Cheating Spreads Like Infections In Online Multiplayer Games
The trouble, of course, is that cheats poison the experience for legitimate players. The temptation is then for all players to cheat which leads to an uncontrolled escalation of illegal activities and the eventually destruction of the gaming environment.
So gaming communities invest significant resources into finding and stopping cheaters. In the Steam Community, for instance, which has some 30 million users, cheats are clearly labelled so that other users can see them and so that servers can prevent them playing games from which they are banned (although they can play other games).
Cheaters cannot easily start new accounts because the games they buy are linked to their old accounts and access is non-transferable.
So an interesting question is how cheaters behave in this social network.
Today, Jeremy Blackburn at the University of South Florida in Tampa and a few buddies study a social network of about 12 million gamers on the Steam Community of which some 700,000 are cheaters.
What they find is interesting. First up, cheats stick together. The data shows that cheaters are much more likely to be friends with other cheaters.
Cheating also appears to be infectious. The likelihood of a fair player becoming labelled as a cheater in future is directly correlated with this person's number of friends who are cheaters. So if you know cheaters you are more likely to become one yourself. Cheating spreads like flu through this community.
Finally, being labelled as a cheat seems to significantly affect social standing. Once a person is labelled as a cheat, they tend to lose friends. Some even cut themselves off from friends by increasing their privacy settings
Blackburn and co say they've even seen newly labelled cheaters commit 'social suicide' by cutting themselves off from all their friends.
While this work gives a unique insight into the social behaviour of cheats, Blackburn and co say it also points to a new angle of attack for gaming communities hoping to stamp out cheating.
Their idea is to use the structure of the network to predict the likelihood that a given player will become a cheat in future. In other words, the number of friends who are cheats determine how likely this player is to becoming infected with the 'cheating virus' in future, so to speak. They say they expect to do more work on this in future.
Nobody knows exactly how the Steam Community developers detect and label cheats now. The details are strictly guarded, as would be expected in this kind of cat and mouse game.
But however it is done, the new method is a kind of pre-crime detection rather like the movie Minority Report. That's a dangerous avenue to tread. The labelling of individuals as potential cheats itself has significant moral, philosophical and legal implications that will need to be teased apart and examined before it can be employed in the real or virtual worlds.
Posted:
Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27441/
Related Articles
Comments
RojoPosted:
frostt this got on a 90% cheating website HOWW? ahah :p
That's what im saying...why even be on TTG if ur going to complain about hackers....This is a modding website...GET USED TO IT :)
AqhuaaPosted:
Zerkosteh1337 Stupid Hackers trying to ruin my call of duty.Call of duty is already ruined
call of duty has been terrible for ages. Since the original modern warfare and world at war all 3 games have been pretty bad.
MPAAPosted:
Guilt by association, uhm what happpened to freedom of association, this needs to be stopped as early as possible.
AnkokuPosted:
Zerkosteh1337 Stupid Hackers trying to ruin my call of duty.Call of duty is already ruined
COD is not ruined why do people say that, it is better than ever Dumbass.s
AntPosted:
Zerkosteh1337 Stupid Hackers trying to ruin my call of duty.Call of duty is already ruined
I don't think you get the joke he made.
Latest Downloads
- 01. The Long Drive: SaveGame (American pickup)(0)
- 02. Goemon's Great Adventure (US / NTSC) - Nintendo 64 Game Save(1)
- 03. The Long Drive: SaveGame (blue VW Beetle)(0)
- 04. Deadly Creatures | Complete Savegame(0)
- 05. Driift Mania | 100% Savegame(0)
- 06. LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias | 100% Savegame(0)
- 07. Lost Winds | 100% Savegame(0)
- 08. Mega Man 10 | Savegame(0)
- 09. Mega Man 9 | Savegame(0)
- 10. LASTFIGHT Secret character unlocked(1)
- 11. PC Horizon Forbidden West Complete Save(12)
- 12. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth | 100% Savegame(0)
- 13. ExciteBike World Challenge | Savegame(0)
- 14. World of Goo | 100% Savegame(0)
- 15. La Torre de las Sombras | 100% Savegame(0)
Latest Tutorials
- 01. The Redress Of Mira 100% Walkthrough | Trophy & Achievement(404)
- 02. Russian Pinocchio Quick Trophy Guide(494)
- 03. Venatrix Quick Trophy & Achievement Guide(452)
- 04. Call of the Sea 100% Platinum Walkthrough(610)
- 05. Wire Lips 100% Platinum Walkthrough(554)
- 06. The Expanse 100% Platinum Walkthrough | Trophy & Achievement(521)
- 07. Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality - PS4 Platinum P/Thru(449)
- 08. Doctor Who:The Lonely Assassins - 100% Guide(398)
- 09. DAYMARE 1998 PS4 - Full game 100% TROPHY WALKTHROUGH(383)
- 10. Stray Platinum Walkthrough | Trophy & Achievement Guide(406)
- 11. Raji: An Ancient Epic | Complete Gameplay Walkthrough(531)
- 12. Corpse Killer: 25th Anniversary Edition - Longplay(488)
- 13. Song of Horror: Complete Edition Gameplay Walkthrough(364)
- 14. Remoteness 100% All Trophies Walkthrough(467)
- 15. Detective Inspector Mysterious Clues Platinum Walkthrough(452)
"Cheating Spreads Like Infections In Online Multiplayer Games" :: Login/Create an Account :: 16 comments