantage over the other. the player also does not get an advantage over the game because having these strategies does not give the player a successful outcome with the gameplay presented.
“The thing to keep in mind is that everything is a game mechanic. Having a second computer on your desk opened to Thott is a game mechanic - it’s a component of your gameplay. Having a guide on your lap while you play is a game mechanic.”
“Gameplay” and “game mechanic” are different things. Yes, having Thottbot open is part of a person’s gameplay…but it is not a game mechanic.
Buying gold and paying for advancement are only cheating if you get caught.
I’ve bought gold numerous times, and I willingly admit to it - I also know that in a lot of people’s minds, that probably makes me a cheater.
Of course, I don’t actually care that people think that. My willingness to “cheat” at a video game in no way represents some underlying moral defect. I’m simply a person with limited time who makes enough money to waste some of it on such a pointless endeavor - something I much prefer to the alternative chosen by people who don’t cheat, who waste their time on it instead.
I’m a cheater, and proud of it. When it comes down to it, I’d rather waste money than time.
Darren/Streamweaver:
In this specific instance, I wholeheartedly agree with Raph on the subject of information as game mechanic.
Matt: I should say, I agree that there’s a lot wrong with folks who want to just buy a high-level character to bypass content. That’s not, of course, to say that people will stop doing weird things because they’re weird. Right? :D
And again, all of this was to clarify that ‘cheating’ isn’t ever as simple as some folks want it to be. The world is an overly-complicated place.
Everyone has access to Game Genie/Action Replay/whatever too. It’s still cheating.
Saying “everyone does it” is not an excuse, it’s still cheating.
Saying “it’s a reference, not a mechanic” is ducking it too. WoW does not have Thottbot built in, therefore it’s information the game is not giving you. The info the game gives you is a mechanic.
“The world is an overly-complicated place”
…indeed good sir.
Oh, and just to clarify that I did have to concede his point about cheating when it comes to adventure games.
hmmm..I’m going to be stewing on this one for a while I think.
[...] here and [...]
I will definitely agree that the use of game guides is cheating. However, I will grant that it is a form of cheating that MMOs thoroughly encourage given their game design. Unless you’re some sort of chart-making, anal-retentive, geek-savant (I direct you to the Flood Season chapter of Mr. Zenke’s Shackled City campaign wiki), there’s just too much information in the typical MMO to reasonably keep track of, even if just taken as it’s parceled out to you. Even worse, the character building design in most MMOs (Guild Wars being a notable exception) is not even remotely forgiving to experimental build choices. Don’t like how your Talents are specced out? That’ll be a dragon’s trove worth of Gold to retrain, please. That sort of design decision practically begs even the most figure-it-out-for-yourself-minded player to do some outside research before leveling up.
To (cringingly) echo a self-professed gold-purchaser, yes, it’s cheating, but it’s not worth my time not to. I wouldn’t look things up on-line if the game design didn’t punish a lack of prescience in character building.
Just my 2 coppers,
Anything used outside of the game to advance, gain levels, solve puzzels, finish quests, etc. is cheating. Using these outside sources speeds up game play, which for most of us is a good thing. But, I don’t think the game designers plan for that. I think they want you to take the time to figure it out on your own. When people cheat they speed through the content faster then was intended. Then they complain that they are bored. They leave the game and find something new and start all over again. I’m guilty of this. Wouldnt it be better to play and enjoy the game in the way the designer meant it to be played? I know the answer already,,, I don’t have the time.
Raph beat me to it, as the first thing I thought of when I read the “everyone has access to…prima guides…” line was “everyone who pays for access has access to the prima guides”.
It’s not as if prima guides are free. I can’t just waltz into Gamestop or BestBuy and say “hey, thanks for the free guide” and walk out. I pay for that information. You want the best information from most fansites? You pay for that, too. …and oh yeah, you can also pay for gold, plat, powerlevelling, etc. (Everyone has access to that, too).
Are all of these types of cheating equal in reprehensibility? Though certainly that’s a subjective matter of perspective, I’d argue that the implicit consensus would be that not all cheats are equal. Some are certainly more technical than others, and many others would probably not be seen as evil as others might be.
Which brings the discussion back round to one of Raph’s original points: “spirit of the rules”.
If we try (as Darren did) to hyperanalyze what is and is not “cheating”, we’re going to find that a great many actions most of us don’t consider to be strictly bad are going to fall under any such technical definition. I think this is why Raph intentionally built in some wiggle room into his own definition, which is a definition I think most designers agree with.
Indeed, I think so often that designers fall prey to the “I’ll know it when I see it” definitions of cheating, that when players call them on perceived ethical violations, many developers may be taken off-guard in the process. Either the developers in question knew they were cheating and just counted on not being caught…or they just didn’t perceive the actions they took in the same light.
[...] Cheating - What was it, what is it, what will it be - we scratch the surface and reference Raph, Michael, Tachevert, and Darren in a topic so vast, you need an IMAX theater to appreciate just the [...]
[...] I’m in the most recent episode of Shut Up We’re Talking (episode 17). We mutter about the whole recent cheating discussion, as well as preview stuff for 2008. Plus there’s a Back to the Future quote at the start. [...]