In video games, an exploit is the use of a bug or glitches, game system, rates, hit boxes, speed or level design etc. by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers.^[1] Exploits have been classified as a form of cheating; however, the precise determination of what is or is not considered an exploit can be controversial. This debate stems from a number of factors but typically involves the argument that the issues are part of the game and require no changes or external programs to take advantage of them.^[2]

1. People Who Cheat Together In Video Games To Play

Video games now provide the platform for this authentic, collaborative play that broadens perspectives and builds new communities by connecting people who may otherwise have never met. Today, the average gamer has been playing for 14 years. Together is a video chat app specifically designed for children to interact with long distance grandparents. The app offers playful and educational activities to help create an emotional bond despite the distance. With Together you can read a bedtime story with your grandkids even if you live far away from them. Or, you can play different interactive games that help creating conversations. That is: some people are paying more money for old hardware that lets them cheat, than they would for the latest consoles that can play state of the art games. Modded Xbox 360 on eBay Advertisement.

Cheating in video games has always been considered illegal, but it is only considered illegal in the law if there is a bill passed that limits cheating. Sometimes, cheating will be illegal in video games because it violates the terms of service - which is what the user agrees to before starting the game. If you and the person you are video chatting with both have a chess board, then you can play together by instructing them out loud where you are moving your chess piece when it is your turn. The folks behind EasyAntiCheat, a service that stops people from cheating in video games, deal with one of the messiest issues in the medium. People often feel that anyone caught breaking the.

Controversy[edit]

Exploiting is generally considered cheating by the gaming community at large due to the unfair advantage usually gained by the exploiter. Whether an exploit is considered a cheat is a matter of widespread debate that varies between genres, games, and other factors. Most software developers of online games prohibit exploiting in their terms of service and often issue sanctions against players found to be exploiting. There is some contention by exploiters that exploiting should not be considered cheating as it is merely taking advantage of actions allowed by the software. They view exploiting as a skill because certain exploits take a significant amount of time to find, or dexterity and timing to use. Players that do not exploit believe that exploits should be considered cheats that the developers should address and the exploiters should be banned.

Arguments in favor of the cheating view involve the spirit of the game and the potentially damaging effects of the exploit on the game's community.^[3][4] While the rules or game code may not explicitly disallow a specific exploit, it may be seen that using that exploit goes against the spirit of the game.^[3] The potential damage of an exploit on a game has been described by a World of Warcraft community manager as 'devastating'.^[4]

In defense of these behaviors are arguments that the rules of the game allow it and that players might not know they are behaving against the designer's intention.^[5][6] So-called exploits, in this view, are not cheats because they do not change the game in any way and therefore could be accessible to all players if they know how to do it.^[2] The players who use such techniques may consider them fair for use in the game in cases when they are not explicitly disallowed in the Terms of Service or other such rules governing participation.^[5]

Griefing[edit]

While players more frequently exploit issues to gain advantage for themselves, sometimes they may use them instead to irritate other players, known as griefing.^[3] One team of gamers in Team Fortress 2 produced popular online videos demonstrating their griefing and also several exploits present in the game, most of them being of little use for personal gain.^[7] Another famous incident during the Ultima Onlinebeta test saw a player kill Lord British when that character was supposed to be invincible; the tester was later banned for exploiting because he did not report the bugs he found.^[8]

Common types[edit]

Common types of exploits include:

Duping

Duplicating items or money.

Lag and disconnection exploits

A game with inadequate lag handling may let players intentionally cause lag for themselves to cause an advantage.^[2] Similarly, a game that lets a player disconnect immediately with no consequences may let players exit a game without suffering a loss. (Shogun 2: Total War)

Geometry

Taking advantage of how the game world is built. Typically the goal of these exploits is to reach normally inaccessible areas or take unintended shortcuts in the game world. These are commonly achieved by going through walls, crossing invisible barriers made by the programmers, or scaling ledges not intended to be climbable.

