In part one of this Gaming Ethics series, we spoke about the worst sins one can commit in gaming and presented to you our Ten Commandments of Online Gaming. 

Today, we talk at length about the concepts of Right and Wrong in gaming.

"When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion."
- Abraham Lincoln 

Nothing gets gamers more riled-up than the thought that they are playing against a hacker. Nothing. But what constitutes a hack? What makes you an ethical gamer and a "hacker" an unethical one?

We report...you decide. Answer these questions: 

1. What makes binding your left mouse button to the +attack command (the "fire" command) through the console and then pumping it like mad in-game, ethical - but creating a bind script that fires off your weapon at the same rate with one button press, "unethical"? 

2. Now, leave the script out of the equation. What about binding the mouse button to the +attack command, not through the console, but by editing the config file through Wordpad...is that ethical?  

3. What makes a person who purchases the expensive FIOS (Fibre-optic phone connection with very high transfer rates) service "a smart gamer" - but someone who uses dial-up, a loser? Or how about someone who modifies their player configuration file, in CoD4's case, to adjust their FPS and maxpacket to a "sweetspot value" (producing efficient data transfer rates) - is that person a hacker?

4. While, a person who injects a ".dll" file into their game to allow themselves to see their opponents behind a wall is a lousy wallhacker...is someone who goes out and gets themselves a liquid-cooled, quad-core PC with a top of the line ATI R680 GPU a hardware-hacker?

Ethics are intertwined with taboos in a society. In online-gaming societies (like the FPS community), the biggest taboo is cheating. 

After all, the essence of gaming is fair competition, wherein the most skilled player usually comes up the winner.  If the playing field is tilted, or the game rigged, the whole point of the competition becomes irrelevant and the time you have invested to develop gaming "skills" is in essence stolen from you by the cheater.

No wonder cheating is a taboo!

But as you can tell from the four examples above, somehow in the last thirty years of online gaming we have developed a prejudice towards what is fair and what is not.

The Hardware Edge

Generalizing, gamers find it second nature to see that the advantages brought about by hardware are ethical and fair. Getting pwned by a player with better equipment seems to elicit awe - not angry emotions; but watch what happens if the pwnee finds out that the pwnerer may be using a bind-script!

Why do people ignore the inherent differences in gaming hardware - and not consider them cheats?

Simple...we all want that cool hardware for ourselves.

After all who would not want to have the latest hot graphics card or largest CPU-cluster to crank out better frame rates! Having the best equipment has always been a gaming goal. This feeling is so ingrained in the gamer and so pervasive that you would think this attitude was sponsored by the hardware manufacturers.

Oddly, while a hardware edge is deemed acceptable, alteration of gaming files (the software edge), to many, is instantly thought of as cheating. 

There is irony to all this of course.

For all those who get upset at the very thought that someone is modifying the level playing field through alteration of software - hardware in the PC gaming world is anything but level. It never has been and it never will be. 

The only way to obtain a level playing field in the hardware world is to ensure that all players buy the same hardware. No wonder console gaming attracts ten times the audience that PC gaming does (price is of course also a huge reason for this difference).

The "edge" that hardware provides is significant.

Who hasn't seen a mediocre player go from the bottom of the heap to a major player simply by buying a great video card? Getting the latest hardware is gaming's equivalent of a military arms-race. The best players have the best graphics card, the best connection, the best mouse, the best gaming pad and the best processor.  This is done to achieve the highest FPS and data transfer rates possible - both variables that are major influences of success in the virtual battlefield.

The Software Edge

Has anyone wondered why, in the uneven playing-field of PC-gaming, trying to get this "edge" through software is looked down upon? Well, try looking at a typical End User's License Agreement (EULA), like this one from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:

A snippet from the EULA for Activision's CoD4:

The key here is that you are not to *modify* the program, where program is defined as:

Clearly, from the game producer's point of view, you are not allowed to modify any portion of the program.

This includes player config files - and needless to say, injecting any additional "functionality" (i.e. hacks) into the program executable is obviously in serious contravention with this agreement.

