“It’s not cheating, it’s modifying”
The 56” TV screen is filled with a tank driving down the middle of a city street, pedestrians try to run away, others are crushed under its tracks. Is this the latest news report from one of the war torn parts of the world? No, it is my son playing Grand Theft Auto on PS3. If you have played Grand Theft Auto, I am sure you would know that a Tank is not one of the normal vehicles you can drive. It is in fact a cheat. Today I wanted to look a little closer at this aspect of online gaming.
The Gaming Environment
Online and digital games are a billion dollar industry and an important part of growing up for 21st century digital natives. Game playing is an important part of digital culture that is used in a school setting as well as for entertainment. A study in America explored the use of computer programming by senior school students with regards to designing educational games to be incorporated in the Quest Atlantis multiplayer format used in schools around the world. Senior school students designed games for elementary school children and received feedback. The objective of the study was to see how 21st century skills can be taught or learned. These skills involve:
· Critical thinking and systems thinking.
· Problem identification, formulation and solutions.
· Creativity and intellectual curiosity (Thomas, Ge & Greene, 2011)
A finding of the study was the fact that students preferred to play games than design them especially if they felt that they did not have the appropriate skill. Feedback from the younger children that games needed to be more challenging in some cases highlighted that just completing a task was not always enough, but rather there needs to be some challenge involved.
Why cheat?
Cheating has always been looked upon as not following the rules and taking unfair advantage of other players. But is this always the case in the digital world? Cheats have been built in by designers as ways of checking game play, they are also used to optimize game play. For solo players the use of cheats can change the way a game is played either making it easier or more challenging. My son claims that the challenge of finding the cheats which are available on many websites is not about cheating he says “It’s not cheating, it’s modifying.” It is about playing a game how you want to and finding different ways of doing the same thing. In effect it is training all the 21st century skills highlighted in the American study.
References
Thomas, M. Ge, X. & Greene, B., 2011. Fostering 21st century skill development by engaging students in authentic game design projects in a high school computer programming class. J. EDUCATIONAL COMPUTING RESEARCH, , 44(4), pp. 391-408.