Twinking

Twinking usually refers to taking advantage of design flaws in the game's gearing system in order to equip a new or low-level character with much higher level gear. Other actions commonly referred to as 'twinking' include: giving a new character a large amount of gold and intentionally keeping a character at a low level while gaining much better equipment.

Movement speed bugs

These usually allow the player to move faster than intended, such as bunny hopping. Many of these have been embraced by certain games, such as skiing in the Tribes series.

Safe zones

Places where a player can attack with no risk of being attacked back. This is often a form of an exploit in the geometry (terrain) of a game—however, a game may have areas that make players within them safe (especially in PvP games/zones where the opposing faction(s) may not enter) from attack while not disallowing the safe players to attack.

Game mechanics

Taking advantage of the systems that make up the gameplay. A game mechanics exploit is not a bug—it is working as designed, but at the same time is not working as intended. An example is the 'wavedash' in Super Smash Bros. Melee, where the momentum gained from using a directional aerial dodge could be retained on landing; with proper timing this allows characters to use a stationary attack while sliding across the ground.

Cheesing

Performing repeated, usually considered cheap, attack moves in such a way that doesn't allow the enemy to respond or fight back. An example would be Street Fighter II in which one can perform repeated moves that keep the enemy being attacked and against the side of the screen, with no way for them to perform a counterattack.

Each game has the potential for exploits unique to that game's rules. For example, in World of Warcraft, wall-walking allowed a player to climb steep mountains that are supposed to be impassable to get into unfinished areas or make one's character not attackable by mobs or other players. EverQuest had an exploit in player versus player analogous to weight cutting in sports whereby a player would intentionally lose levels by dying in order to compete against lower-level players while wielding higher-level items and skills (game mechanics exploit). In the game City of Heroes people were using teleport powers to place others inside the PvP zones' watchtowers which, originally designed as props for atmosphere, had no way in or out if he or she could not teleport (the towers have since gained a doorway).

Response[edit]

Developers may find it difficult to identify and respond to an exploit because a player who discovers a vulnerability in a game may be reluctant to inform the game's developers, in order to continue exploiting.^[2] However once developers do find exploits the response may include banning players who took advantage of the exploit, changing the game's rules to combat it, or even embracing the exploit. The positive opinions of the exploit can lead to the designers embracing it as emergent gameplay, such as when skiing in the Tribes series of games gained developer support. The now-standard practice of rocket jumping originated in a similar way, by exploiting game mechanics not foreseen by the developers. Otherwise, the developers may try to fix the underlying problem or discourage use of the exploit if the issue cannot be clearly addressed by technical means. In severe cases, players may be banned. Further, the game state of the world may need to be reset to restore game balance. For example, following a serious currency dupe exploit in EverQuest II, the developers removed large amounts of duped money from the game to address the rampant inflation it caused in the game's virtual economy.^[9]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Mulligan, Jessica; Bridgette Patrovsky (2003). 'Appendix F'. Developing online games. New Riders. p. 474. ISBN9781592730001.
2. ^ ^abcdConsalvo, Mia (2007). 'Chapter 5'. Cheating: gaining advantage in videogames. MIT Press. pp. 114–115. ISBN9780262033657.
3. ^ ^abcTavinor, Grant (2009). 'Games Through Fiction'. The Art of Videogames: New Directions in Aesthetics. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 107–108. ISBN9781405187886.
4. ^ ^abLopez, Miguel (20 July 2005). 'WoW Duping: Fact or Fiction?'. GameSpy. IGN Entertainment.
5. ^ ^abMulligan, Jessica; Bridgette Patrovsky (2003). 'Chapter 13'. Developing online games. New Riders. p. 286. ISBN9781592730001.
6. ^Jakobsson, Markus; Zulfikar Ramzan (2008). 'Chapter 9: Virtual Worlds and Fraud'. Crimeware: understanding new attacks and defenses. Addison-Wesley. p. 280. ISBN9780321501950.
7. ^Gillen, Kieron (29 April 2008). 'Team Roomba'. The Escapist. Retrieved 11 November 2009.
8. ^Lee, Edmund (23 September 1997). 'Ultimate Ultima'. The Village Voice. Retrieved 11 November 2009.
9. ^Terdiman, Daniel (11 August 2005). 'Cheaters slam 'Everquest II' economy'. ZDNet News. Retrieved 21 February 2007.^{[permanent dead link]}

External links[edit]

• Online gaming's cheating heart Article about cheating and exploiting.

