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Cheating in networked computer games: a review

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Open access
Authors
Webb, Steven
Soh, Sieteng
Date
2007
Type
Conference Paper

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Citation
Webb, Steven Daniel and Soh, Sieteng. 2007. Cheating in networked computer games: a review, in ACM International Conference Proceeding Series. (ed), Second International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts, September 19 - 21, 2007, pp. 105-112, Perth, Australia: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Source Conference
DIMEA 2007: Second International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts
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Faculty
School of Electrical Engineering & Computing
Science and Engineering
School
Department of Computing
Remarks

© ACM, 2007. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in DIMEA '07: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Digital interactive media in entertainment and arts, Vol. 274, ISBN: 978-1-59593-708-7, 2007. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1306813.1306839

A link to the Publisher's website is available at: http://www.acm.org/

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Abstract

The increasing popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) - games involving thousands of players participating simultaneously in a single virtual world - has highlighted the scalability bottlenecks present in centralised Client/Server (C/S) architectures. Researchers are proposing Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architectures as a scalable alternative to C/S; however, P2P is more vulnerable to cheating as it decentralises the game state and logic to un-trusted peer machines, rather than using trusted centralised servers. Cheating is a major concern for online games, as a minority of cheaters can potentially ruin the game for all players. In this paper we present a review and classification of known cheats, and provide real-world examples where possible. Further, we discuss counter measures used by C/S architectures to prevent cheating. Finally, we discuss several P2P architectures designed to prevent cheating, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.