So I started writing this small answer back to the "Why Gamers Cheat" and it ended up being its own article. It really is not about playing a character against the computer, the idea of cheating in games goes back to day one. Glitches carry over from code set to code set, pick your chunk of code, I'll put 10 dollars on the table that issues carry through generation to generation, I don't care who made it. There are a lot of reasons for people to cheat, and it does not help that there are glitches in game code that actually assist in gamers cheating, or that many games have their own provided modder packs that allow people to add on to the games. If we can go back to the original DOOM and its WAD packs allowing people to make their own levels, when pouring through the code, they discover standard programming issues, or they make their own mod packs to unlock code sets that were supposed to be removed from the game, like the famous hot coffee mod for GTA. Then the gamer culture supports this, if you go to game spy, game sutra, or any of the other gaming sites, they all feature cheats to the games to progress through it further or unlock secrets before you have completed all the missions. As Payton said, he has been hacking games since the VIC 20 days. And yes, I remember those days a lot, trying to make a 3D periodic table in the living room while watching TV, the parents were amazed and confused as to why their child would be trying to make an interactive periodic table, not realizing that 2K of memory just won't do it without a lot of pauses to reload segments. Hacking games is a sport, these games come out and the first thing that people do is try to figure out how to beat the game, or get through it faster than their friends. People do the oddest things along the way. For example, have a contest for free stuff, and people will figure out a way to manage the unlock feature in automation not realizing that if their names and e-mail addresses show up in the logs 200/300 times each day that this is going to be an anomaly and the security department is going to get called in. Alternatively, those if someone publishes a cheat, most gaming companies are right on it. If you go to the PGR3 (Project Gotham Racing 3) discussion boards, you can see that there are two cheaters in the game, and the population is asking Bizarre to fix it, because it is a known glitch in the Tokyo segment of the game. The good part is that Xbox Live allows for that kind of work, much like the patch process we all have for any operating system that we have now. Game developers are realizing that as people discover glitches that make up cheats, having something like Xbox Live to push down patches becomes golden. The good part is that cheaters are reported, and especially in high contest games or games that rely on skill that the gamer might not have. This is not just a PGR3 issue, even Final Fantasy has been beset by cheaters, and has actively banned hundreds from the game for cheating or making game play not family friendly. I know of one character that was banned because he was using highly sexual language in working with other people in the game. People got angry, got screen caps, and reported him/her. The social consequences of cheating are getting to be really huge, because there is that interactivity now, and the ability to go right back to the developer and say "what the…" via forums, or via moderators in game. So while cheating is part of the gaming culture, it is a small part of the gaming culture, and they are quickly reported and banned or otherwise, in a public forum somewhere. You buy the game; you buy the book that helps you play the game. I think that cheating and finding hacks is such a part of the community now that I would be surprised and worried if someone was not busy trying to figure out ways of modding the game, or someone had not downloaded the developer provided tool kit to make their own levels and adventures in the game. I think that as long as developers push out game code tool kits to the home brew community, or exploitable glitches in game code are discovered, the temptation is just too much to see what that puppy can do. Moreover, as in any other social activity, there is a very small amount of people that will use it to their own advantage to ensure that they are #1. Then the majority of the group takes social action against the cheater, read any game board, and search on cheating, and if possible you will see where the game company is really all about making cheating harder. However, as in all code sets, its an arms race between the cheaters and the gaming company, with the users in the middle. Just like any other pile of code we use on a daily basis to do stuff. I think that this is particularly normal, given what we have seen in business and in technology that drive to be number one. Moreover, not everyone is fair or ethical in how they get there. We are a competition driven society, we should not be surprised when people take "short cuts" to get to number one because we will reward that with #1 status in the leader boards or score keeping system. The good part is that if someone has to resort to cheating to get to #1 for a momentary point in life in a game, most game developers and companies that maintain live stats are all over it, and know, and will take action on the process. Sometimes though, it is just a lot more fun to figure out how they did it, and then close the whole that they exploited in getting there. If you ever get the chance, despinning some of the cheat code, or methods makes for a cool experience. Game code is somewhat different from regular OS, Web, or Application code, and some of these home brew cheats are just interesting to take apart. They are posted all over the place, so they are easy to find. Makes for an interesting day.