Some video games are fun from start to finish. Others seem to leave out the 'finish' part and remain unbeaten forever. Here's a selection of games that, for whatever reason, haven't been beaten by very many people. Maybe you'd like to try?

Battletoads

Battletoads' difficulty is the stuff of myths, with many claiming to have beaten it without having any actual proof. The adventures of Rash, Zitz, and Pimple were even more of a challenge because you had to battle both the streams of bad guys and the game mechanic that allowed you to punch your own teammate. It was completely possible to keep dying because of friendly attacks. Harsh.

Takeshi's Challenge

Takashi no Chousenjou, otherwise known as Takeshi's Challenge, gave fits to Japanese NES fans. The 'Takeshi' in question was actor/director Takeshi Kitano, a man who holds the distinction of being one of the first celebrities to get involved with the world of gaming. Sadly, his efforts produced a title widely considered one of the worst games of all time. Why all the scorn? Takeshi's Challenge is nearly unbeatable, owing to gameplay that largely depends on trial and error. There's even one section that requires the use of the second controller's microphone to sing some karaoke. What? While the game could be beaten by slogging through the confusing gameplay, you could have also thrown 30,720 punches on the opening screen to get to the ending. Say goodbye to your thumbs.

Super Meat Boy

Released in 2010, Super Meat Boy was created as an intentional throwback to the crazy-hard games of our youth. And if you ask anyone who's played it, it definitely delivers on that promise. There are tons of videos on YouTube that show players dying over, and over, and over again. Needless to say, Super Meat Boy is one of the hardest games released in recent memory, and fans love it for that very reason. In fact, according to Steam's Global Gameplay stats for the PC version, a measly two percent of players have achieved 100 percent completion on it. Maybe they should rename this game 'Super Incomplete Boy.'

Friday the 13th

As we mentioned, Super Meat Boy is an homage to the tight, challenging games of yesteryear. But for every Metroid or Super Mario Bros., there are lots of other old games that were hard not because they were good, but because they were bad. Very, very bad. Case in point: Friday the 13th for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. In 2009, Game Informer magazine included this on its list of the worst horror video games. Other magazines, like GamePro and Nintendo Power, have gone a step further by calling Friday the 13th one of the worst games ever made, period. Friday the 13th is very nearly impossible to beat..but mostly because it's so crappy that most players would simply throw their controllers through the TV before getting anywhere close to completing it. That still counts, right?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game deserves a special place on our list. Despite the fact that it gave players bald spots from tearing their hair out in frustration, it was actually very popular at the time—and because of titles like this, we can fondly look back at a time when games not only challenged us, but also extinguished our hope of finishing them. Call it a sneak peek at the harsh realities of adult life.

Do Not Believe His Lies

Do Not Believe His Lies is a bit strange because it's a mobile game that's played kind of cooperatively. It was released in 2014 by theM Dev on Android and iOS, and since then, it's caused many sleepless nights. Each part of the game features cryptic puzzles and riddles that create a story when solved, but it's incredibly hard, and plenty of players have dropped out along the way. Luckily for those who remain, a Reddit community was created to crowdsource solutions.

Ghosts ‘N Goblins

If you've ever been bathed in the fires of the Nintendo Entertainment System, chances are you've experienced the test of wills known as Ghosts 'N Goblins. Arthur had to launch his lances and use other tools to fight through hordes of demons and the undead to save Princess Prin Prin from Satan, which was no easy feat. To make matters worse, the game didn't allow you to save your progress, nor did it have passwords to help skip you to a stage, making Ghosts 'N Goblins one of the hardest games ever made. The worst part is that players must acquire the cross weapon and beat the game twice over, on a higher difficulty setting, to get to the real battle with Satan. The brutality is quite real.