We will ignore, for the moment, the legal implications of the contract between the End User and the game producer. Doing so allows us to skirt the more basic issues such as whether the EULA is actually enforceable by the game producer. Many software manufacturers use the EULA to modify copyright law to their own benefit and over-ride local consumer protection laws - this makes them sometimes difficult to enforce. In CoD4's case, Activision's EULA is written to legally apply to California residents under California or U.S. federal law. Whether that contract would hold up in Nepal, is another story.

But, putting the legality of the EULA aside for a second, by signing the EULA, you are now ethically bound not to modify the program's files.

Tweaking: where the rubber meets the road

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
- Plato

Let's summarize. Gaming communities have accepted that getting a gaming edge out of hardware is ethical because we all aspire to having the best toys, while getting a gaming edge from modifying the game's software is "prohibited" by a manufacturer's code.

In PC-gaming, the need to adjust the playing field in an attempt to level it is paramount given the differences in player hardware: given that no one has the same equipment, there will always be someone who has the edge.

It is unsurprising then, that the game manufacturer has provided the player with files such the "config_mp.cfg" file in CoD4. Here is a plain-text file that can be modified by the player to "tweak" their configuration so that they can make their hardware compete with the high-horsepower hardware out there.

In fact, changing the config file can be done in-game through the console. Clearly the developer is providing the "smart" player with a method to tweak their game - and still stay on the right side of the EULA.

Tweaking to get higher framerates, for example, has been a staple in the FPS world since day one. Tweaking down eye-candy for instance is one of the most effective ways to allow yourself to play at the same level as those with better graphics hardware.

The Rules 

"Life's a game, all you have to do, is know how to play it"
-anon

The difference between right and wrong is a line drawn by the Rules of the Game. Without rules you have chaos. Keep inside the rules and you have a competitive game.

In the case of games like CoD4, the rules come with Cvars. Keep your Cvars within the ranges set by Activision and you will be true to the game.

But what of binds or config changes?

Why would a developer add bind capability if they thought it was wrong? For goodness sakes, why would they allow a ";" in their config script if they wanted to rule-out concatenated scripted binds?

Binds can be accomplished through the supplied game console - there is no need to edit files - and thus in compliance with the EULA. It should be obvious then, modifying player configs is well within acceptable practice.

Binds should not only be allowed, they should be encouraged. Binds make gaming a "thing of the mind", not just a "thing of the wallet".

Modifying the player config file using an editor is no different in spirit than modifying it through the console. For this reason, it makes logical sense that as long as you are not modifying any variable that is not encrypted or "cheat-protected" by the manufacturer, it is ethical to modify your config file and for that matter, create binds. 

Hacks - are they ethical too?

If we extend the logic that using your brain to improve your gaming is good...then hacking the game by modifying it's executable must be the acme of "smart" gaming, right?

Wrong.

The reason hacks are wrong is that you are in complete contravention of the code you have agreed to when you signed the EULA: you may not modify the game. The "console mod" method does not apply here. You cannot modify the executable through the console and for that reason, editing the executable cannot be condoned.

The Admin as God (the Punisher)

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
- anon

If server Admins do not want their players to make modification to their player configurations, they are in their right to kick players: a practice that happens now through the use of Evenbalance's PunkBuster (PB).  Admins simply limit the Cvar range available to players. Go beyond that range and .....boot!.

Because executable hacks are beyond the ability for most Admins to spot, PB, whose EULA you also signed, has been given authority to mete out punishment. PB is completely within its rights to ban your GUID on any PB-enabled server if you are caught modifying the game's kernel.

Common sense dictates that you should play within the rules set by the Admin-God. Failure to follow His/Her rules is deemed unethical and can be punished.

After all, playing within the rules is what ethics are all about. 

The "correct" answers:

1. Binds are ethical.
2. As long as you can create the same modification to the player config through the use of the console, editing config files is an ethical practice - just more practical.
3. While not a hacker, the person with better hardware is guilty of a superiority complex.
4. Hackers are cheats and therefore unethical: no modifications are allowed to the game's files.
 

The above are just opinions, then again.. 

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
- Bertrand Russell

Part Three of this series will feature a very interesting interview with the Lead Engineer at PunkBuster...