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Digital Games Industries:
Developments, Impact and Direction

Cheat Codes, Strategy Guides, and Walkthroughs: Official and Unofficial Economies of Cheating and Help in the Digital Games Industry

Mia Consalvo
School of Telecommunications, Ohio University, USA

Keywords: Cheating, Mod chips, Walkthroughs, Pirated games, Cheat codes, Strategy Guides

Game play is not experienced in a vacuum, but is instead a complex process partially mediated by supplemental products found in the contemporary games industry. Such elements as gaming magazines, web sites, and strategy guides give players access to information that can aid them in game play, and potentially alter their experience of the game. This information, in the form of strategy guides, walkthroughs, cheat codes and the like, is a contested element of game play. For example, cheat codes that can be used in multi-player games can unfairly advantage one player over the others, and so is a hotly debated issue in gaming communities. This segment of the games industry is also becoming lucrative, in official and unofficial economies. Publishers such as Brady Games can sell millions of strategy guides for a game such as Final Fantasy X, and a few game magazine web sites are beginning to charge access fees. The print gaming magazine market also capitalizes on such "help," regularly offering readers tip sections as well as special stand-alone guides giving out codes and puzzle solutions for popular games. In counterpoint, there is also an unofficial economy of cheating, including the selling of characters and valuable game items on sites such as eBay, circulation of "mod" chips and pirated game discs, and efforts to buy game wealth with actual cash. Although these different economies of cheating and help generally co-exist, this research studies them both and determines how they play off each other, helping to encourage and discourage different uses as well as attitudes toward such practices and items. This research uses extended interviews with game players as well as game creators to determine how different types of players engage with this material, negotiating its use in relation to their particular style of game play. Additionally, interviews with workers in these industries (official and unofficial) will be interviewed, and the products of each will be analyzed for their similarities and differences, and their relevance to the gaming world and gaming economies.

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Digital Games Industries: Developments, Impact and Direction

Cheat Codes, Strategy Guides, and Walkthroughs: Official and Unofficial Economies of Cheating and Help in the Digital Games Industry

Digital Games Industries:
Developments, Impact and Direction