Radiant Silvergun

Many hardcore video gamers consider Radiant Silvergun for the Sega Saturn to be one of the best shoot'-em-ups of all time. At first glance, the game doesn't appear to be significantly different from its brethren: it's a 2D vertical shooter in which you pilot a spaceship and destroy enemies set to a suitably epic soundtrack. What about this premise warrants a $200 asking price on eBay?

What makes Radiant Silvergun stand out is its gameplay mechanics. Unlike most shooters, you don't collect new weapons through the course of the game. Instead you have access to all seven of your ship's armaments—including a sword—from the beginning. Who knew wielding a blade could be so effective in dispatching rival spaceships? Luke should have strapped his lightsaber to his X-Wing. It's not enough to be skilled at dodging enemies' attacks, either: to truly succeed in Radiant Silvergun, you need to know when to use each weapon at the proper time. This means you must either possess split-second reflexes or memorize every level. Sure, if you play the arcade version then you can just spend $20 to finish the game, but where's the skill in that?

For the longest time, the most difficult aspect of Radiant Silvergun was purchasing a copy without forgoing food that month. Its developer, Treasure, only released it for the Saturn in Japan. This thankfully changed in 2011, when the game came to Xbox Live with enhanced visuals.

Ikaruga

Fans often refer to Ikaruga as a spiritual sequel to Radiant Silvergun. It certainly retains the core elements of its predecessor: both games are vertical sci-fi shoot-'em-ups, developed by Treasure, that rely on frenetic, difficult gameplay. The major difference, aside from Ikaruga Scooby doo game boy advance cheats. 's superior visual presentation, is each game's mechanics.

Ikaruga is arguably the simpler game of the two. Enemies shoot either light or dark colored lasers at your ship; on the fly, you can switch your ship's force field to light or dark to match and absorb the corresponding enemy fire. If you absorb enough, then you can unleash a powerful laser attack. The simplicity of the gameplay belies the fact that this game itself is hard. You'll need machine-like reflexes to dodge copious amounts of enemy fire and rapidly switch forcefields back and forth.

Becoming a paragon of patience is necessary to get anywhere in Ikaruga. If all else fails, you can just watch someone demonstrate their expert run on YouTube and feel deep-seated resentment and/or jealousy. Fortunately, Ikaruga is a bit more accessible than Radiant Silvergun. The original arcade game has been released on Xbox Live, the Dreamcast (import only), the GameCube, and Windows.

Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden likely resulted in extra profits for Nintendo, since players had to replace their NES controllers after throwing them against the wall in frustration. Nearly all the games in the Ninja Gaiden series are known for their difficulty, including the NES trilogy and the more recent Xbox and Playstation reboots. The first game on the NES, however, is arguably the most memorable.

Players control a ninja named Ryu Hayabusa on his quest to defeat evil. Like many side-scrolling action platformers of the 1980s (e.g. Castlevania) Ryu gets knocked back several feet whenever he takes a hit. This means that 90 percent of the time, you'll die from getting hit and falling off a cliff. This wouldn't be a huge problem by itself, but it seems that every creature big and small has it out for Ryu's blood: rival ninjas, soldiers, dogs, and even hawks all want Ryu dead. The amount of enemies on screen can be obscene. Oh yes, and these baddies also respawn. To top this all off, if you manage to make it to the end of the game, you must face three bosses in a row without dying. Becoming a ninja in real life and taking out actual criminals may be easier than finishing Ninja Gaiden.

F-Zero GX

Many fans argue that F-Zero GX for the GameCube is the best entry in the futuristic racing series. The game boasts impressive graphics for the system, extremely fast gameplay, a rocking soundtrack, and epic science fiction-inspired racetracks. Oh yeah, and it's also tough as nails. The game demands track memorization and flawless driving to succeed. The races move so fast that unless you know what's coming around the corner, your vehicle will likely fly off the track and explode. Suffice it to say, if you can complete 100 percent of what F-Zero GX has to offer, then you are a video game god. Sadly, Nintendo only followed up this minor classic with two F-Zero entries on the Game Boy Advance. We hope the Big N finally gives F-Zero GX a worthy sequel on its next console.

