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How ironic is it that Watch Dog’s leaderboards are already hacked?

All it took was one day for the online multiplayer leaderboards for Watch Dogs to get hacked, perhaps not surprising for a game about using cyber-jacking abilities to crack into overreaching surveillance systems.  As you see in the above screenshot, captured by Reddit user unsubdefaults, players such as xXPICSXx have already maxed out their scores. Other users are reporting that some players have used cheats to gain unlimited health and ammo in online modes. This obviously isn’t cool, because online multiplayer is one of the more appealing aspects of Watch Dogs’ open-world, with features like Intrusion or Tailing, which borrow…

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A glance into the neurotic psychology of FPS cheaters

What motivates someone to utilize aimbots and other banned cheats in an online FPS? The obvious answer is that they want to win but suck, but this pretty fascinating feature article at PC Gamer shows it’s more like a neurosis. It seems some cheaters have an overwhelming and irrational compulsion to cheat.  From an interview with Tripwire Interactive’s president: We see a spike in hackers after we have a sale on one of our games. Their last 10 Steam accounts have been banned, and the game is on sale for $3, so they’ll buy 10 copies for $30 on 10…

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PBS Game/Show asks if cheaters like Arthur Chu make games better

We generally think of cheating at games as a capital offense, worthy of server bans, account suspensions, and having your opponent quickly and decisively press the reset button. But it’s not as cut and dry as you may think. In last week’s PBS Game/Show, Jamin examines the various types of cheaters and comes to the unlikely conclusion that, in the long run, they actually help designers make better games. I tried using the same logic with my significant other, but no dice. Check out the new episode below, and tell us what you think in the comments.