Threes

You can't beat Tetris. You can't beat Bejeweled. So why would anyone assume that you can beat Threes? Games like Sirvo's tile-based timewaster are usually about racking up high scores, not reaching an ending. For most puzzle games, bragging rights are the only reward you need.

And yet, as the minds behind the Threes Porn Twitter account discovered, Threes does end. It just takes a long time to get there. In Threes, players start with pieces worth one and two points. By swiping the screen, they can merge the tiles, making pieces that are worth three points, then six, then twelve, and so on. Creating the biggest tile in the game, which is worth 6,144 points, takes a long time. Making two and fusing them together takes even longer, and requires quite a bit of patience, a careful strategy, and a whole lot of luck.

In fact, reaching the conclusion of Threes is so difficult that its developers didn't originally put an ending in the game, figuring that nobody would ever actually get there. They were wrong. Three and a third years after Threes made its debut debut (yes, seriously) someone finally discovered the game's hidden ending, quite possibly becoming the first person to do so — at least without cheating.

NieR: Automata

It only takes about 15 hours to finish NieR: Automata's main campaign, but that's hardly the end of the game. In fact, the first time that you see the credits, you're only about a third of the way through PlatinumGames' post-apocalyptic android adventure. If you want to truly beat the game, you'll need to start a new game and work through the base campaign for a second time, observing events from 9S's — and not 2B's — point of view. Then, you'll have to begin a third playthrough, which unlocks the second half of the story and introduces 2A, a playable character that only briefly appears in the game's opening section.

You're still not done. After your third go-around, you'll unlock a level-select screen, which you can use to select the other option during the game's climactic boss fight (no spoilers — you'll know what we mean when you get there). That'll unlock the fourth ending, but you're not done quite yet. As the credits roll, the game transforms into a nigh-impossible bullet-hell shooter. Finish that — and no matter how many times the game asks, don't give up — and you'll finally get the real ending.

Many games have New Game Plus modes, and most players won't realize that they need to play the game multiple times to get the full story. It's not hard to get the final ending, but it's not easy to find without help. That's by design.

'I'm the type that gets bored easily, so I lose any motivation to work if I know what the end product will be like,' director Yoko Taro says. 'As such, I can only create a product that constantly betrays my own imagination.'

Super Hexagon

Super Hexagon couldn't look more simple. You control a small triangle caught in the middle of a hexagon, pentagon, or square. Each side of the polygon has an opening, and all you have to do is guide your piece to the exit while the shape shrinks around you. Succeed, and you'll find yourself in the middle of another hexagon. Survive for 60 seconds to unlock the next difficulty, and keep going until you've successfully outlasted each level.

That shouldn't be difficult. In practice, it's almost impossible. Maybe it's the way that the Super Hexagon levels rotate while you're rotating yourself, making it hard to keep your sense of direction straight. Maybe it's how the shapes in the middle of the screen pulse in time to the music, giving the entire experience a psychedelic vibe. Perhaps it's the way that the shapes change as they get closer to your avatar, requiring split-second reactions and sudden changes of strategy. Whatever the cause, only 3.6% of PC players have managed to last for a full minute on the Hyper Hexagonest stage and witnessed the ending. But, sure, it looks simple.

Devil Daggers

Players who cut their teeth on '90s shooters like the original Doom and Quake should feel right at home in Devil Daggers, the throwback FPS from indie developer Sorath. Like those games, Devil Daggers asks players to toss out things like stealth and strategy and go in guns (or, in this case, knives) blazing, killing everything that moves as quickly as possible. Also like those games, Devil Daggers takes no prisoners. If you fall off of the level or make contact with an enemy, that's it. Back to the beginning.

In order to master Devil Daggers, you don't have to reach the end of the level. You just have to survive against increasingly difficult waves of enemies for a total of 500 seconds. By collecting orbs dropped by downed foes, you can upgrade your weapons, but as the clock counts down those barely matter. While you play, the amount of space you have to move around in shrinks while the number of enemies grows, and in later stages it's easy to lose track of the action while dashing and double-jumping out of harm's way. As of this writing, only .1% of players have managed to last for the requisite 8.33 minutes needed to secure a victory.

Look, old games are tough, and while Devil Daggers looks old-school with its muddy textures and low-res graphics, the challenge is what really makes it old-school. For the most part, they don't make 'em like this any more — Devil Daggers being the rare exception.

Darkest Dungeon

Many role-playing games send a group of adventurers into a dungeon to search for treasures. Very few delve into the psychological trauma that results from spending an extended amount of time in the monster-filled darkness. Darkest Dungeon does. Like usual, characters can be killed by skeletons, necromancers, ghost pirates, and pig men. But they'll also get increasingly stressed as they head deeper underground, forming neurotic quirks and, in extreme cases, going full-on crazy.

Oh, and by the way, once characters are gone, they're gone for good, meaning that you'll need to train replacements, and the dungeon layouts change every time you head inside. That means that you never quite know what to expect, and given how important pre-quest preparation is to the game, you'll often find yourself in deep, deep trouble before you even really get started.

That's probably why Darkest Dungeon is so darn tough. Since its release in early 2016, less than 2% of Steam players have finished the game — and that's on the regular setting. The extra-hard 'Stygian' mode only has a 0.3% completion rate. Or, to put it another way: if Darkest Dungeon's underground slog doesn't drive you mad, its near-impossible difficulty level probably will.

Persona 5

Raise your hand if you have enough time to spend 100 hours on a single-player video game. Now, keep it raised if you have the time to spend 100 hours on a single-player video game twice.

Persona 5 is a stylish, well-made game that clears the already high bar set by its predecessors, but it demands quite a bit of attention. Players with busy social lives — or anyone who wants to play some of the other stellar games that have come out over the past few years — may not ever finish winding their way through Persona 5's otherworldly dungeons or navigating its labyrinthine social scene.

That's normal. According to leading industry figures, only 20% of players actually finish the games they start, and the meatier a game is, the lower its completion percentage. You can finish Portal in a couple of hours, but only 46% of players have done so. For longer games, like the open-world western Red Dead Redemption (which is a 20 to 40 hour experience), that drops to around 10%.

Not only is Persona 5 at least twice as long as Red Dead Redemption, but it has multiple endings, too, and if you don't make the right decisions at a few crucial moments, you won't get the real ending. For die-hard fans, that's fine — it's impossible to see everything that Persona 5 has to offer on a single playthrough anyway — but for the rest of us, a single run is daunting enough. And while Atlus may not like it, looking up the canonical ending on YouTube is a heck of a lot faster.

Spelunky

Everybody loves Spelunky. The open-source original quickly became a favorite with gamers and amateur developers, who lovingly expanded the game with all kinds of fan-made modifications. The HD remaster won a number of Game of the Year awards. Spelunky's plucky little main character, also known as Spelunky, is the closest thing we have to a modern-day gaming icon, and has appeared on toy shelves, t-shirts, and even other video games.

And yet, according to Steam, only about 7% of people have beaten Spelunky. If you throw out people who took shortcuts, that number falls to just under 6%. So, what gives? Obviously, the procedurally-generated levels play a big part — no two Spelunky runs are going to be exactly the same, meaning that memorizing stage layouts won't help you like they do in Spelunky's peer, Super Meat Boy. Spelunky also forces you to move fast. Not only are the game's caverns crammed full of monsters that want you dead, but if you dawdle, an (almost) invincible ghost appears and hunts you down. Spelunky never explains what its various items do or how its devious traps work, either. You have to figure it out for yourself — usually by dying until you get the hang of it.

People Who Cheat Together In Video Games To Play

Spelunky is a game for masochists, but somehow, it never gets old. While 93% of players will never see the final screen, every playthrough gets you a little bit closer to the credits — and that's just enough encouragement to keep most people heading back again and again and again for one more round.